Andrew Vincent
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199271252
- eISBN:
- 9780191601101
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199271259.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Examines the advent of logical positivism, the development of conceptual analysis, ordinary language philosophy, the so‐called death of political theory, the impact of linguistic philosophy and the ...
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Examines the advent of logical positivism, the development of conceptual analysis, ordinary language philosophy, the so‐called death of political theory, the impact of linguistic philosophy and the influence of Wittgenstein's thought on political theory, and particularly the idea of ‘essential contestability’.Less
Examines the advent of logical positivism, the development of conceptual analysis, ordinary language philosophy, the so‐called death of political theory, the impact of linguistic philosophy and the influence of Wittgenstein's thought on political theory, and particularly the idea of ‘essential contestability’.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Although routinely dismissed by literary critics, the philosophy of logical positivism, often considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerted a determining influence on the development ...
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Although routinely dismissed by literary critics, the philosophy of logical positivism, often considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerted a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three decades following 1945. More than existentialism or deconstruction, logical positivism defined the philosophical problem field out of which postmodern fiction emerged. Two particular postwar literary preoccupations in particular derived from logical positivist philosophy: the fact/value problem and the correlative distinction between sense and nonsense. Even as postwar writers responded to logical positivism as a threat to the imagination, their works often manifest its influence, particularly with regard to “emotive” or “meaningless” terms. Don DeLillo’s second novel End Zone exemplifies the ways that logical positivist philosophy appears tactically in works of postwar fiction and the ways that logical positivism is often erased in the very texts where it registers. The influence of logical positivism in postwar fiction complicates a predominant narrative of intellectual history in which a liberating postmodernism triumphs over a reactionary positivism. The centrality of the fact/value problem to both positivism and postmodernism demands a re-examination of the constitutive counter between philosophy and literature in the twentieth century and a rethinking of postwar literary history.Less
Although routinely dismissed by literary critics, the philosophy of logical positivism, often considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerted a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three decades following 1945. More than existentialism or deconstruction, logical positivism defined the philosophical problem field out of which postmodern fiction emerged. Two particular postwar literary preoccupations in particular derived from logical positivist philosophy: the fact/value problem and the correlative distinction between sense and nonsense. Even as postwar writers responded to logical positivism as a threat to the imagination, their works often manifest its influence, particularly with regard to “emotive” or “meaningless” terms. Don DeLillo’s second novel End Zone exemplifies the ways that logical positivist philosophy appears tactically in works of postwar fiction and the ways that logical positivism is often erased in the very texts where it registers. The influence of logical positivism in postwar fiction complicates a predominant narrative of intellectual history in which a liberating postmodernism triumphs over a reactionary positivism. The centrality of the fact/value problem to both positivism and postmodernism demands a re-examination of the constitutive counter between philosophy and literature in the twentieth century and a rethinking of postwar literary history.
Bas. C. van Fraassen
- Published in print:
- 1980
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198244271
- eISBN:
- 9780191597473
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198244274.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This book presents an empiricist alternative (‘constructive empiricism’) to both logical positivism and scientific realism. Against the former, it insists on a literal understanding of the language ...
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This book presents an empiricist alternative (‘constructive empiricism’) to both logical positivism and scientific realism. Against the former, it insists on a literal understanding of the language of science and on an irreducibly pragmatic dimension of theory acceptance. Against scientific realism, it insists that the central aim of science is empirical adequacy (‘saving the phenomena’) and that even unqualified acceptance of a theory involves no more belief than that this goal is met. Beginning with a critique of the metaphysical arguments that typically accompany scientific realism, a new characterization of empirical adequacy is presented, together with an interpretation of probability in both modern and contemporary physics and a pragmatic theory of explanation.Less
This book presents an empiricist alternative (‘constructive empiricism’) to both logical positivism and scientific realism. Against the former, it insists on a literal understanding of the language of science and on an irreducibly pragmatic dimension of theory acceptance. Against scientific realism, it insists that the central aim of science is empirical adequacy (‘saving the phenomena’) and that even unqualified acceptance of a theory involves no more belief than that this goal is met. Beginning with a critique of the metaphysical arguments that typically accompany scientific realism, a new characterization of empirical adequacy is presented, together with an interpretation of probability in both modern and contemporary physics and a pragmatic theory of explanation.
