You maline Logical Positive here with a historical confusion. Carnap immediately pointed out to Popper, of course, falsifiable. Popper's complaint was a noisy no-op.
Steven On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > On Apr 2, 2015, at 11:00 AM, Jon Awbrey <jawb...@att.net> wrote: > > An empirical proposition is falsifiable if a counterexample is logically > possible. When we go for a long enough time without observing a > counterexample, which may involve creating experimental conditions under > which a counterexample should occur, then we begin to believe that there is > some natural constraint ruling against it and we act on that belief as if > it were true. And it may well be — time will tell. > > One of Popper's problems was that he did not always distinguish the > logical status of an unfalsifiable proposition from the psychological > status of a proposition that some people do not wish to disbelieve. > > > Just coming back and *way* behind in posts. > > But I agree that the problem with logical positivism and in particular > Popper’s purported refutation was confusing logical status with the more > complicated issues. Popper notes that logical positivism treats laws in a > logical form like “All X is Y” so a single counter-example refutes it but a > slew of positive examples don’t confirm it. > > This seems really insightful until you move from the logical form to the > question of doing the reduction to the logical form. Then you find that > everything is so theory laden that a falsification is no better than a > confirmation. So for instance if you had a measurement that the Newton’s > law was wrong (ignoring relativity for now) do you say you’re refuted > Newton or do you assume there’s an other body out there or something else > you’ve missed? Quine gets at this. While Quine has his own problems he does > avoid a lot of the oversimplifications of the logical positivists or most > of their first generation of critics. > > Honestly I’ve long thought the Vienna Circle just took a series of > missteps by missing several of Peirce’s key insights. (To be fair Peirce > just wasn’t well known and most of pragmatism was seen through the lens of > James who tended not to follow Peirce’s logic) > > While the positivists adopt a verification account quite similar to the > pragmatic maxim how they use it goes very much against the spirit of it. > Albeit in a different direction from how James used it. > > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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