Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "科学哲学" in Chinese language version.
The secondary and historical literature on logical positivism affords substantial grounds for concluding that logical positivism failed to solve many of the central problems it generated for itself. Prominent among the unsolved problems was the failure to find an acceptable statement of the verifiability (later confirmability) criterion of meaningfulness. Until a competing tradition emerged (about the late 1950's), the problems of logical positivism continued to be attacked from within that tradition. But as the new tradition in the philosophy of science began to demonstrate its effectiveness—by dissolving and rephrasing old problems as well as by generating new ones—philosophers began to shift allegiances to the new tradition, even though that tradition has yet to receive a canonical formulation.
To conclude, logical positivism was progressive compared with the classical positivism of Ptolemy, Hume, d'Alembert, Compte, John Stuart Mill, and Ernst Mach. It was even more so by comparison with its contemporary rivals—neo-Thomisism, neo-Kantianism, intuitionism, dialectical materialism, phenomenology, and existentialism. However, neo-positivism failed dismally to give a faithful account of science, whether natural or social. It failed because it remained anchored to sense-data and to a phenomenalist metaphysics, overrated the power of induction and underrated that of hypothesis, and denounced realism and materialism as metaphysical nonsense. Although it has never been practiced consistently in the advanced natural sciences and has been criticized by many philosophers, notably Popper (1959 [1935], 1963), logical positivism remains the tacit philosophy of many scientists. Regrettably, the anti-positivism fashionable in the metatheory of social science is often nothing but an excuse for sloppiness and wild speculation.
The 'war' is between scientists who believe that science and its methods are objective, and an increasing number of social scientists, historians, philosophers, and others gathered under the umbrella of Science Studies.
The upshot is that the positivists seem caught between insisting on the V.C. [Verifiability Criterion]—but for no defensible reason—or admitting that the V.C. requires a background language, etc., which opens the door to relativism, etc. In light of this dilemma, many folk—especially following Popper's "last-ditch" effort to "save" empiricism/positivism/realism with the falsifiability criterion—have agreed that positivism is a dead-end.
The secondary and historical literature on logical positivism affords substantial grounds for concluding that logical positivism failed to solve many of the central problems it generated for itself. Prominent among the unsolved problems was the failure to find an acceptable statement of the verifiability (later confirmability) criterion of meaningfulness. Until a competing tradition emerged (about the late 1950's), the problems of logical positivism continued to be attacked from within that tradition. But as the new tradition in the philosophy of science began to demonstrate its effectiveness—by dissolving and rephrasing old problems as well as by generating new ones—philosophers began to shift allegiances to the new tradition, even though that tradition has yet to receive a canonical formulation.
To conclude, logical positivism was progressive compared with the classical positivism of Ptolemy, Hume, d'Alembert, Compte, John Stuart Mill, and Ernst Mach. It was even more so by comparison with its contemporary rivals—neo-Thomisism, neo-Kantianism, intuitionism, dialectical materialism, phenomenology, and existentialism. However, neo-positivism failed dismally to give a faithful account of science, whether natural or social. It failed because it remained anchored to sense-data and to a phenomenalist metaphysics, overrated the power of induction and underrated that of hypothesis, and denounced realism and materialism as metaphysical nonsense. Although it has never been practiced consistently in the advanced natural sciences and has been criticized by many philosophers, notably Popper (1959 [1935], 1963), logical positivism remains the tacit philosophy of many scientists. Regrettably, the anti-positivism fashionable in the metatheory of social science is often nothing but an excuse for sloppiness and wild speculation.
The secondary and historical literature on logical positivism affords substantial grounds for concluding that logical positivism failed to solve many of the central problems it generated for itself. Prominent among the unsolved problems was the failure to find an acceptable statement of the verifiability (later confirmability) criterion of meaningfulness. Until a competing tradition emerged (about the late 1950's), the problems of logical positivism continued to be attacked from within that tradition. But as the new tradition in the philosophy of science began to demonstrate its effectiveness—by dissolving and rephrasing old problems as well as by generating new ones—philosophers began to shift allegiances to the new tradition, even though that tradition has yet to receive a canonical formulation.
To conclude, logical positivism was progressive compared with the classical positivism of Ptolemy, Hume, d'Alembert, Compte, John Stuart Mill, and Ernst Mach. It was even more so by comparison with its contemporary rivals—neo-Thomisism, neo-Kantianism, intuitionism, dialectical materialism, phenomenology, and existentialism. However, neo-positivism failed dismally to give a faithful account of science, whether natural or social. It failed because it remained anchored to sense-data and to a phenomenalist metaphysics, overrated the power of induction and underrated that of hypothesis, and denounced realism and materialism as metaphysical nonsense. Although it has never been practiced consistently in the advanced natural sciences and has been criticized by many philosophers, notably Popper (1959 [1935], 1963), logical positivism remains the tacit philosophy of many scientists. Regrettably, the anti-positivism fashionable in the metatheory of social science is often nothing but an excuse for sloppiness and wild speculation.
The upshot is that the positivists seem caught between insisting on the V.C. [Verifiability Criterion]—but for no defensible reason—or admitting that the V.C. requires a background language, etc., which opens the door to relativism, etc. In light of this dilemma, many folk—especially following Popper's "last-ditch" effort to "save" empiricism/positivism/realism with the falsifiability criterion—have agreed that positivism is a dead-end.
The 'war' is between scientists who believe that science and its methods are objective, and an increasing number of social scientists, historians, philosophers, and others gathered under the umbrella of Science Studies.
