Editing Logical positivism (section)

==Decline and legacy==

In 1967, [[John Passmore]] wrote, "Logical positivism is dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes".<ref name=hanfling>{{cite book |title=Philosophy of Science, Logic and Mathematics in the Twentieth Century |chapter=Logical positivism |last=Hanfling |first=Oswald| editor=Stuart G Shanker |year=1996 |publisher=Routledge |pages=193-94}}</ref> His opinions concurred with widespread sentiment in academic circles that the movement had run its course by the late 1960s.<ref name="Fotionarticle">{{cite book |author=[[Nick Fotion|Nicholas G Fotion]] |editor=Ted Honderich |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |year=1995 |page=508 |isbn=978-0-19-866132-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hond/page/508 }}</ref> Logical positivism's fall heralded [[postpositivism]], distinguished by [[Karl Popper|Popper]]'s [[critical rationalism]]—which characterised human knowledge as continuously evolving via conjectures and refutations—and [[Thomas S. Kuhn|Kuhn]]'s historical and social perspectives on the saltatory course of scientific progress.<ref>{{cite book |author1=William Stahl |author2=Robert A. Campbell |author3=Gary Diver |author4=Yvonne Petry |title=Webs of Reality: Social Perspectives on Science and Religion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GY6i84rSKMcC&pg=PA180 |year=2002 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-3107-6 |page=180}}</ref>

In a 1976 interview, [[A. J. Ayer]], who had introduced logical positivism to the [[English-speaking world]] in the 1930s,<ref>{{cite book |title=Key ideas in linguistics and the philosophy of language |chapter=Logical positivism |last=Chapman |first=Siobhan| editor1=Siobhan Chapman |editor2=Christopher Routledge |year=2009 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |location=Edinburgh}}</ref> was asked what he saw as its main defects and answered that, "nearly all of it was false". Yet, he maintained that it was "true in spirit", referring to the principles of [[empiricism]] and [[reductionism]] whereby [[physicalism|mental phenomena resolve to the material or physical]] and philosophical questions largely resolve to ones of language and meaning.<ref name=hanfling/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cnRJGs08hE |title=Ayer on Logical Positivism: Section 4 |website=[[YouTube]] |at=6:30}}</ref> Despite its problems, logical positivism helped to anchor [[analytic philosophy]] in the English-speaking world and its influence extended beyond philosophy in shaping the course of [[psychology]] and the [[social sciences]]. In the post-war period, [[Carl Hempel]]'s contributions were vitally important in establishing the subdiscipline of the [[philosophy of science]].<ref name="Friedman-pxii"/>

Logical positivism's fall reopened the debate over the [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] merit of scientific theory, whether it can offer knowledge of the world beyond human experience ([[scientific realism]]) or whether it is simply an instrument to predict human experience ([[instrumentalism]]).<ref>{{cite book |first=Hilary |last=Putnam |chapter=What is realism? |editor=Jarrett Leplin |title=Scientific Realism |publisher=University of California Press |year=1984 |page=140 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhBeVFm8WuAC&dq=Realism+realists+positivism+opera-tionalism&pg=PA140}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=Ruth |last=Lane |doi=10.1177/0951692896008003003 |title=Positivism, scientific realism and political science: Recent developments in the philosophy of science |journal=Journal of Theoretical Politics |year=1996 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=361–82}}</ref> Philosophers increasingly critiqued the movement's doctrine and history, often misrepresenting it without thorough examination,<ref>{{harvnb|Friedman|1999}} p. 1</ref> sometimes reducing it to oversimplifications and stereotypes, such as its association with [[foundationalism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Friedman|1999}} p. 2</ref>