Falsification and Scientific Method

Abstract

The Vienna Circle was disbanded by the end of the 1930s. It left behind a number of important philosophical writings outlining revolutionary and powerful doctrines. It had also acquired a firm hold over the imagination of certain groups of philosophers, who viewed it either as a paragon of unblinking scientific rigour or as a stultifying cult of literalness. The impact of both the writings and the reputation was felt in many branches of philosophy, including the study of language, for decades to come. The end of the Vienna Circle was brought about by outside events and pressures rather than by any natural completion or culmination of its work, but it had nevertheless already outlived its best-known doctrine. Partly through the efforts of its defenders and advocates such as A. J. Ayer, the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle was viewed by many as more or less synonymous with the principle of verification. But throughout the 1930s a number of problems for verification had been identified both by members of the Circle and by outside commentators on it. Individual members of the Circle were attempting to respond to, and perhaps to accommodate, these problems. As a result different factions were emerging in what had initially been a unified movement. But all were then beset by what is now often regarded as the final and most compelling challenge to verification: Popper’s exposition of his criterion of falsifiability.