John Skorupski
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195148770
- eISBN:
- 9780199835560
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148770.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter provides a broadly sympathetic historical account of post-Kantian empiricist approaches to mathematics and logic. It focuses primarily but on John Stuart Mill’s radical empiricism and ...
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This chapter provides a broadly sympathetic historical account of post-Kantian empiricist approaches to mathematics and logic. It focuses primarily but on John Stuart Mill’s radical empiricism and logical positivism, but also on Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick. The later work of W. V. O. Quine is also treated.Less
This chapter provides a broadly sympathetic historical account of post-Kantian empiricist approaches to mathematics and logic. It focuses primarily but on John Stuart Mill’s radical empiricism and logical positivism, but also on Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick. The later work of W. V. O. Quine is also treated.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s ...
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In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s contradictory reputation reflects the complexities of his philosophy, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The text exemplifies the logical positivist philosophy to which postwar American writers responded and at the same time prefigures that very response. In casting Wittgenstein as a positivist, each for their own ends, Rudolf Carnap’s Vienna Circle and Theodor Adorno’s Frankfurt School are surprisingly aligned. Yet with its unsettled combination of logical propositions and mystical aphorisms, the Tractatus refuses to correspond to either group’s description of it. Ironically, it is Adorno’s own concept of negative dialectics that makes legible Wittgenstein’s negative aesthetics, the attempt to show the “nonsense” that cannot be said, and that reveals the ways in which Wittgenstein rejects the very positivism his text makes possible.Less
In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s contradictory reputation reflects the complexities of his philosophy, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The text exemplifies the logical positivist philosophy to which postwar American writers responded and at the same time prefigures that very response. In casting Wittgenstein as a positivist, each for their own ends, Rudolf Carnap’s Vienna Circle and Theodor Adorno’s Frankfurt School are surprisingly aligned. Yet with its unsettled combination of logical propositions and mystical aphorisms, the Tractatus refuses to correspond to either group’s description of it. Ironically, it is Adorno’s own concept of negative dialectics that makes legible Wittgenstein’s negative aesthetics, the attempt to show the “nonsense” that cannot be said, and that reveals the ways in which Wittgenstein rejects the very positivism his text makes possible.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This book argues that the philosophy of logical positivism, considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerts a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three ...
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This book argues that the philosophy of logical positivism, considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerts a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three decades following 1945 in what amounts to a constitutive encounter between literature and philosophy at mid-century: after the end of the modernism, as it was traditionally conceived, but prior to the rise of postmodernism, as it came to be known. Two particular postwar literary preoccupations derive from logical positivist philosophy: the fact/value problem and the correlative distinction between sense and nonsense. Yet even as postwar writers responded to logical positivism as a threat to the imagination, their works often manifest its influence, particularly with regard to “emotive” or “meaningless” terms. Logical positivist philosophy appears tactically in works of fiction in order to advance aesthetic strategies. Far from a straightforward history of ideas, the book charts a genealogy that is often erased in the very texts where it registers and disowned by the very authors that it includes. LeMahieu complicates a predominant narrative of intellectual history in which a liberating postmodernism triumphs over a reactionary positivism by historicizing the literary response to positivism in works by John Barth, Saul Bellow, Don DeLillo, Iris Murdoch, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Pynchon, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The centrality of the fact/value problem to both positivism and postmodernism demands a rethinking of postwar literary history.Less
This book argues that the philosophy of logical positivism, considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerts a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three decades following 1945 in what amounts to a constitutive encounter between literature and philosophy at mid-century: after the end of the modernism, as it was traditionally conceived, but prior to the rise of postmodernism, as it came to be known. Two particular postwar literary preoccupations derive from logical positivist philosophy: the fact/value problem and the correlative distinction between sense and nonsense. Yet even as postwar writers responded to logical positivism as a threat to the imagination, their works often manifest its influence, particularly with regard to “emotive” or “meaningless” terms. Logical positivist philosophy appears tactically in works of fiction in order to advance aesthetic strategies. Far from a straightforward history of ideas, the book charts a genealogy that is often erased in the very texts where it registers and disowned by the very authors that it includes. LeMahieu complicates a predominant narrative of intellectual history in which a liberating postmodernism triumphs over a reactionary positivism by historicizing the literary response to positivism in works by John Barth, Saul Bellow, Don DeLillo, Iris Murdoch, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Pynchon, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The centrality of the fact/value problem to both positivism and postmodernism demands a rethinking of postwar literary history.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Flannery O’Connor identified logical positivism with atheism and nihilism in its denial of objective status to moral values or religious beliefs. Yet to read her work as a straightforward exercise in ...
