a form of Phenomenalism held by A. J. Ayer who stated that the neutral sense data are the ultimate units of experience which are given. Mind and matter are both logical constructs of actual or possible sense data, not metaphysical entities. Statements about mind (mental statements) or matter (physical object statements) are both fully translatable into sense data or observation statements.
level: Comprehensive (3) [ order by level] A philosophical school arguing that the only statements that are meaningful are those that can be validated, either mathematically or empirically.
order by term] level: Comprehensive (3) A philosophical school arguing that the only statements that are meaningful are those that can be validated, either mathematically or empirically.
the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation)
The view that the only real things are those which are either empirically provable (we can test them) or logically necessary (1+1=2). All religious, superstitious and supernatural statements are meaningless. This philosophy was propagated by a group called the Vienna Circle and later came to be associated with A J Ayer and Emotivism.
The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which any purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to confirm or deny it.
scientific discourse provides the norm for all meaningful language. Reduce philosophy to a kind of mathematical formalism.
Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world we live in—with a version of rationalism—the idea that our knowledge includes a component that is not derived from observation.