They created the “verification
principle” to show the difference between statements that mean something and
those which don not. To verify something there must be facts, and statements
which cannot be verified are just metaphysical nonsense. For example Descartes “cogito
ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) is rejected because it can’t be verified, so
it’s just empty words. However the verification principle came under scrutiny
as it itself could not be verified.
Logical Positivists thought that the true task of philosophy
was to clarify non philosophical statements. Their method of clarification was
to show how empirical statements are brought up from “protocol” statements
(direct records of experience). The meaning of the words used in protocol
statements are derived directly from a feature of the experience that the word
stands for. This came under the
criticism that protocol statements appear to be private to the individual, so
if meaning depends on verification and everyone is carrying out their own
method of verification, how can you understand what anyone else means? Schlick
responded to this problem by showing the distinction between form and content. Content
of experience is what I feel or live through when I see something, and is completely
private and incommunicable. Form of experience may be common to many. For
example when I see a tree I cannot be certain if anyone else has the same
feelings as I do when they see the tree, but as long as we can all agree that
the tree is green then we are able to communicate with each other.
Wittgenstein was dissatisfied with this response and he then
strove to find a solution that didn’t pose the threat of solipsism. In the 1930’s
Wittgenstein showed that private experience presupposes a public world. Even
the words we use to describe our most private thoughts derive their meaning from
the way we use them in public and open conversations. Wittgenstein later
abandoned his previous thesis he had put forward in his “Tractatus” about the
relationship between language and the world saying he over simplified it. He
previously held that the connection between the two only had two features; the
linking of names to objects, and the matching of propositions to facts. He now
saw this as a big mistake, words might look like each other but their function
differs. Language is interwoven with the world in many different ways which he
referred to as “language games”. Wittgenstein referred to it as a “game” not
because language is trivial, but because games have a similar variety to
language. Like the logical positivists Wittgenstein was hostile to metaphysics,
but instead of taking a blunt attack against it like they did with the
verification principle, Wittgenstein carefully made distinctions between the
mix of truth and nonsense within metaphysical theories.
Karl Popper didn’t see himself as a logical positivist and
was referred to as the “official opposition”. Popper thought all scientific
theories couldn’t be proved because of Humes problem of induction. He thought
that we needed to progress by falsifying statements instead. For example the
inductive statement “all men are mortal” cannot be falsified because it is at
least possible that at some point at least one person will be born and be
immortal. The problem of induction is that it is unreliable. For example a
turkey a Christmas – every day of the turkeys life it wakes up, eats, then goes
to sleep. Therefore the turkey presumes this will go on forever. Then at Christmas
the Turkey wakes up and is killed. There is no previous empirical evidence to
suggest that this would happen to the turkey. This example illustrates the
point that no matter how much evidence we may have, we cannot predict the
future.
Popper responded to the problem of induction by saying that
everything has the potential to be untrue. For example Newton’s “Principa” gave
an overarching theory of how the universe worked and was believed to be an
undeniable truth. But then Einstein came along and proved that Newton’s theory
was wrong. We constantly strive to get as close to the exact truth as possible,
but Popper argued that we have to appreciate the fact that whatever we know now
has the potential to be proved wrong at some point in the future.
Popper is also well known for his political philosophy with
his publication “The Open Society and its Enemies”. Popper maintained that if a
political organisation is going to flourish then it must leave room for
self-correction. His political philosophy can be related to his philosophy on
knowledge in that, just like science is constantly progressing through the correction
of flawed hypothesis, society will only progress if policies are able to be
evaluated and changed. Therefore are two
things required for an open society to work;
1. The ruled have freedom to discuss and criticise the policies proposed by their rulers.
2. It should be possible to change the ruler without violence or bloodshed if the ruler fails to promote their citizens welfare.
These are the two central features of an open society and are more important to democracy than just the election of government by a majority.
1. The ruled have freedom to discuss and criticise the policies proposed by their rulers.
2. It should be possible to change the ruler without violence or bloodshed if the ruler fails to promote their citizens welfare.
These are the two central features of an open society and are more important to democracy than just the election of government by a majority.
Popper didn’t rule out all forms of government intervention,
for example incitement of intolerance should be classed as a criminal act and
they state must protect the poor from the wealthy. Therefore we cannot have a completely
non-intervention state and instead Popper argued that we should have planned
economic intervention of the state. Unrestrained capitalism must be replaced by
economic interventionism. Popper agreed to some extent with utilitarianism that
the state must minimize avoidable suffering. Instead of building a utopia the
government should act as problem solvers.
In the two volumes of his publication Popper attacked two
philosophers; Plato and Marx. Poppers attack on Plato was against his “Republic”
where Plato stated that the experts should be in charge and knowledge meant
power. Whereas in the open society those who were being ruled would also have
knowledge, not just the elite and those with power. Poppers main attack focused on Marx and his
claims that he had discovered scientific laws that determined the future of the
human race, working towards an inevitable result. Popper showed how the course
of history had in fact falsified Marx’s predictions. Popper was very anti-teleological,
he didn’t believe that we could predict the future.
Popper thought that the human race is very vulnerable when
it comes to conspiracy theories. This is because we like the idea of being to
explain away everything, which most conspiracy theories appear to do. An
example of this is David Ickes theory that a secret group of elites rule the
world. This is not an unusual claim for conspiracy theorists to make, however Icke
took this one step further by claiming that those within the elite group were
in fact blood drinking lizards that morphed into people. However, despite how
unusual Ickes claims seemed, he still managed to create a mass following preaching
to large groups across the globe.