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Flannery O’Connor identified logical positivism with atheism and nihilism in its denial of objective status to moral values or religious beliefs. Yet to read her work as a straightforward exercise in Christian apologetics is to miss the ways that her aesthetic strategy flirts with the very positivism and nihilism that it seeks to combat. O’Connor’s references to logical positivism and the fact/value problem conform to a larger “crisis of belief” in post-1945 fiction, represented in works by Allen Tate, Wallace Stevens, Mary McCarthy, Ronald Sukenick, Philip Roth, Iris Murdoch, Walker Percy, and John Updike. What O’Connor describes as the “negative appearance” of her work results from her refusal to represent a positivist aesthetic or religious view of the world. O’Connor’s aesthetic strategy focuses the readers attention on what is there in order to represent what is not; her aesthetic negativism insists, with Wittgenstien, that what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.Less
Flannery O’Connor identified logical positivism with atheism and nihilism in its denial of objective status to moral values or religious beliefs. Yet to read her work as a straightforward exercise in Christian apologetics is to miss the ways that her aesthetic strategy flirts with the very positivism and nihilism that it seeks to combat. O’Connor’s references to logical positivism and the fact/value problem conform to a larger “crisis of belief” in post-1945 fiction, represented in works by Allen Tate, Wallace Stevens, Mary McCarthy, Ronald Sukenick, Philip Roth, Iris Murdoch, Walker Percy, and John Updike. What O’Connor describes as the “negative appearance” of her work results from her refusal to represent a positivist aesthetic or religious view of the world. O’Connor’s aesthetic strategy focuses the readers attention on what is there in order to represent what is not; her aesthetic negativism insists, with Wittgenstien, that what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Saul Bellow’s explicit engagement with logical positivism in the short story “Zetland: By a Character Witness” – Bellow’s unfinished tribute to his childhood friend, intellectual companion, and ...
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Saul Bellow’s explicit engagement with logical positivism in the short story “Zetland: By a Character Witness” – Bellow’s unfinished tribute to his childhood friend, intellectual companion, and literary rival Isaac Rosenfeld – encapsulates his response to the fact/value problem in his major novels, particularly Henderson the Rain King, the first work he published after Rosenfeld’s death. Rosenfeld began his intellectual career as a student of logical positivism but ultimately abandoned philosophy for literature. Bellow’s fiction takes up Rosenfeld’s attempt to acknowledge the mystifications of ideology and religion while nevertheless refusing to reject metaphysical values as “nonsense.” Bellow excels at describing the facts of the physical world but yearns for the insights of metaphysical truth; he sees facts, seeks values. The dialectic of facts and values in Bellow’s fiction results in a structural tension wherein narrative closure struggles to reconcile, and often belies, the terms of the narrative conflict that give rise to it.Less
Saul Bellow’s explicit engagement with logical positivism in the short story “Zetland: By a Character Witness” – Bellow’s unfinished tribute to his childhood friend, intellectual companion, and literary rival Isaac Rosenfeld – encapsulates his response to the fact/value problem in his major novels, particularly Henderson the Rain King, the first work he published after Rosenfeld’s death. Rosenfeld began his intellectual career as a student of logical positivism but ultimately abandoned philosophy for literature. Bellow’s fiction takes up Rosenfeld’s attempt to acknowledge the mystifications of ideology and religion while nevertheless refusing to reject metaphysical values as “nonsense.” Bellow excels at describing the facts of the physical world but yearns for the insights of metaphysical truth; he sees facts, seeks values. The dialectic of facts and values in Bellow’s fiction results in a structural tension wherein narrative closure struggles to reconcile, and often belies, the terms of the narrative conflict that give rise to it.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
The typescript drafts of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel V. demonstrate the depth and extent to which Pynchon struggled to come to terms with the influence of logical positivism. Although Pynchon would ...
