Logical Positivism is Sound

On Ayer Initially Shab claimed it was Ayer’s version of LP he would prove and even presented Ayer quotes to define what LP is, now he claims Ayer is not qualified to evaluate his own theory, saying “The only way Ayer would be “uniquely qualified” to establish the truth or falsehood of LP is if he had some unique insight into what LP is”. To establish Ayer as the authority who’s LP we would debate and then claim Ayer doesn’t know what LP is demonstrates a flagrant disrespect for logic and the voter. AJ Ayer was clearly a poor choice from the start, nevertheless Shab made an uninformed appeal to authority in Ayer’s name and when I respond by pointing out that his own authority asserted that LP was not sound, saying “nearly all of it was false”, he accused me of making an appeal to authority, this is hypocritical and a dishonest debate tactic, in no way should it be considered the least bit valid. On Wittgenstein Shab quotes the Tractatus to “prove” LP, and then claims I should not discuss the Tractatus in my counter because that isn’t what we are debating, nonsense, if he is going to try to use out of context quotes to claim that the Tractatus says something it didn’t say, then the onus is on me to counter that misrepresentation by providing the actual context in which those statements were made. Shab is asking voters to consider his quotes of Ayer and Wittgenstein as relevant ,but to consider my counter to those claims as irrelevant, but it is certainly relevant to clarify the meaning of the quotes he used out of context and because he presented these two people’s work as providing proof of LP, it is very relevant to point out that they both completely disagree with Shab’s position. The Verification Principle's "self-destruction" Again, merely labeling the VP a definition “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”. His BOP is not to prove the VP need not be verified, he must prove that LP is sound, and the fact remains that the VP, its core principle, makes “LP self-refuting”, and therefore, LP is not sound. Shab also argues that the VP should be accepted because “anything else confounds all practical intuitions” which is a particularly bad argument because according to LP, “practical intuitions” are meaningless. Again, Shab refutes his own argument. On Sense-Data Again, Shab claims I argued something I didn’t argue, I’ve stated very clearly, twice now, that LP makes sensory experience the "starting point for certainty or truth" which is a flaw because sensory experience is prone to errors. Twice now he tries to distract from that point by claiming that I argued that sensations come “not from the world, but from outside it”, which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with what I actually said. I believe this disingenuous attempt to distract the voter away from my actual point speaks to its validity and we must presume that he doesn’t respond because he doesn’t have a valid response to give. Voters must certainly recognize that sensory experience is indeed “a poor starting point for certainty or truth”, this self evident fact remains unchallenged in the last round, so Shab has conceded this point. He also ends with the statement, “the senses are infallible”, which is an absurd assertion; we all know just how often our senses can be subject to optical illusions, mirages, phantom sounds, emotion, mood, and a host of other things that lead to false perceptions. In fact, throughout this debate Shab has demonstrated how confirmation bias can cause him to misread what I have written providing an example of the fallibility of perception. On Induction In yet another “about face”, Shab begins with “Ayer rejects the problem of induction on positivist grounds” after earlier claiming Ayer didn’t even have insight into what LP is. If it is relevant that Ayer rejects the problem of induction on positivist grounds, then it is certainly relevant that Ayer rejects Logical Positivism because “nearly all of it is false”. Shab's quote effectively concurs with my assertion that LP simply ignores the "Problem of Induction", which is not sound. Historical Refutations Shab attempts another distraction as I did in fact give an argument, it was an “explanation of how Godel's proof demolished LP”, I showed how “Godel's Incompleteness Theorem proved the ideal of LP is impossible”, and it IS his problem because a logically conclusive proof that LP cannot be sound irrefutably defeats his contention that LP is sound. Godel, Carnap, Logical Positivism First of all, Carnap’s recursive omega rule is an infinitary rule of inference, and as such, it cannot apply to LP’s formalization of Science because the physical existence of an actual infinity is logically incoherent, and even if it weren’t, by definition an actual infinity is not observable, even in principle, so it cannot be empirically valid. Shab obviously doesn’t understand his own attempt at an argument because that refuting point is clearly made in the link Shab provided as support. The paragraph he provided states that Carnap’s rule is “inadmissible within the structure of the formal theories of D. Hilbert”, and as we have seen, LP was a failed attempt to extend Hilbert’s formalism to Science, once again Shab provides a self-refuting reply. Second, Shab stated that “Carnap bypassed Godel’s concerns completely” which is simply not true, and even if it were, it is just another distraction as he initially stated that we are debating AJ Ayer’s version of LP, not Carnap’s. My argument clearly demonstrates that Godel’s Theorem undeniably refutes AJ Ayers LP by proving it is not just unsound, but impossible. Consequently, my point remains unchallenged and should be recognized as a valid refutation. On LP's "narrowness" Yet again Shab claims I made an argument that I did not make, he says I asserted that "there are things knowable beyond science and LP's failure to account for them is why it should be rejected". What I said in that section is that there are things knowable within science that LP would reject, much of our leading edge science is theoretically derived through LP rejected methods of inference and induction, one example given is the entire field of quantum physics, the standard model of particle physics is the most confirmed scientific theory of all time and yet, according to the tenets of LP, the standard model should be rejected as meaningless because it is not verifiable by sensory experience. Conclusion I’m not sure what debate Shab is referring to in his conclusion, it certainly isn’t this one. In this debate, Shab accepted the BOP to prove LP was sound, he has not provided the requisite extraordinary argument, his arguments were often self-refuting, others involved out of context quotes of individuals that explicitly claimed LP was false. When I pointed this out he responded with the preposterous claims that AJ Ayer did not understand AJ Ayer’s work and Wittgenstein did not understand Wittgenstein’s work in a failed attempt to give the appearance of an argument. Shab begins with an uninformed appeal to the authority of both Ayer and Wittgenstein and later claims they were not authorities on the subject, two of the many contradictions demonstrating the lack of any logical foundation to his argument. I provided a comprehensive set of logically valid refutations to LP and his responses amounted to series of distractions, misrepresentations, and disingenuous attempts to beg the question. Consequently, almost all of my refutations remain unchallenged and should therefore by accepted as valid. In the end, it should be crystal clear to anyone reading this debate that Shab has not met the BOP to prove that LP is sound, on the contrary, LP was conclusively refuted.