The classical disproof of positivism is that it is self-contradictory. “Only the empirical can be true”, but that statement is not empirical.
I have always been mystified at how this glib dismissal has been taken as some kind of definitive refutation. To the contrary, it should be perfectly obvious that a meta-statement like
() a statement is nonsense unless it describes an empirically observable phenomenon
is not meant to be self-referential. What () does is to lay down a rule of discourse (not meta-discourse). Its purpose is to banish invisible dragons from the discussion.
You cannot appeal to the “legitimacy” of sentences like (*) in order to argue on behalf of your favorite invisible dragon. But this is exactly what is going on in exchanges like the following:
A: “The concept of consciousness is meaningless because it has no empirical consequences.”
B” “Silly amateur! Don’t you know that logical positivism has been refuted?”
Michael Vassar:
The classical disproof of positivism is that it is self-contradictory. “Only the empirical can be true”, but that statement is not empirical.
I have always been mystified at how this glib dismissal has been taken as some kind of definitive refutation. To the contrary, it should be perfectly obvious that a meta-statement like () a statement is nonsense unless it describes an empirically observable phenomenon is not meant to be self-referential. What () does is to lay down a rule of discourse (not meta-discourse). Its purpose is to banish invisible dragons from the discussion.
You cannot appeal to the “legitimacy” of sentences like (*) in order to argue on behalf of your favorite invisible dragon. But this is exactly what is going on in exchanges like the following: A: “The concept of consciousness is meaningless because it has no empirical consequences.” B” “Silly amateur! Don’t you know that logical positivism has been refuted?”