Logical Positivism didn’t fall because people asked if the verification principle is verifiable; most LPists were clear that the verification principle was supposed to be analytic (it’s somewhat murky what that means, but for present purposes it should suffice to note that in any version it amounts to something similar to what you suggest here). This version of history is even worse than the story that LPism failed because of the impossibility of drawing the analytic/synthetic distinction; at least that criticism was actually made, and believed by some, though it also fails to explain the disappearance of LPism as there still seem to be large numbers of philosophers who believe in analyticity or something like it. Why none of the believers in analyticity call themselves Logical Positivists any more is a complicated question, and while there are some substantial issues involved, some of it seems to involve something more like a change of fashions.
Ok, then consider the rephrasing as a means of, firstly, repairing the analytic/synthetic distinction, and secondly, dressing it up in newly-fashionable terms for the twenty-first century. :)
At least here, you’ve just stated, not repaired or defended, a view implying the analytic/synthetic distinction.
In order to repair the analytic/synthetic distinction, we should first get in view what broke it. One of the most important papers criticizing LPism on this score was Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. So we’d need to read and respond to that. So here.
For anyone who wants more, one of the earliest responses to Quine, Grice and Strawson’s “In Defense of a Dogma,” is here. I’m also quite fond of Carnap’s reply to Quine in Carnap’s volume in the Library of Living Philosophers, but I don’t think that’s online anywhere.
Logical Positivism didn’t fall because people asked if the verification principle is verifiable; most LPists were clear that the verification principle was supposed to be analytic (it’s somewhat murky what that means, but for present purposes it should suffice to note that in any version it amounts to something similar to what you suggest here). This version of history is even worse than the story that LPism failed because of the impossibility of drawing the analytic/synthetic distinction; at least that criticism was actually made, and believed by some, though it also fails to explain the disappearance of LPism as there still seem to be large numbers of philosophers who believe in analyticity or something like it. Why none of the believers in analyticity call themselves Logical Positivists any more is a complicated question, and while there are some substantial issues involved, some of it seems to involve something more like a change of fashions.
What do the philosopher call themselves then these days?
Ok, then consider the rephrasing as a means of, firstly, repairing the analytic/synthetic distinction, and secondly, dressing it up in newly-fashionable terms for the twenty-first century. :)
At least here, you’ve just stated, not repaired or defended, a view implying the analytic/synthetic distinction.
In order to repair the analytic/synthetic distinction, we should first get in view what broke it. One of the most important papers criticizing LPism on this score was Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. So we’d need to read and respond to that. So here.
For anyone who wants more, one of the earliest responses to Quine, Grice and Strawson’s “In Defense of a Dogma,” is here. I’m also quite fond of Carnap’s reply to Quine in Carnap’s volume in the Library of Living Philosophers, but I don’t think that’s online anywhere.