Logical Positivism is Sound

On AyerShab chooses AJ Ayer"s argument to defend and finds it irrelevant that in retrospect, AJ Ayer himself determined that "nearly all of it was false". I would never be so arrogant as to think that I understand AJ Ayer's ideas better than AJ Ayer, instead, we should consider AJ Ayer to be an expert on his own ideas; he is uniquely qualified to evaluate his ideas and therefore his complete refutation of LP is convincing. On WittgensteinShab finds my interpretation of Wittgenstein odd, I find his interpretation uninformed. His biographers describe a devout man of faith, a mystic who prayed and wrote about God, Ethics, and transcendence, he often spoke of becoming a Priest or a monk. Wittgenstein said the point of the Tractatus was ethical, and always maintained that that Ethics is transcendent, his friend and teacher, Bertrand Russell, said of him "he has become a complete mystic" and of the Tractatus, "I had felt in his book a flavour of mysticism". In the Tractatus he put forth a Metaphilosophy, by definition, just as Metaphysics transcends Physics, Metaphilosophy transcends Philosophy, it certainly isn't about rejection Wittgenstein was a mystic and mysticism is predominantly characterized as "ineffable", his arguments about language and science were arguments about the limitations of language and science, about how they cannot adequately convey transcendent truths, they certainly weren't arguments for the subordination of Ethics, Metaphysics and Transcendence to science. To argue that Wittgenstein rejected these things is preposterous, it can only be done by one doesn't understand mysticism, ethics, metaphysics, Wittgenstein, and the meaning of the word "transcend". While Shab rejects AJ Ayer's opinion of his own work as irrelevant, it's his use of Wittgenstein to "prove" LP that is irrelevant, Wittgenstein was not a Logical Positivist, he rejected LP fervently and refused to even meet with the Vienna Circle, it is disingenuous to put forth Wittgenstein as supporting a proof of LP. I will further contend that if Shab's position requires he disagree with Ayer about Ayer, and Wittgenstein about Wittgenstein, then perhaps he should reconsider his position.The Verification Principle's "self-destruction"Shab responds to the self-refuting charge by claiming that the VP is a "definition" rather than an "empirical hypothesis", but a label doesn't change the fact that its content makes LP self-refuting, LP cannot be empirically tested, therefore by its own criterion, LP is meaningless. I will accept Shab's contention that it is by definition that LP is self-refuting; Shab still hasn't met his BOP to demonstrate that LP is sound.On Sense-DataHere Shab claims I made a different argument than I did and therefore his response is a logically incoherent non-sequitur. The fact is, perception cannot provide us with the "absolute truth" about reality because it is contingent on state of mind and mood, and there are plenty of examples of false perception, mirage, hallucination, etc.On InductionHere Shab simply cut and pasted my argument against LP and did not respond to it. He either concedes the point or has just made a mistake, either way, my point stands unchallenged. Historical RefutationsMy opponent claims ignorance of the historical context in which John Passmore found LP to be "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes", then tries to shift the BOP to me by claiming I don't defend any of the arguments that historically "killed" LP. It's Shab that wants to resurrect a dead philosophical movement, and the BOP is on him to show it is sound; it is not on me to show why it is almost universally considered to be "dead". I would expect my opponent to be familiar with at least the most significant historical developments regarding the subject matter he is debating. With an 8,000 characters limit, I can hardly "present substantial formulations" of all the commonly accepted theories and arguments that are seen to have historically buried LP. Nevertheless, I will indulge my opponent with a brief explanation of how Godel's proof demolished LP. David Hilbert and Kurt Godel were members of the Vienna Circle, it was Hilbert's mathematical formalism that birthed LP, and it was Godel's Incompleteness Theorem that killed it, convincing even its most "prominent advocate" that "almost all of it was false". The Circle extended Hilbert's mathematical formalism and attempted to create a new language of pure logic to predicate all experiences. LP was an axiomatic system that was reverse engineered from the scientific method. LP rejects any discipline that cannot be verified by the methods of science, and in so doing, it maintains that logic and science provide a consistent and complete accounting of reality in all its fullness.Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is analytically perfect and rigidly deductive and therefore it is conclusive as far as LP is concerned. It states categorically that no axiomatic system can be complete without reference to a transcending system in which that system must be embedded. The representation of logic and science as a complete system that provides a comprehensive representation of reality has been proven logically and scientifically to be incorrect. Godel proved the ideal of LP is therefore impossible, it is logically and scientifically impossible to devise a set of axioms from which all the phenomena of the external world can be deduced. He showed conclusively that LP's rejection of a transcendent reality was not valid; belief in a transcendent reality is logically and scientifically ,a more true representation of reality.On LP's "narrowness"My opponent states that "if LP is true, its rejection of metaphysics and ethics are also true" and then states that such circular reasoning is not valid, his circular argument only says "If LP is true, then LP is true", which is not valid. LP is "Scientism" plain and simple, it emerged when science was at its peak of materialistic and deterministic hubris; LP was a failed attempt to make the scientific method the measure of all truth.Science reports what it discovers, scientism goes beyond the actual findings of science to deny that other approaches to knowledge are valid and other truths are true, which is not itself a scientific truth, and therefore LP's scientism is a contradiction. Science is a very powerful tool but its frame of reference is limited, it can only work with a certain aspect of reality, and that is a very sharply defined and delimited. Science handles quantities of nature, but the qualities of nature fall outside of its realm, what science cannot give us are values, meaning, purpose, and a vision in which everything coheres. Therefore, Science alone cannot give us a complete and consistent accounting of reality in all its fullness.In the end, LP doesn't even support science adequately, all of science"s unifying theories postulate other dimensions that are in principle unobservable and which LP therefore rejects, Quantum Physics and most of Relativity Theory would not be possible under a LP framework of thought, Big Bang Theory would not hold, and Dark Matter and Dark Energy would be "meaningless" concepts, even science has outgrown the Procrustean straightjacket of LP. Perhaps we should be thankful that science never really bought into LP's nonsense, if it did, scientific progress would come to a halt. Conclusion Shab's non-sequitur conclusion restates his "If LP is true, then LP is true" and then attributes the rejection of LP to "sentimentality" for what it rejects. On the contrary, as something of a philosopher of science, I am defending my beloved science from those who would pirate it for ideological ends. AJ Ayer was correct about LP, "nearly all of it was false".1) Vienna Circle: https://en.wikipedia.org...2) Kurt Godel: https://en.wikipedia.org...