An Examination of the Factors responsible for the Decline of Logical Positivism in the History of Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Logical Positivism and the proposal of reductionism as a criterion for scientific methodology and demarcation criterion, both which appeared around a century ago, no longer boast of followership. At the mention of this Movement and the ideal that they initiated, the prongs of Karl Popper and William Van Orman Quine are usually erected as causal factors. Even when the objections of these minds are taken as cardinal, this study makes a further push by highlighting that other factors outside these are even more colossal. An idea may lack intellectual balance but this does not make it necessarily worthless. It may require modification and redress in the face of criticisms. This opportunity was not afforded to Logical Positivism and reductionism owing to the commencement of the WW II which led to the dispersal of its members. It is for this reason that this inquiry attests to the fact among other competing factors leading to the vitiation of the reductionism and Logical Positivism, the scourge of WW II is a foremost cause for disintegration but not necessarily the criticisms.