Logical positivism and
logical empiricism, which together formed
neopositivism, was a movement in
Western philosophy that embraced
verificationism, an approach that sought to legitimize philosophical discourse on a basis shared with the best examples of
empirical sciences. In this
theory of knowledge, only statements verifiable either logically or empirically would be
cognitively meaningful. Efforts to convert philosophy to this new
scientific philosophy were intended to prevent confusion rooted in unclear language and unverifiable claims. The
Berlin Circle and the
Vienna Circle propounded logical positivism starting in the late 1920s.