ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the various meanings that positivism has assumed throughout the history of the concept and with the post-positivism that has emerged to attenuate its claims without rejecting its basic perspective. The roots of the Vienna Circle lie in discussions that began in the first decade of the twentieth century, involving social philosopher Otto Neurath, mathematician Hans Hahn and physicist Philip Frank. The Circle came to prominence in the 1920s when Moritz Schlick assumed its leadership. Schlick and Ayer embraced this principle enthusiastically and made it a central tenet of logical positivism. The impact of Heisenberg’s and Bohr’s thought has been far-reaching. These scientists sound a note of uncertainty within what has been a very self-confident philosophy of positivist science. The course in question was for undergraduates majoring in the humanities and it was put to Kuhn that the should take an historical perspective.
