Eliezer, in No Logical Positivist I, condemns the positivist notion of verifiability for excluding some perfectly meaningful propositions. For example, he says, it may be that a chocolate cake formed in the center of the sun on 8/1/2008, then disappeared after one second. … But there’s no way to test it … so the logical positivists would dismiss it as nonsense.
As I recall, this interpretation was disputed in the comments on that post. In addition to referring readers there, let me also direct those interested in learning more about logical positivism to this interview with A.J. Ayer. If memory serves, he mentions espousing a view of ethical and aesthetic statements similar to Yvain’s interpretation of statements like “Islam is a religion of peace” (often called emotivism, or the “boo-hurray theory”).
I was one of the ones disputing in those comments, but I have to admit that g’s “The absolute is an uncle” example stopped me short. I developed the “logs of the universe” theory in response to that, but I’m not sure how good a response it was—hence footnote 2, about how it was easy in practice but kind of hard in theory.
Emotivism is very relevant here and I was thinking of making a followup post on it. Good catch.
As I recall, this interpretation was disputed in the comments on that post. In addition to referring readers there, let me also direct those interested in learning more about logical positivism to this interview with A.J. Ayer. If memory serves, he mentions espousing a view of ethical and aesthetic statements similar to Yvain’s interpretation of statements like “Islam is a religion of peace” (often called emotivism, or the “boo-hurray theory”).
I was one of the ones disputing in those comments, but I have to admit that g’s “The absolute is an uncle” example stopped me short. I developed the “logs of the universe” theory in response to that, but I’m not sure how good a response it was—hence footnote 2, about how it was easy in practice but kind of hard in theory.
Emotivism is very relevant here and I was thinking of making a followup post on it. Good catch.