ABSTRACT
A theory of knowledge which contends that what should count as knowledge can only be validated through methods of observation which are derived from the example set by the physical sciences. Thus, positivists hold to the view that what counts as knowledge is solely a matter of senseexperience. The roots of positivism can be traced at least as far back as the writings of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), although the seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon (who propounded an account of knowledge in his Novum Organum (1620) which stressed the importance of empirical observation) might also be cited in connection with this approach. In the twentieth century, a number of thinkers have espoused what has been termed ‘logical positivism’, an approach derived from the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as those of Bertrand Russell and Gotlob Frege. A.J.Ayer’s book Language, Truth and Logic is often seen as a key work in the articulation of the basic tenets of logical positivism. In this work he argued that all propositions could be characterised as either true, false, or meaningless. In other words, if a proposition does not assert something which can, in principle, be either validated or disproven by way of observation according to the standards of scientific verification then, it is held, that proposition is devoid of meaning. This attempt to clarify the meaning of propositions/sentences, in these terms represented an attempt at a kind of ‘groundclearing’ within philosophy, in so far as it was contended that many sorts of question (e.g. those concerned with issues of religion or metaphysics) were in fact meaningless.
