Thursday 6 May 2010

The Vienna Circle/ logical positivism

A lot of heavy concepts to grasp, especially after the Easter break, when most people have let their minds lapse into laziness. However one thing in particular interested me the most, which was the 'law of non contradiction', which is the law of logic which states that something cannot be and not be at the same time. Confusing stuff. Upon researching this concept I discovered some stuff not discussed in the lecture, which I think may be relevant, so I will disclose this to you now. There are another two laws closely associated with this: the law of bivalence, which says something is either true or false, whereas the law of the excluded middle is similar but states that if something isn't true then its opposite is, this law can also be logical or in semantic form. Three laws which seem very similar, however they dictate the form of an answer, I can see how this relates to journalism as it focuses on the validity of a statement, which is what journalism does, and what we as journalists have to do.
Aristotle's argument on this subject is interesting, however I disagree, he stated that if we did not consider the law of non contradiction that we would not be able to distinguish differences, but I find this to be a little condescending, as everything has some form of duality, white and dark, life and death, surely through natural observation this can be learnt, I think the law of non contradictions is more suited to a form of arguments or debate, not something as simple as distinguishing the difference between a metal table or a wooden one.

It is also important to note that this subject is closely associated with religion, which is what accompanied it in my numerous Internet searches on the subject.

1 comment:

Chris Horrie said...

Good stuff - it is a shame that on this crowded course we do not have time to do a mini course on formal logic as the lack of logical thinking in the world even by educated people leading to an inability to really frame problems and define possible answers is astounding these days.