Logical Empiricism as Scientific Philosophy

The primary philosophical project of logical empiricism was securing the strictly scientific status of philosophy.

This Element argues that while logical empiricism was committed to empiricism and did become tied to the trajectory of analytic philosophy, neither empiricism nor logical analysis per se was the deepest philosophical commitment of logical empiricism.This Element offers a new account of the philosophical significance of logical empiricism that relies on the past forty years of literature reassessing the project. It argues that while logical empiricism was committed to empiricism and did become tied to the trajectory of analytic philosophy, neither empiricism nor logical analysis per se was the deepest philosophical commitment of logical empiricism. That commitment was, rather, securing the scientific status of philosophy, bringing philosophy into a scientific conception of the world.