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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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November 15, 2006
by Sandra Williams, M.S.N.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the underlying assumptions or presuppositions of two philosophical views; the Logical Positivists and that of Alfred North Whitehead. Logical positivism was a movement in the 20th century concerned with analytic and linguistic philosophy. The movement originated in Vienna and consisted of a group of German and Australian philosophers who became known as the Vienna Circle [Center for Applied Philosophy, 2006]. Underlying assumptions of the logical positivist movement consisted of three main ideas such as the analytical, verifiability and observational principles. The verifiability principle was the central idea of the analytic-linguistic movement because it stated that a sentence could not be verified then essentially it had no meaning. The Radical Academy website addressed several problems with logical positivist ideas:
The logical positivist did not value any sentences or statements that could not be tested. They called this the theory of verifiability which meant that sentences were not analytic. Analytic sentences were defined as having some truth, but without factual content. If a sentence did not have a fact -- based meaning, it was viewed as nonsense to the logical positivists. This theory applied only to sentences that are not analytic, and it involved a specific kind of "meaning," the kind involved when someone is trying to say something about the world [Godfrey-Smith, 2003]. The logical positivists were only interested in scientific meaning in language and therefore denouncing anything unrelated to science. Logical positivists were purely logical thinkers and made several attempts to disregard any form of language that was not factual, including religion. According to Godfrey-Smith [2003], the verifiability principle was used as a philosophical weapon. Scientific discussion, and most everyday discussion, consists of verifiable and hence meaningful claims. In other words, discussions based on philosophical thoughts or personal and spiritual beliefs did not have factual meaning for logical positivists. The logical positivists and the logical empiricists began to discuss issues related to the holistic theory, scientific realism and prediction which eventually led to the fall of the logical empiricists. The logical positivists discussed several other methods, but essentially held the belief that experience is knowledge. In other words, there was only one scientific method and it consisted of testing the hypotheses. According to Godfrey-Smith [2003], for logical positivists, when a scientist seems to be trying to describe unobservable structures in the world that give rise to what we see, the scientist must instead be seen as describing the observable world in a special, abstract way. Scientific language is only meaningful insofar as it picks out patterns in the flow of experience. The logical positivists began as a group of individuals who were displeased with the philosophical ideas of the time. They were scientists who had a down to earth world view and who opposed thoughts related to metaphysical, spiritual or ethical discussions that were with factual meaning. If a sentence has no possible method of verification, it has no meaning [Godfrey-Smith, 2003]. The verifiability theory of meaning was founded on the principle of observation and testing, in other words a sentence had to be proven true or false to have validity among logical positivists. It suggests that it was based on the scientific method. According to Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the scientific method is defined as having principles and procedures for systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. The Logical Positivist viewed metaphysical beliefs such as those of Whitehead as being illogical and did not give credit to anything that could not be tested. They frowned on metaphysical beliefs like Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism. The LPs believed that there is no knowledge outside of experience. For logical positivism, logic is the main tool for philosophy, including philosophical discussion of science. In fact, just about the only useful thing that philosophers can do is to give logical analyses of how language, mathematics, and science work [Godfrey-Smith, 2003]. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism was based on metaphysical assumptions which were quite different from the empirical assumptions and beliefs of the Logical Positivists. The underlying assumptions in Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism were that organisms move, they grow, they mature and they perish. Whitehead focused on an organic philosophy rather than a materialistic philosophy. He spoke in terms of actualities and called his organisms "actual entities." According to Whitehead [1997, p. 159], the metaphysical status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for an actuality. Every actual occasion is defined as to its character by how these possibilities are actualized for that occasion. Thus actualization is a selection among possibilities. These actual entities are what Whitehead believed were the real things the world was made up of. Whitehead's views regarding the interrelationships of actual entities or actual occasions, implies that the universe is one entity in itself. Each relationship preserves its inherent self-identity [Whitehead, 1925]. The underlying assumption here suggest that although an actual entity maintains it own identity, it is still interconnected to the other actual entities in the universe. The Philosophy of Organism focused on the realism and concreteness of organisms, basically on their being and becoming. Every actual occasion exhibits itself as a process: it is a becomingness. In so disclosing itself, it places itself as one among a multiplicity of other occasions, without which it could not be itself [Whitehead, 1997]. The writings of Alfred North Whitehead were inspired by the principles of the philosophical views of the neo-realism movement. Neo-realistic philosophers believed that reality was an accumulation of simple and unchangeable entities and these entities are interrelated and do not affect or change each other.
References Center for Applied Philosophy: The Radical Academy, (n.d.). "Logical Positivism & the Analytic Movement," Retrieved November 11, 2006, from http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilogicalpositivism.htm. Center for Applied Philosophy: The Radical Academy, (n.d.). "The philosophy of Neo-Realism," Retrieved November 11, 2006, from http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilnewrealism.htm. P. Godfrey-Smith. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science: Theory and reality. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2003. Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (9th ed.). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1991. A.N. Whitehead. Science and the Modern World. New York: Free Press, 1997.
About the Author: Sandra Williams holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Nursing (the latter with honors) from the University of Mobile (Alabama) and is a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She is currently an instructor in nursing at the University of South Alabama, specializing in psychiatric/mental health nursing as well as medical/surgical nursing. She currently teaches a course in Foundations of Professional Nursing and also acts as an undergraduate psychiatric mental health nurse.
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