Comments on: Quote of the day: the philosophy of physics http://movementarian.com/2006/12/22/quote-of-the-day-the-philosophy-of-physics/ 100% Natural Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:51:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Mean Gene the Machine http://movementarian.com/2006/12/22/quote-of-the-day-the-philosophy-of-physics/comment-page-1/#comment-1395 Mean Gene the Machine Sat, 06 Jan 2007 02:43:48 +0000 http://movementarian.com/2006/12/22/quote-of-the-day-the-philosophy-of-physics/#comment-1395 Deutsch is a bit confused. Solipsism is the view that only the existence of the self can be verified. Deutsch is making one of two claims: (1)Positivists were solipsists. (2)Positivists should have been solipsists, given their beliefs. (1) is simply false. (2) is true only if positivists assumed that dualism is true. But if positivists that assumed dualism is true then they wouldn't have been positivists. So positivists did not assume that dualism is true. Therefore (2) is false. I think Deutsch is confuting methodological solipsism (like that of Carnap) for and solipsism per se. In any case, I don't understand why Austrians keep bringing up logical positivism. They are beating a dead horse. No philosopher (that I know of) defends the verifiability criterion of meaning. Perhaps they do this because it leads attention away from the fact that hardly any modern epistemological doctrine takes the vague, messy, and unjustified proposals of Kantianism seriously. Deutsch is a bit confused. Solipsism is the view that only the existence of the self can be verified. Deutsch is making one of two claims:

(1)Positivists were solipsists.
(2)Positivists should have been solipsists, given their beliefs.

(1) is simply false. (2) is true only if positivists assumed that dualism is true. But if positivists that assumed dualism is true then they wouldn’t have been positivists. So positivists did not assume that dualism is true. Therefore (2) is false.

I think Deutsch is confuting methodological solipsism (like that of Carnap) for and solipsism per se.

In any case, I don’t understand why Austrians keep bringing up logical positivism. They are beating a dead horse. No philosopher (that I know of) defends the verifiability criterion of meaning. Perhaps they do this because it leads attention away from the fact that hardly any modern epistemological doctrine takes the vague, messy, and unjustified proposals of Kantianism seriously.

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