ABSTRACT
The logical positivists of the Vienna Circle broke new ground in philosophy, and believed that their unique synthesis of ‘the new logic’ and empiricism held great promise for clarifying and solving previously intractable problems in philosophy and the special sciences. As often happens, a premature enthusiasm led certain logical positivists to issue declarations which in retrospect seem indicative of, at best, a sublime naiveté, and at worst, a dogmatic fanaticism. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, however, a more sophisticated positivist stance emerged, one less radically empiricist than logical positivism. Philosophers whose names could be associated with what we will call logical empiricism, or mature positivism, include A.J.Ayer, Richard Braithwaite, Rudolf Carnap, Carl Hempel and Ernest Nagel, though this listing is not meant to be exhaustive.
