Alfred Jules Ayer's "Language, Truth and Logic," the Major Thesis on Logical Positivism of its Time

To him, the framework of argumentation involves the relationship between audience and the speaker and is to be influenced by the argumentation. Adherence is a “sense of allegiance and understanding”, and this type of discourse involves values. In The Realm of Rhetoric, Perelman begins to discuss about the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy, and how dialectic discourse plays a part in the relationship. This is in contrast to the Cartesian Method of scientific discovery. Also, in this section Perelman advocates that rhetoric is subordinated to philosophy, claiming “If dialectic is useful to the philosopher, by allowing himself to settle erroneous opinions, the perception of truth will come through intuitions; rhetoric will serve to communicate these truths and to gain their acceptance. (1379)” Through the use of dialectical reasoning as well as rhetoric, one can influence the minds of the audience and affect their judgement. So, philosophical argumentation calls for a particular field of a theory of argumentation which he has developed as the new rhetoric. “As soon as communication tries to influence one or more persons, to orient their thinking, to excite or calm their emotions, to guide their actions, it belongs to the realm of rhetoric

Brian Davies further argued that the verificationism principle itself is unverifiable; one cannot verify whether it is true or false and therefore by its own criteria, it is meaningless. Both Ward and Davies’s arguments significantly weaken verificationism. Hick argued that statements are eschatologically verifiable, so that after someone dies, they can verify all the statements they made when they were alive, however this is a weak argument against verificationism, and it does not weaken the verification principle as much as Hick and Davies.

In his book, ‘Language, Truth and Logic’ (1936), A.J. Ayer reinforced the verification principle when he noted that since the existence of God cannot be rationally demonstrated, it is not even probable because the term ‘God’ is a metaphysical term referring to a transcendent being that cannot have any literal significance. Interestingly, Ayer also rejected atheistic and agnostic statements since any statement that includes ‘God’ is meaningless. Ayer argued that since claims about God cannot be contradicted, they are not significant propositions, they are neither true of false, but cannot be valid. He writes: “The notion of a being whose essential attributes are non-empirical is not an intelligible notion at all.” In order to understand the verification principle fully, the principle also subsequently rejects all statements that express unverifiable opinions including moral and ethical statements, historical statements, religious statements and emotional statements. Ayer maintained the view that those statements are all meaningless since they cannot be verified. Beliefs about life after death are also problematic because they suggest that we have a soul. This, however, is a metaphysical assertion beyond any form of empirical testing. (Ayer, 1952)

With this particular case, Gettier effectively challenges the relationship between the sufficient condition and the necessary conditions because Smith’s justified true beliefs are not jointly sufficient for him to know he is the man with 10 coins in his pocket who will get the job. In fact, even if Smith’s justified true belief turns out to be true; Jones actually gets the job, intuitively we are not convinced that his justified true beliefs is deemed as knowledge because in the case that he is correct, we intuitively regard his justified true belief as a lucky coincidence since he could have had a false justified true belief.

Pragmatism is described in the book as a method for settling philosophical disputes. It is based on the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory says that a 'proposition p is true if and only if the belief that 'p is true' works'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). In order

The purpose of this paper is to argue that Alvin Goldman's paper "A Causal Theory of Knowing" does not solve the problem in Edmund Gettier's paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" To argue the old view of knowledge, Gettier presents a case in which a Subject (S) is justified in believing that a proposition (P) and P entails another proposition (Q). S deduces Q from P and accepts Q. Then S is justified in believing Q. In the first Case that Gettier presents however, P is falsely justified, but Q is a true justified belief: Smith (S) is justified in believing that Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has ten coins in his pocket (P). Thus, the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (Q). S is justified in

In his book ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’, Descartes writes that all beliefs, even the most irresistible convictions, may not correspond to how the world really is; and this is something that defenders of the correspondence theory are arguably unable to dismiss. As a result, the coherence theory takes a different approach and argues that a proposition (truth-bearer) is true if it ‘fits’ or coheres with a specific set of beliefs (truth-maker). These beliefs may belong either to the individual (and include the laws of logic, for example), to human beings at the ultimate stage of historical development, or to a system of beliefs held by a God or the Absolute (Walker, 1989). So in the example where Billy believes that ‘dogs have five legs’, his claim can be assessed by considering if this statement coheres with a specific set of true beliefs. For instance, it may be commonly understood that dogs have four legs not five, that there has never been a dog with more than four legs, and that no one apart from Billy has ever claimed that dogs can have more than four legs. Thus, it follows that the key to determining whether Billy’s statement is true or false is “internal consistency and logical standards” (Dunwoody, 2009, p. 117).

