The Vienna Circle: Philosophy and Science

For the Vienna Circle, philosophy comes to be seen as a logical and epistemological analysis of science

The basic point of the Vienna Circle’s philosophical proposal was the attempt to detach the Philosophy of Science from an Idealist and irrationalist philosophy. The first struggle that took place in this regard was that of understanding the role of logic in scientific thinking. According to the vision of the Vienna Circle, a new scientific theory needed to be erected in order to enable empirical science to be constituted, even with the obstacles arising from formal logic. The objects of this new scientific theory are observable, verifiable in the world of experience.

The Circle assumed a scientistic view of knowledge, which entails the radical rejection of metaphysical propositions both in the scientific and philosophical scope, due to the fact that they conceive them as meaningless. Verificationism advocates excluding from the epistemological and scientific field any proposition that is based on concepts that cannot be verified empirically, that is, that do not occur in reality. Therefore, the verification principle states that the synthetic proposition only has meaning if its terms can be reduced to observational contents, which points to the conditions in which a proposition can be taken as empirically significant. This principle prevailing in the Vienna Circle points to the attempt to detach applied scientific research from theorizations and problems of pure science – composed of theoretical and abstract problems.

The distinction between analytical knowledge and synthetic knowledge is linked to the field of logic and theory of knowledge. The propositions are also classified in this way, that is, they can be analytic or synthetic: the analytic propositions are those that the meaning itself is sufficient for the determination of its truth value, they are understood as conceptual needs that can be demonstrated in a conclusive way; synthetic propositions, on the other hand, do not have their meanings as sufficient to determine their truth value, which requires verification of their contents through experimentation. However, the a priori synthetic propositions formulated by Kant are excluded.

As a consequence of these differentiations, we have the distinction between pure (or formal) sciences and applied sciences. The former may have philosophy, mathematics and logic as representatives. Its propositions are analytical due to the fact that they are a priori, independent of experience and observation, their truth values ​​are independent of empiricist verifiability, however, depending only on the relations between premises and conclusions. They are, therefore, logical truths and their problems have to be solved starting from themselves, since one cannot resort to experience. The development of this type of science is related to the development of logical reasoning.

Nevertheless, the applied sciences are linked to empirical observations, being, therefore, their synthetic propositions, which expand the data of knowledge through their contact with the world. New information is added to the object and extracted from experience; so that the truth value of the proposition has its cognitive content reached by repeated tests, which aim to demonstrate, through experience, that that (content) is what is evident in the proposition. From here comes the meaning criterion for meaningful propositions – understood as a way to overcome the analytical thoughts that dominated until then.

The members of the Circle aimed to discern a priori formal reasoning – expressed in analytical truths or contradictions – from a posteriori synthetic reasoning – which is exposed in synthetic truths or falsehoods. Contradiction is the opposite of an analytic truth, since the latter are necessary and, therefore, must follow the principle of non-contradiction. Falsehood, on the other hand, is the opposite of a synthetic truth, without this entailing a contradiction, which is explained given its contingency. Synthetic truths are either true or false, which can be verified in the world. The problems arising from the observations and experiments of the applicable sciences find a solution (exclusion of the non-verifiable hypothesis, for example). However, formal paradoxes encompass problems of reason and do not find definitive solutions.

The ultimate aim of the Circle’s scientists and thinkers is, therefore, the total separation of fields, as well as the exclusion of metaphysics as a constituent part of philosophy: formal problems must be restricted to theorists, while the applicable sciences must be able to advance, within the scope of empirical, through its synthetic propositions.

It follows, therefore, that the only secure knowledge is obtained with the applicable, empirical sciences, with their observable objects and with their verifiable synthetic propositions. It ceases to be a certainty that which cannot be rigorously verified through experience.

Philosophy comes to be seen as a logical and epistemological analysis of science, which is justified by the logical clarification of concepts as providing a possibility of conceptual varieties to science.

The epistemological foundation of this neopositivism proposes that science should limit itself to an exact description of the immediate data of perception. Therefore, the function of science is understood as the description of real objects in the world, of elements considered in relation to experience and the relationship between them (elements).

The origin of the debate about the distinction between analytic and synthetic lies in the attempt of scientists in the circle to build a scientific metalanguage, where there was no ambiguity. Thus, the rules of this language would be formed according to the laws of experience. The definition of the terms that compose this language is a crucial task, which automatically entails the elimination of metaphysical presuppositions of the sciences by eliminating the possible ambivalence of the defined terms.

It is clear, therefore, that the empirical structures with which the scientists of the Circle deal are related to the knowledge of the applicable sciences, that is, to the criteria of verifiability, certainty, existence of the object in the world that can be proved by successive experiments. Knowledge in this case is, therefore, a posteriori and its propositions allow the advance of scientific knowledge, since they expand the knowledge of the object through data obtained by empirical observation.

For its part, formal logic deals with speculations, with unsolvable problems and its propositions are elaborated a priori, which are only reached by the use of abstract thinking, being related to the definition of the concept and not helping in the progress of the empirical sciences by not expanding knowledge about the object or for not allowing reformulation of thought. These are, therefore, the main differences exposed by the Neopositivists of the Circle with regard to empirical structures and formal logic.

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