The Heritage of the Vienna Circle

Abstract

This article presents a criticism of the widespread assumption that the programme of the vienna circle has been proven to be unrealizable and, therefore, that it is today quite uninteresting and to be entirely abandoned. the basic aim of logical positivists was to raise philosophy to the rigour and high standards of contemporary science. it must be admitted that they were unsuccessful in their attempts to eliminate old-fashioned and conservative philosophy by proving it to be senseless. there is in fact no clear-cut formal procedure to distinguish scientific philosophy from metaphysics. nevertheless, the vienna circle established its aim in a rather unusual, roundabout way. its method of dealing with various concrete problems gave a picture of what scientific philosophy should be like. two main features of its method were first, logical precision and clarity in thinking, and second, sticking to facts regardless of our emotional attitude towards them. this was a major turning point in philosophy representing a break with its tradition of irrationalism and sentimentalism.