The following essay aims to discuss the inconsistencies between the inductivist and Popper’s points of view of science rationality of science in light of claims that the scientific method is inductive yet an inductive method is no. I think is rational to say that inductivist view of science has significant contradiction that Popper’s view solves. To support Popper’s view my argument will introduce the inductivist and falsificationsist views and I will focus in showing the issues of considered science as objective, scientific knowledge as proven and nature as uniform as well as the differences between inductivism and falsificationism to the creation of hypothesis.

William James studied pragmatism through psychology and religion. James thought originally about philosophy; “The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants in our life, if this world formula or that world formula be the true one.” In James’ book The Varieties of Religious Experience he took a positive attitude toward religion yet opposed the idealist schools of speculative ideas (Choron 283). James was a very methodical man. “Truth happens to an idea” was another theory of James’. In order for an idea to be true an event

Bertrand Russell’s essay addresses many issues concerning philosophy. In the writing, he states philosophy’s nature, value, and criticisms. The essay explains these aspects of the study of philosophy in relatively different ways. The main idea for establishing value in his essay is by explaining how it is best obtained, and its effect on other people. The essay continues with his criticisms of those who opposed

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2011 there were 2,118,000 marriages in the United States and almost half as many divorces (2013). The CDC also reports that only half of all first marriages will reach their twentieth anniversary. Divorce is a topic everyone is familiar with and it has almost become a normal part of life. While it is assumed that more divorces occur now than in the previous generation, the CDC actually reports that divorce rates have dropped over the past twenty to thirty years, though this could be due to the increase in individuals who live together without ever getting married or those who simply separate and cannot afford to become legally divorced. However, it has become a more

Unlike inductivists, falsificationists believe that there is no way to conclusively prove that a theory is true. Consequently, they will resist stating that they’ve proved a theory to be true. Instead, falsificationists will consider a theory to be true so long as it has not been proven to be false. Unlike the strict five-step process held by the inductivist account of science, falsificationists hold that scientific progress comes about “by trial and error, by conjectures and refutations” (Chalmers 60). In the falsificationist picture, theory change happens constantly, and this process is what constitutes scientific progress. “It can never be said of a theory that it is true, however well it has withstood rigorous tests, but it can hopefully be said that a current theory is superior to its predecessors in the sense that it is able to withstand tests that falsified those predecessors” (Chalmers

Karl Popper is commonly regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science in the 20th Century. He is well known for his rejection of the inductivist viewpoint of the scientific method, in which one uses observation to propose a law to generalize an observed pattern, and later confirm that law through more observation. Popper states that “induction cannot be logically justified” (Popper 14). Inductivism relies on the process of inductive reasoning which is a logical process in which multiple premises, all thought to be true and found to be true most of the time, are combined to obtain a conclusion and in many cases formulate a law or theory. Popper rejected the inductivist viewpoint in favor of a theory called empirical falsification which holds that a theory can never be proven, but it can be falsified, and therefore it can and needs to be scrutinized through experimentation.

Popper and Kuhn held differing views on the nature of scientific progress. As seen in Popper’s falsification theory, he held that theories can never be proved only disproved or falsified. Once a theory is proved false we move on to the next. Kuhn, on the other, hand argued a new paradigm may solve puzzles better than the old one but you cannot describe the old science as false. Both seem to share the Kantian idea that the really real, independently existing world is completely unknowable. Kuhn further asserts that the empirical world, which is knowable, is partly constructed by our categories and concepts. The fundamental difference in their views are best stated in Kuhn’s own words, “A very different approach to this whole network of problems has been developed by Karl R. Popper who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all. Instead he emphasizes the importance of falsification, i.e., of the test that, because its outcome is negative, necessitates the rejection of an established theory. Clearly, the role thus attributed to falsification is much like the one this essay assigns to anomalous experiences, i.e., to experiences that, by evoking crisis, prepare the way for a new theory. Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.”(Kuhn, 145) As seen by this passage, the fundamental difference between Popper and Kuhn is that Popper disregards “verification” and Kuhn asserts that “falsification” only takes place once a

Positivism is a rigorous and formal way to collect and analyze data that was developed around the 1960’s by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who is also credited with formalizing it. Studies are clear and straight forward and researchers believe that there is only one method that all sciences should rely on. Positivism believes