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The typescript drafts of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel V. demonstrate the depth and extent to which Pynchon struggled to come to terms with the influence of logical positivism. Although Pynchon would strike most of the extended passages on positivism and the fact/value problem, traces remain in the published version. Pynchon explicitly refers to positivist doctrines such as the verificationist criterion of meaning and the emotive theory of ethics, particularly with reference to the word “love.” His reference to the first proposition of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in the “Mondaugen’s Story” chapter testifies to his critique of literary modernism and logical positivism alike: their aspirations for totality are premised on a false and solipsistic concept of completeness, one that simply ignores that which falls outside of its purview, including questions of value and the voices of objectified colonial subjects. In response, Pynchon develops a negative aesthetic strategy that represents an ethical relation to others based on acknowledging their status not as sovereign subjects but as material beings, a relation characterized not by totalizing representation but by incomplete knowledge.Less
The typescript drafts of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel V. demonstrate the depth and extent to which Pynchon struggled to come to terms with the influence of logical positivism. Although Pynchon would strike most of the extended passages on positivism and the fact/value problem, traces remain in the published version. Pynchon explicitly refers to positivist doctrines such as the verificationist criterion of meaning and the emotive theory of ethics, particularly with reference to the word “love.” His reference to the first proposition of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in the “Mondaugen’s Story” chapter testifies to his critique of literary modernism and logical positivism alike: their aspirations for totality are premised on a false and solipsistic concept of completeness, one that simply ignores that which falls outside of its purview, including questions of value and the voices of objectified colonial subjects. In response, Pynchon develops a negative aesthetic strategy that represents an ethical relation to others based on acknowledging their status not as sovereign subjects but as material beings, a relation characterized not by totalizing representation but by incomplete knowledge.
Nicholas Wolterstorff
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195138092
- eISBN:
- 9780199835348
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138090.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
While acknowledging the importance of sophisticated reformulations of some of the traditional arguments for “natural and revealed” religion, the bulk of this chapter expounds and then compares and ...
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While acknowledging the importance of sophisticated reformulations of some of the traditional arguments for “natural and revealed” religion, the bulk of this chapter expounds and then compares and contrasts the other two main developments over the past half century in the epistemology of religious belief: Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and Reformed epistemology. What unites these two movements is that both insist that religious belief does not typically have its origin in the attempt to explain things, both insist that religious belief typically consists of a more or less comprehensive perspective on reality rather than consisting of beliefs about God simply added on to one’s other beliefs, and both insist that religious belief does not have to be rationally grounded in order to be acceptable. What especially differentiates the two movements is the difference of their polemical partners—Enlightenment evidentialism for the Reformed epistemologists versus logical positivism for Wittgenstein—and the fact that the Reformed epistemologists are resolutely realist concerning God whereas most of the Wittgensteinians are apparently not theistic realists. In closing, I point out important similarities between some remarks of early Heidegger and the shared positions of the Wittgensteinians and the Reformed epistemologists.Less
While acknowledging the importance of sophisticated reformulations of some of the traditional arguments for “natural and revealed” religion, the bulk of this chapter expounds and then compares and contrasts the other two main developments over the past half century in the epistemology of religious belief: Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and Reformed epistemology. What unites these two movements is that both insist that religious belief does not typically have its origin in the attempt to explain things, both insist that religious belief typically consists of a more or less comprehensive perspective on reality rather than consisting of beliefs about God simply added on to one’s other beliefs, and both insist that religious belief does not have to be rationally grounded in order to be acceptable. What especially differentiates the two movements is the difference of their polemical partners—Enlightenment evidentialism for the Reformed epistemologists versus logical positivism for Wittgenstein—and the fact that the Reformed epistemologists are resolutely realist concerning God whereas most of the Wittgensteinians are apparently not theistic realists. In closing, I point out important similarities between some remarks of early Heidegger and the shared positions of the Wittgensteinians and the Reformed epistemologists.
