Yes, I too thought the absence of single reference to Popper was strange.
I also thought the summary I heard was that the LP movement was to
establish empirical & logical science as the only true "knowledge" and
everything else as "merely" linguistics. Interesting because they
brought in the message from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, but not his
later Philosophical Investigations. LP was defined in terms of it's
starting point only - frozen in time. Sad.
Anyway - I like your "Acid Test" statement
"the ontology your test relies on is not the ontology you are testing"
Which is why reality is more than "an ontology".
Regards
Ian
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:33 AM, Tom Milner-Gulland<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Radio discussion of Logical Positivism:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml
> (with Nancy Cartwright)
>
> I'll listen again but I don't recall a single mention of Popper.
>
> In the final analysis the argument for General Relativity's being a logical
> or empirical conduit to the 'logical positivist' framework is entirely
> opaque. I suspect it was a sycophantic attachment.
>
> I always like the analogy, for scientific practice, of using litmus paper
> as the test of a liquid's being acid. It goes red. But, I'll add, there
> wasn't any redness to begin with; where did the redness come from? Surely it
> is an 'acid test' that confirms that the ontology your test relies on is not
> the ontology you are testing.
>
> Tom
>
|