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'''Logical positivism''', later called '''logical empiricism''', and both of which together are also known as '''neopositivism''', was a movement in [[Western philosophy]] whose central thesis was the [[verificationism|verification principle]] (also known as the verifiability criterion of meaning){{citation needed}}. Also called verificationism{{citation needed}}, this would-be [[epistemology|theory of knowledge]] asserted that only statements verifiable through direct observation or [[deductive logic|logical proof]] are meaningful. Starting in the late 1920s, groups of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians formed the [[Berlin Circle (philosophy)|Berlin Circle]] and the [[Vienna Circle]], which, in these two cities, would propound the ideas of logical positivism.
Flourishing in several European centers through the 1930s, the movement sought to prevent confusion rooted in unclear language and unverifiable claims by converting philosophy into "scientific philosophy", which, according to the logical positivists, ought to share the bases and structures of [[empirical sciences]]' best examples, such as Albert Einstein's [[general theory of relativity]].<ref name=Friedman-pxiv/> Despite its ambition to overhaul philosophy by studying and mimicking the extant conduct of empirical science, logical positivism became erroneously stereotyped as a movement to regulate the scientific process and to place strict standards on it.<ref name=Friedman-pxiv/>
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