Stewart Shapiro (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195148770
- eISBN:
- 9780199835560
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148770.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This book provides comprehensive and accessible coverage of the disciplines of philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of logic. After an introduction, the book begins with a historical section, ...
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This book provides comprehensive and accessible coverage of the disciplines of philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of logic. After an introduction, the book begins with a historical section, consisting of a chapter on the modern period, Kant and his intellectual predecessors, a chapter on later empiricism, including Mill and logical positivism, and a chapter on Wittgenstein. The next section of the volume consists of seven chapters on the views that dominated the philosophy and foundations of mathematics in the early decades of the 20th century: logicism, formalism, and intuitionism. They approach their subjects from a variety of historical and philosophical perspectives. The next section of the volume deals with views that dominated in the later twentieth century and beyond: Quine and indispensability, naturalism, nominalism, and structuralism. The next chapter in the volume is a detailed and sympathetic treatment of a predicative approach to both the philosophy and the foundations of mathematics, which is followed by an extensive treatment of the application of mathematics to the sciences. The last six chapters focus on logical matters: two chapters are devoted to the central notion of logical consequence, one on model theory and the other on proof theory; two chapters deal with the so-called paradoxes of relevance, one pro and one contra; and the final two chapters concern second-order logic (or higher-order logic), again one pro and one contra.Less
This book provides comprehensive and accessible coverage of the disciplines of philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of logic. After an introduction, the book begins with a historical section, consisting of a chapter on the modern period, Kant and his intellectual predecessors, a chapter on later empiricism, including Mill and logical positivism, and a chapter on Wittgenstein. The next section of the volume consists of seven chapters on the views that dominated the philosophy and foundations of mathematics in the early decades of the 20th century: logicism, formalism, and intuitionism. They approach their subjects from a variety of historical and philosophical perspectives. The next section of the volume deals with views that dominated in the later twentieth century and beyond: Quine and indispensability, naturalism, nominalism, and structuralism. The next chapter in the volume is a detailed and sympathetic treatment of a predicative approach to both the philosophy and the foundations of mathematics, which is followed by an extensive treatment of the application of mathematics to the sciences. The last six chapters focus on logical matters: two chapters are devoted to the central notion of logical consequence, one on model theory and the other on proof theory; two chapters deal with the so-called paradoxes of relevance, one pro and one contra; and the final two chapters concern second-order logic (or higher-order logic), again one pro and one contra.
Michael LeMahieu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199890408
- eISBN:
- 9780199369652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199890408.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
The fact/value problem functions as the central analytical problem and aesthetic concern in John Barth’s first two novels The Floating Opera and The End of the Road. In his two books, Barth attempts ...
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The fact/value problem functions as the central analytical problem and aesthetic concern in John Barth’s first two novels The Floating Opera and The End of the Road. In his two books, Barth attempts to formulate what he describes as “non-mystical value-thinking,” a way to represent values as objective properties of the world. In attempting, and ultimately failing, to develop a realist aesthetic response to logical positivism, Barth anticipates later philosophical and theoretical responses, particularly Richard Rorty’s “liberal ironism” and Satya Mohanty’s “post-positivist realism.” Although Barth is often considered the exemplification of American literary postmodernism, and therefore his works are read as antithetical to logical positivism, his first two novels represent an extended engagement with positivist philosophy and the fact/value problem. Barth’s later postmodernism both results from and attempts to erase this earlier preoccupation with logical positivism, which aligns him with contemporaries such as Saul Bellow, often considered a realist holdout from postmodern experimentation.Less
The fact/value problem functions as the central analytical problem and aesthetic concern in John Barth’s first two novels The Floating Opera and The End of the Road. In his two books, Barth attempts to formulate what he describes as “non-mystical value-thinking,” a way to represent values as objective properties of the world. In attempting, and ultimately failing, to develop a realist aesthetic response to logical positivism, Barth anticipates later philosophical and theoretical responses, particularly Richard Rorty’s “liberal ironism” and Satya Mohanty’s “post-positivist realism.” Although Barth is often considered the exemplification of American literary postmodernism, and therefore his works are read as antithetical to logical positivism, his first two novels represent an extended engagement with positivist philosophy and the fact/value problem. Barth’s later postmodernism both results from and attempts to erase this earlier preoccupation with logical positivism, which aligns him with contemporaries such as Saul Bellow, often considered a realist holdout from postmodern experimentation.
