> > Seraphita wrote:
> >
> > Like you, it's been decades since I read any logical
> > positivism - Carnap and Wittgenstein - so I know where
> > you're coming from. Have to say though that the
> > austerity of their approach had a kind of chilling
> > beauty to it.
> --- "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote:
>
> It certainly simplifies things! That was what appealed to
> me at the time.
> > One of my problems with their ideas was that although
> > they scorned any metaphysical baggage and looked to
> > mathematics as their ideal, I'm damned sure that when a
> > logical positivist closed his books at the end of a
> > working day and headed home he immediately (and
> > automatically and quite unconsciously) reverted to
> > common-sense materialism in his approach to life.
> How could a logical positivist do otherwise? I mean, how
> could one live one's life according to logical positivism?
> > One thing that appealed to me about them is that they
> > (surprisingly) were heavily indebted to Bishop
> > Berkeley's idealism ("to be is to be perceived") but
> > where the bishop discarded "matter" and opted for
> > "mind", they discarded both matter and mind.
> Heh. I haven't looked into how they arrived at their
> conclusions.
> > My attitude is that all philosophical theories are
> > doomed to eventual failure as what's real can't be
> > captured by concepts, but each school that comes along
> > has something to recommend it ("Everything possible to
> > be believed is an image of truth." - William Blake), so
> > take what you need and leave the rest - and then move
> > on.
> Seems to me the biggest problem with philosophy is that
> its concepts are formulated in language, the meaning of
> which is to a great extent subjective. Of course
> philosophers also use math to express concepts, but I'm
> skeptical as to how precisely math can be translated into
> language.
"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and
express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when
you cannot express it in precise mathematical terms, your
knowledge of it, is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind"
~ Lord Kelvin
I like the way the thread has evolved, though paligap hasn't
responded yet.
> > > --- "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > I took a required philosophy survey course in college
> > > at a time when I couldn't have been less interested in
> > > it. The prof was a reputedly brilliant and well-known
> > > philosopher, but he was also known by his students for
> > > his incomprehensible lectures. I couldn't follow a
> > > damn thing he said until he got to logical positivism,
> > > which suited me right down to the ground (I wasn't
> > > interested in metaphysics or spirituality at the time
> > > either). The grade for the course depended entirely on
> > > the final, and fortunately the final involved an essay
> > > on one's choice of philosophical school. I squeaked
> > > through with a C-minus, I think, because I had been
> > > able to make some sense of logical positivism and was
> > > able to write a semi-coherent essay on it. I promptly
> > > forgot about it, only to rediscover it to my horror
> > > decades later after I had gotten heavily into
> > > consciousness and metaphysics.
> > >
