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Engineering Philosophy of Science: American Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism in the 1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alan W. Richardson
Alan W. Richardson*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
*
Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, 1866 Main Mall–E370, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada.
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Abstract

This essay examines logical empiricism and American pragmatism, arguing that American philosophy's embrace of logical empiricism in the 1930s was not a turning away from Dewey's pragmatism. It places both movements within scientific philosophy and finds two key points on which they agreed: their revolutionary ambitions and their social engineering sensibility. The essay suggests that the disagreement over emotivism in ethics should be placed within the context of a larger issue on which the movements disagreed: demarcationism and imperialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue S3 , September 2002 , pp. S36 - S47
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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