Tyler Burge
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199581405
- eISBN:
- 9780191723223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581405.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter focuses on relations between second-family Individual Representationalism and other standpoints that either reinforced it or began to undermine it. Sense-data theory was the prevailing ...
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This chapter focuses on relations between second-family Individual Representationalism and other standpoints that either reinforced it or began to undermine it. Sense-data theory was the prevailing form of Individual Representationalism in mainstream philosophy during the first half of the 20th century. By the early 1950s, the influence of sense-data theory was fast evaporating. Sense-data theories did not influence subsequent philosophizing except negatively. Apart from their departures from common sense, sense-data approaches were rejected on two main grounds: they were criticized as subjectivistic and atomistic. Philosophical work at mid-century took on a more realist, more objectivist flavour. It emphasized dependence on context, public availability of expression, and interlocking psychological capacities that make cognition and language use possible. Many philosophers insisted on a role for language even in perception and the simplest perception-based thought.Less
This chapter focuses on relations between second-family Individual Representationalism and other standpoints that either reinforced it or began to undermine it. Sense-data theory was the prevailing form of Individual Representationalism in mainstream philosophy during the first half of the 20th century. By the early 1950s, the influence of sense-data theory was fast evaporating. Sense-data theories did not influence subsequent philosophizing except negatively. Apart from their departures from common sense, sense-data approaches were rejected on two main grounds: they were criticized as subjectivistic and atomistic. Philosophical work at mid-century took on a more realist, more objectivist flavour. It emphasized dependence on context, public availability of expression, and interlocking psychological capacities that make cognition and language use possible. Many philosophers insisted on a role for language even in perception and the simplest perception-based thought.
E. J. Capaldi and Robert W. Proctor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199753628
- eISBN:
- 9780199950027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753628.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer ...
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There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer philosophy (Kant and Popper), many more have expressed a contrary opinion. The chapter shows that psychology influenced philosophy of science mainly through four areas: perception in the form of psychophysics (on Mach, Peirce, and James) and in the form of Gestalt psychology (on Carnap, Hanson, and Kuhn), animal behavior in the form of behaviorism (on Russell, Bergmann, and the logical positivists), and cognitive psychology (on Popper, Giere, and Thagard). On the basis of the present findings, the conclusion is reached that better understanding of science is considerably dependent on knowing how the mind works, which is an idea as old as the British empiricists and the Würzburg school and as young as contemporary cognitive science.Less
There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer philosophy (Kant and Popper), many more have expressed a contrary opinion. The chapter shows that psychology influenced philosophy of science mainly through four areas: perception in the form of psychophysics (on Mach, Peirce, and James) and in the form of Gestalt psychology (on Carnap, Hanson, and Kuhn), animal behavior in the form of behaviorism (on Russell, Bergmann, and the logical positivists), and cognitive psychology (on Popper, Giere, and Thagard). On the basis of the present findings, the conclusion is reached that better understanding of science is considerably dependent on knowing how the mind works, which is an idea as old as the British empiricists and the Würzburg school and as young as contemporary cognitive science.
Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226403229
- eISBN:
- 9780226403533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226403533.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
Chapter 9 explores the connections between the Vienna Circle of positivism and the esoteric milieu. It shows how the founders of logical positivism, such as Otto Neurath, presented their philosophy ...
