Logical Positivism

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2009

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg discusses Logical Positivism, the eye-wateringly radical early 20th century philosophical movement. The Logical Positivists argued that much previous philosophy was built on very shaky foundations, and they wanted to go right back to the drawing board. They insisted that philosophy - and science - had to be much more rigorous before it started making grand claims about the world. The movement began with the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophically-trained scientists and scientifically-trained philosophers, who met on Thursdays, in 'Red Vienna', in the years after the First World War. They were trying to remould philosophy in a world turned upside down not just by war, but by major advances in science. Their hero was not Descartes or Hegel but Albert Einstein. The group's new doctrine rejected great swathes of earlier philosophy, from meditations on the existence of God to declarations on the nature of History, as utterly meaningless. When the Nazis took power, they fled to England and America, where their ideas put down new roots, and went on to have a profound impact.Melvyn is joined by Barry Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of London; Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics; and Thomas Uebel, Professor of Philosophy at Manchester University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast.
0:02.2	For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.
0:07.1	UK forward slash Radio 4.
0:09.4	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:10.8	Hello, the Vienna Circle was a group of philosophically the Vienna in the years after the First World War. Out of their meetings there emerged
0:24.2	what's been called a revolutionary new doctrine, logical positivism. It
0:28.9	rejected great sways of early philosophy from meditations on the existence of God to declarations on the nature of history as utterly meaningless.
0:37.0	The logical positivists were trying to re-mold philosophy in a world turned upside down not just by war but by major advances in science.
0:44.0	Their hero was Albert Einstein.
0:47.0	When the Nazis took power they fled to England and America where their ideas put down new
0:51.0	roots and went on to have a profound impact.
0:53.6	With me to discuss logical positivism, Abary Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy
0:59.0	at the University of London.
1:00.6	Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of California,
1:05.0	and Thomas Ubel Professor of Philosophy at Manchester University.
1:09.0	Paris Smith, what's the basic idea at the core of logical positivism? How radical was it?
1:16.1	This is very radical. Here we have the Vienna Circle, very impressed by science, by
1:22.0	developments in logic and mathematics, especially developments in physics, say,
1:26.5	but they're also very depressed by the lamentable state of philosophy.
1:30.5	You have competing philosophies, metaphysical views about the nature of reality, the ultimate nature of things,
1:37.0	and these views are locked into a pointless dispute where you can't see how to make any progress. Now the positivists in the Vienna
1:45.7	Circle think we've got to give philosophy a new job. It has to contribute to the advance of
	...

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