From Wittgenstein to Quine: The rise and fall of logical positivism in early twentieth century analytic philosophy (Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. Quine)

This is my master's thesis. It is a work in the history of twentieth century philosophy of language. In it I examine a tradition of logical empiricism that began in Cambridge in the work of Wittgenstein and Russell before becoming the dominant approach to philosophy in the early to mid twentieth century. Beginning with Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, I trace the rise of logical positivism. Identifying the two central theses of positivism and their origin in the work of Wittgenstein and Russell, I examine the two so-called dogmas of empiricism associated with this form of logical empiricism. In the closing sections I examine Quine's attempt to reconstruct a holistic form of logical empiricism.