Logický pozitivizmus a jeho chápanie vývoja vedy
Logical Positivism and Its View of Scientific Progress

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze logical positivism view and understanding of scientific progress with emphasis on its inductivism and cumulativism. One of the resources of this view was Mach’s empiriocriticism. In the positivists view, the progress of science consists in the accumulation of observations, on the one hand, and cumulative growth of theories, on the other hand. The new theory includes the old theory (plus something). Thus the growth of science essentially exhibits continuity. On the ground of empirical basis (pure observations or facts) positivists were able to build up their theory of scientific progress based on cumulative amount of observations which are theory free. Consequently, the scientific progress is purely quantitative, continuous and linear process. The main problem is with unhistorical and absolutist understanding of verification which is including in this kind of cumulativist approach.

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