A Refutation of Positivism in Philosophy of Mind: Thinking, Reality, and Language

Positivism is fundamentally unsuited for the human sciences, as it fails to account for causality and reduces language and cognition to caricatures of themselves. This book presents a causal theory of meaning that links language with cognition and solves the question of what meaning actually amounts to.

Format: Hardback
Length: 170 pages
Publication date: 05 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book makes a compelling argument that positivism, currently the dominant paradigm in both the natural and human sciences, is fundamentally unsuitable for the latter. In particular, it is found to be detrimental to linguistics and cognitive science, as it fails to account for causality, a crucial aspect of understanding the mind, which is the primary focus of research in the human sciences. Author Pieter Albertus Maria Seuren, who tragically passed away shortly after completing this manuscript, delves into the history of this issue since the seventeenth century. He focuses on influential figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, British Empiricism, and Kant, arguing that neither cognition nor language can be fully understood unless the mind is given its due importance. This necessitates a distinction between actual and virtual reality, with the latter being a product of the causally active mind and a vital component for establishing mental models. Mental models are coherent sets of propositions that can be either true or false.

Positivism, however, rules out mental models, preventing any meaningful semantics and ultimately reducing language and cognition to mere caricatures of themselves. Seuren presents a causal theory of meaning, which establishes a connection between language and cognition, thereby resolving the longstanding question of what meaning truly entails.

This book offers a profound reassessment of the methodology employed in the humanities. It makes a distinctive contribution to the conceptual foundations of linguistics and philosophy of mind. By exploring the philosophical and historical origins of central developments in the human sciences, Seuren provides readers with a deeper understanding of the field. This book is a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, and students interested in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and the history of ideas.

Weight: 396g
Dimension: 157 x 235 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032493688