ABSTRACT
The ‘death’ of the movement was due, however, not only to the dispersal of its members, but also to a widespread recognition of the defects of its ideas. Now in this sense, probably most of the philosophy studied in our universities is dead, for most of it is open to more-or-less fatal criticisms; and criticism is regarded as one of the main approaches to the great philosophers and movements of the past. However, what hastened the widespread rejection of logical positivism was not merely the (unsurprising) discovery that its doctrines were open to criticism, but the aggressive and even arrogant way in which those doctrines were propounded to the world. Chief among these was the ‘elimination of metaphysics’. It was claimed by members of the movement that they had noticed something about existing and traditional philosophy, which would completely overturn it and render it largely otiose. There appeared articles with such titles as ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language’ (Carnap [5.5]) and ‘The Turning Point in Philosophy’ (Schlick [5.24]). Carnap posed the question: ‘Can it be that so
many men, of various times and nations, outstanding minds among them, have devoted so much effort, and indeed fervour, to metaphysics, when this consists of nothing more than words strung together without sense?’ International conferences were called with a view to disseminating the new ‘insights’, and a grandiose project, The Encyclopedia of Unified Science, was launched to give definitive expression to the new ‘scientific’ era in which philosophical and other discourse would become part of the discourse of science. In these circumstances it was not surprising that critics of the new ideas were more than usually prompt, forthright and thorough in their criticisms.
