“The logical positivists wished to
eschew metaphysics, to escape transcendence, to leave behind forever the tyranny
of an immaterial world of ideas. And so they devised a rigid criterion of
knowledge: you cannot know anything you cannot empirically verify.
Suddenly, time-honored and venerable disciplines, such as history, ethics, and
theology, found themselves unwelcome guests at the table of scientific
discourse. Even mathematics itself felt its foundations shaken. But with little
delay, logic came to its own rescue! The logical positivists' criterion did not
meet its own demand: logical positivism is self-refuting. In short order, it
became an amusing relic in the annals of undergraduate philosophy.”
~ Science Is
as Science Does by Benjamin C. Richards