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Jaina view of Life
can be literally significant.18 A metaphysician talks nonsense because he is deceived by grammar. Thus, Logical Positivists, claim that they have completely overthrown speculative philosophy." Philosophy, to them, is only logical analysis; not a theory, but an activity. Its 'function is analysis. Logical clarification of concepts, propositions and theories proper to empirical science. Thus, philosophy is identified with logical syntax, the higher-level discussion of language, and the perennial problems of philosophy are dismissed as nonsense. Philosophy classes are, accordingly, converted into super-grammer classes.
However, Logical Positivism has ceased to become a fashionable philosophy today, because i) its attack on metaphysics has damped the vigour and chastened the style of its remaining adherents, and ii) its approach to language is unnecessarily rigid and doctrinaire. Even Ayer is doubtful about carrying through the programme of phenomenalism" and uneasy about the verification principle.16
Still, the impasse that Logical Positivism has reached is unfortunate, because :
i) The doctrines of Logical Positivism have led to dogmatism and intolerance; so that metaphysical questions are dismissed as unworthy of attention of sensible men.'? Theories like the verification principle, the emotive theory of ethics and logical construction are simply announced as if they formed a part of revelation denied to other philosophers except Hume. 18
ii) Sense experience, as the criterion of truth, has led to solipsism, as it did in the case of the Sophists and Hume.
13. Ayer, (J. A.): Language, Truth and Logic, p. 35. 14. Ayer, (J. A.): Language, Truth and Logic, P, 48. 15. Ayer, (J. A.): Philosophical Essays (1954) No. 142. 16. Ayer, (J.A.): Language, Truth and Logic (1946), Preface to second
edition. 17. Joad (C. E. M.): A Critique of Logical Positivismi, p. 149. 18. Joad (C. E. M.): A Critique of Logical Positivism, p. 29.
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