I Hope This Helps: Logical Positivism 

We all can be philosophers!

@@livrepensador, but we can't all be good philosophers

Of what use would an explanation of L.P. have to a non-philosopher?

Obviously

Ever heard of a concept called BOOKS? I hope this helps.

Glad it was helpful!

Of course "Jim owes me a lot of money” is verifiable: it can be verified by a signed IOU. This evidence used in conjunction with the bank statements is sufficient.

Fabian Tompsett no, because you may not logically deduce an ought from the fact of a piece of paper (or any fact). It’s a non sequitur.

​@@J.T.Stillwell3 I'm torn. I was evicted for not paying my mortgage. I said, "you can't derive an ought (to pay) from the is of (my signature on) a document." The police and movers said ok, then you can't decide what we ought to do, and continued to evict me. Likewise, 10 years later, I was gainfully employed and paying my mortgage just fine. This time I was evicted even though everything was paid in full. They said, "you can't derive an ought (let you live here) from an is (banking records proving mortgage payments perfectly paid in full). So I said, "the sky is blue" and they said. You can't derive the ought (ought to believe the sky is blue) from the is (subjective sensation, perception, conception of blue). So I said, "I can prove the sky is blue." and they said "you can't derive the ought (to believe the assertion of dipole molecules and Raleigh scattering) to derive the is (specific measurements on the output of spectroscopy instruments identifying the blue wavelength). Round and round we went. I tried it with chloroplasts fueling photosynthesis but they just wouldn't put my couch down.

@@trombone7 don’t understand what argument you are trying to make here. Nothing you’ve stated refutes my argument.

@@J.T.Stillwell3 It's good you don't understand. One cannot derive "ought" (to understand) from the "is" (existence of my written assertion).

"Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, was a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of meaning).[1] This theory of knowledge asserted that only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content. Starting in the late 1920s, groups of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians formed the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle, which, in these two cities, would propound the ideas of logical positivism." -Wikipedia

Tyrannii probably because they weren't drinking booze while teaching class.

@@finchbevdale2069 When you've spent up to five minutes reading the work of the Vienna Circle 🔵 your idea of it will matter.

Lol, so did like half the philosophers

Basically, positivism is a theory where it's only true if it can be proved with facts, experiments and/or observations. Take for example when he mentioned the conversation of God, religions don't have facts to prove that God exist, they have faith, a feeling within themselves that He exists. So if a person tries to use Positivism in this argument they would state that God is not real because there is no concrete evidence proving so. Its a very black and white theory.

@@gaby9783 That's not what logical positivism states. Logical positivism claims that all statements can be categorized into only a scientific, mathematical, or nonsensical category. The nonsensical class doesn't mean that a statement is either true or false, but that it is only nonsense. Take the statement "God exists." This statement doesn't fall into either a mathematical or scientific category, at least not without some fudging, so it falls into the nonsensical category, and should be discarded. Don't even bother with it. But what logical positivism doesn't do is claim whether a statement is either true or false, but that it simply does not make sense.

@@pansophia93 Nice explanation.

It's true by definition. The positivists themselves wrote extensively about it. Please study the issue in detail before pretending to know what you're talking about.

@@AntiCitizenX can you verify that?

​@@direwolf699 Of course - read the literature!

But that is true by definition, so what exactly is the issue?

More like michael c hall as dexter.

If a theory is refuted it doesn't make you an idiot, you can still think about it.

Refuted how? Your name suggests that maybe you think someone rode in and proved something about the metaphysical or magical woo woo world? When did someone disprove the idea that you need to use reason and evidence to determine facts and knowledge?

@@madgodloki because positivism is self refuting. It states that non scientific statements have no meaning unless they can be verified by science. That statement in of itself is not scientifically verifiable, therefore, it refutes itself.

@@Convexhull210 I can verify the statement, scientifically. Unless you're trying to say it must be physically empirically proven it definitely can be proven in a verifiable way to be true. Think of how hypothesis works with gravity for instance, we know it works a certain way each and every time we test it, it is reliable on the results. A person can argue that the theory of gravity is resting on the fact that gravity exists or this or that word games but the fact of the matter is I can predict what will happen when I drop a can of soda, I can even predict what will happen when its opened. Science being done properly has results, the scientific method we use provides knowable real data. Meta analysis when its dealing with real phenomena we can test it and that's one thing that's passable. But when you get to religion or super out there meta talk outside the scope of what we actually can test who knows. How could you even know?

@@Convexhull210 so if a statement has no scientific verification or way of verifying it, it's what we call non-falsifiable information. One caveat to the rule I suppose is personal "meaning" a squiggly line drawn by your child could have meaning to you because you give it that meaning, but that isn't what anyone is talking about when they try to say positivism is wrong. But the statement, all things that arent verifiable have no meaning is still true as far as I can see it, no real meaning anyways each word is given meaning by the person using or hearing it so god can mean two things to two different people. But word games arent important, if your statement would be "my god jesus the personal savior of all mankind is coming back and hates gays and etc etc." It has no more meaning than someone ranting about Russels teapot floating in space. Or the tooth fairy or santa. All of them have meaning like a story has meaning to the people who hear it but they dont actually mean anything outside of imaginations.

It does. If the father yells at Clementine for being "a bad person" because they weren't responsible then, using the theory of Positivism, the father is incorrect. He cannot prove, with facts, that Clementine is a bad person, there is concrete evidence stating so. The father can think Clementine is bad but that's simply a feeling the father has, therefore, using the Positivist theory, the father is wrong and Clementine can argue back at their father.