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Chapter 9 explores the connections between the Vienna Circle of positivism and the esoteric milieu. It shows how the founders of logical positivism, such as Otto Neurath, presented their philosophy as a kind of magical revival. It also demonstrates that other positivists—such as Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Kurt Gödel—had a pro-found preoccupation with ghosts and the paranormal. Taken as a whole, the book demonstrates how magic, like metaphysics, also haunts the beginnings of analytic philosophy. It also undoes notions of a dry and apolitical positivism, by describing positivist anti-metaphysics in terms of ideological critique.Less
Chapter 9 explores the connections between the Vienna Circle of positivism and the esoteric milieu. It shows how the founders of logical positivism, such as Otto Neurath, presented their philosophy as a kind of magical revival. It also demonstrates that other positivists—such as Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Kurt Gödel—had a pro-found preoccupation with ghosts and the paranormal. Taken as a whole, the book demonstrates how magic, like metaphysics, also haunts the beginnings of analytic philosophy. It also undoes notions of a dry and apolitical positivism, by describing positivist anti-metaphysics in terms of ideological critique.
William Lyons
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198752226
- eISBN:
- 9780191695087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198752226.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
This chapter discusses the rise of ‘scientific philosophy’, which would expose the logical and conceptual bases of natural sciences. The author traces it back to the 19th-century philosopher Auguste ...
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This chapter discusses the rise of ‘scientific philosophy’, which would expose the logical and conceptual bases of natural sciences. The author traces it back to the 19th-century philosopher Auguste Comte, who led the movement called Logical Positivism, the doctrine that states that the only genuine method of gaining knowledge is by scientific method through observation and experiment. It argues that the fullest and clearest version of an instrumentalist account of intentionality is that of Daniel Dennett's Content and Consciousness. It also chronicles W. V. O. Quine and the intentional vocabulary of psychology, Daniel Dennett and the intentional stance, realism, anti-realism, pragmatism, and reductivism.Less
This chapter discusses the rise of ‘scientific philosophy’, which would expose the logical and conceptual bases of natural sciences. The author traces it back to the 19th-century philosopher Auguste Comte, who led the movement called Logical Positivism, the doctrine that states that the only genuine method of gaining knowledge is by scientific method through observation and experiment. It argues that the fullest and clearest version of an instrumentalist account of intentionality is that of Daniel Dennett's Content and Consciousness. It also chronicles W. V. O. Quine and the intentional vocabulary of psychology, Daniel Dennett and the intentional stance, realism, anti-realism, pragmatism, and reductivism.
John A. Goldsmith and Bernard Laks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226550800
- eISBN:
- 9780226550947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226550947.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter describes work in philosophy in the period 1900-1940 that influenced European linguists, and work that called for greater interest in the nature and structure of language. Edmund ...
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This chapter describes work in philosophy in the period 1900-1940 that influenced European linguists, and work that called for greater interest in the nature and structure of language. Edmund Husserl’s work is little cited today, but his views on logic have left a mark on how linguists work. Logical positivism and logical empiricism, developed in Vienna and Berlin, also expressed a view of scientific knowledge that reinforced the ideas of Leonard Bloomfield and those influenced by him. Rudolf Carnap’s work in turn would influence those who, like Noma Chomsky, began to think about syntax in a highly formal way.Less
This chapter describes work in philosophy in the period 1900-1940 that influenced European linguists, and work that called for greater interest in the nature and structure of language. Edmund Husserl’s work is little cited today, but his views on logic have left a mark on how linguists work. Logical positivism and logical empiricism, developed in Vienna and Berlin, also expressed a view of scientific knowledge that reinforced the ideas of Leonard Bloomfield and those influenced by him. Rudolf Carnap’s work in turn would influence those who, like Noma Chomsky, began to think about syntax in a highly formal way.
Bryan Magee
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198237228
- eISBN:
- 9780191706233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198237227.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Schopenhauer was the first and greatest philosophical influence on Wittgenstein, a fact attested to by those closest to him. He began by accepting Schopenhauer's division of total reality into ...
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Schopenhauer was the first and greatest philosophical influence on Wittgenstein, a fact attested to by those closest to him. He began by accepting Schopenhauer's division of total reality into phenomenal and noumenal, and offered a new analysis of the phenomenal in his first book, the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus. The Logical Positivists, who believed that only the phenomenal existed, took this as the paradigm for their philosophy. Wittgenstein, however, moved away from it and proposed a new and different analysis in his book Philosophical Investigations, and this became the most influential text in linguistic philosophy. Thus, Wittgenstein produced two different philosophies, each of which influenced a whole generation that remained largely oblivious of its Schopenhauerian origins.Less
Schopenhauer was the first and greatest philosophical influence on Wittgenstein, a fact attested to by those closest to him. He began by accepting Schopenhauer's division of total reality into phenomenal and noumenal, and offered a new analysis of the phenomenal in his first book, the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus. The Logical Positivists, who believed that only the phenomenal existed, took this as the paradigm for their philosophy. Wittgenstein, however, moved away from it and proposed a new and different analysis in his book Philosophical Investigations, and this became the most influential text in linguistic philosophy. Thus, Wittgenstein produced two different philosophies, each of which influenced a whole generation that remained largely oblivious of its Schopenhauerian origins.
Edward Craig
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198236825
- eISBN:
- 9780191597244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198236824.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In this chapter, Craig shows how the Image of God doctrine works as an interpretative tool. Applied to the philosophy of Hume, it helps to illuminate textual detail that would otherwise not be fully ...
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In this chapter, Craig shows how the Image of God doctrine works as an interpretative tool. Applied to the philosophy of Hume, it helps to illuminate textual detail that would otherwise not be fully intelligible, and it modifies, sometimes reverses, the received view of his philosophy. Craig argues that, in combining a sceptical epistemology with a thoroughgoing naturalism, Hume aimed at nothing less than the destruction of the doctrine of the image of God, and substituted for it an anthropology which looked not to the divine but to the natural world for its methods and results. This claim is supported by detailed analyses of Hume’s epistemology, ontology, and philosophy of mind.Less
In this chapter, Craig shows how the Image of God doctrine works as an interpretative tool. Applied to the philosophy of Hume, it helps to illuminate textual detail that would otherwise not be fully intelligible, and it modifies, sometimes reverses, the received view of his philosophy. Craig argues that, in combining a sceptical epistemology with a thoroughgoing naturalism, Hume aimed at nothing less than the destruction of the doctrine of the image of God, and substituted for it an anthropology which looked not to the divine but to the natural world for its methods and results. This claim is supported by detailed analyses of Hume’s epistemology, ontology, and philosophy of mind.
Kevin A. Clarke and David M. Primo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195382198
- eISBN:
- 9780199932399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382198.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we demonstrate that political scientists believe in and make use of a three-step method: a theory is proposed, a prediction is derived from the ...
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The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we demonstrate that political scientists believe in and make use of a three-step method: a theory is proposed, a prediction is derived from the theory, and in the final step, the prediction is checked against data. If the data deem the prediction true, the theory gains credibility. If the data deem the prediction false, the theory loses credibility. Second, we explain some of the technical aspects of the method and discuss the many reasons why the method is problematic. Finally, we trace how political science became enamored of the three-step method by looking at the writings of William Riker, considered by many to be the founder of positive political theory. We also consider more recent work that perpetuates the use of the three-step method, including the Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) project, which through its two summer institutes, is responsible for training a generation of graduate students.Less
The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we demonstrate that political scientists believe in and make use of a three-step method: a theory is proposed, a prediction is derived from the theory, and in the final step, the prediction is checked against data. If the data deem the prediction true, the theory gains credibility. If the data deem the prediction false, the theory loses credibility. Second, we explain some of the technical aspects of the method and discuss the many reasons why the method is problematic. Finally, we trace how political science became enamored of the three-step method by looking at the writings of William Riker, considered by many to be the founder of positive political theory. We also consider more recent work that perpetuates the use of the three-step method, including the Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) project, which through its two summer institutes, is responsible for training a generation of graduate students.
