positivism

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English - English
A school of thought in jurisprudence in which the law is seen as separated from moral values, i.e. the law is posited by lawmakers (humans)
A doctrine that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method, refusing every form of metaphysics
Practical spirit, sense of reality, concreteness
the view that only analytic and synthetic propositions are meaningful
{i} positiveness, definiteness; philosophical viewpoint that concentrates on definite fact and avoids speculation (founded by Auguste Comte)
Belief that natural science, based on observation, comprises the whole of human knowledge Positivists like Auguste Comte, then, reject as meaningless the claims of theology and metaphysics The most influential twentieth-century version is logical positivism Recommended Reading: Auguste Comte, The Positive Philosophy (AMS, 1987) {at Amazon com}; A J Ayer, Logical Positivism (Free Press, 1966) {at Amazon com}; and Jonathan H Turner, Classical Sociological Theory: A Positivist's Perspective (Burnham, 1993) {at Amazon com} Also see OCP, BGHT, ColE, ISM, OCDL, noesis, and MacE
a quality or state characterized by certainty or acceptance or affirmation
The philosophy that we should admit as knowledge only that about which we can be absolutely certain, that is, what is immediately graspable or empirical
A doctrine taught by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) It holds that man's knowledge of all subjects passes through three stages (theological, metaphysical and positive) Contemporary positivism seeks to apply the experimental methods of the natural sciences (q v ) to the study of the problems of human action (q v ) The maxim of positivists is that science is measurement HA 4,17-18,26,31,56; TH 240-50, 285; UF 36-39, 48-49, 54, 63, 116, 118-20, 122-23
Positivism is a philosophy which accepts only things that can be seen or proved. + positivist positivists posi·tiv·ist By far the most popular idea is the positivist one that we should keep only the facts. a type of philosophy based only on facts which can be scientifically proved, rather than on ideas. Any philosophical system that confines itself to the data of experience, excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations, and emphasizes the achievements of science. Positivism is closely connected with empiricism, pragmatism, and logical positivism. More narrowly, the term designates the philosophy of Auguste Comte, who held that human thought had passed inevitably through a theological stage into a metaphysical stage and was passing into a positive, or scientific, stage. Believing that the religious impulse would survive the decay of revealed religion, he projected a worship of mankind, with churches, calendar, and hierarchy
In criminology, 'positivism' has two meanings (1) Specifically, it refers to the evolutionary assumptions and scientific methods of the 'positivist school' of criminology (2) More generally, it is used to characterize all approaches to criminology that are primarily concerned with questions of etiology, and which believe that social phenomena can and should be explained in the manner of the natural sciences And the origins of the term? Talk to Comte
A philosophical approach to research, adopting 'scientific' and rigerous methods The approach is influenced by the researcher's ontological and epistemological positions, in other words, their views on reality and the independence of the researcher in relation to knowledge
Generally, the view that philosophy and science are one, exhaust genuine knowledge, and provide the only available key to rational social action Varieties of positivism flourished on the Continent during the nineteenth century, some stressing political activity The Vienna Circle (1920's) consisted of physicists, philosophers, and logicians, and propounded a logical positivism, or logical empiricism (which see) Carnap, among others, came from this group
Such relations are denominated laws, which are to be discovered by observation, experiment, and comparison
the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation)
a philosophical school which models itself on empirical science and shows no grasp of what dialectical philosophers mean by negation or the negative Positivism rejects trying to understand things in relation to the dialectics of world history, and instead tries to know things bit by bit
It excludes from philosophy everything but the natural phenomena or properties of knowable things, together with their invariable relations of coexistence and succession, as occurring in time and space
Philosophical movement of the second half of the XIX century, that refused every form of metaphysics and put scientific data as the only foundation of knowledge. "Logic positivism", "neopositivism"
Theory that international law is the voluntary creation of sovereign states
A widespread trend in bourgeois philosophy and sociology, founded by Comte (1798-1857), a French philosopher and sociologist The positivists deny the possibility of knowing inner regularities and relations and deny the significance of philosophy as a method of knowing and changing the objective world They reduce philosophy to a summary of the data provided by the various branches of science and to a superficial description of the results of direct observation -- i e , to "positive" facts Positivism considers itself to be "above" both materialism and idealism but it is actually nothing more than a variety of subjective idealism Positivism claims to be neutral and above philosophical outlooks, interested in processes but not willing to go beyond the boundaries of the status quo In effect they confirm the maintenance of existing social structures
belief that only those objects or events that can be experienced directly should be the object of scientific inquiry The positivist actively avoids metaphysical speculations; cf Phenomenology
the form of positivism that is most relevant to postmodernism is the positivism of the early twentieth century which is often called "logical positivism" but also includes other branches of positivism A positivist theory is one that defines its terms precisely and tries to invent ways to talk and think that don't get lost in obscurities in the hopes of discovering a more powerful and accurate language calculus Traditional social science research, with random samples, operationally defined variables, and statistical analysis, is positivist Early Wittgenstein was a positivist Later Wittgenstein was a postpositivist
Auguste Comte, which deals only with positives
A legal school of thought in jurisprudence in which the law is seen to been separated from moral values - i.e. The law is posited by law makers (humans). See
n A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer
a quality or state characterized by certainty or acceptance or affirmation the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation)
The philosophy that teaches that the only reality is that which is perceived by the senses; the only truth is that which is empirically verified It asserts that ideas about God, morality, or anything else that cannot be scientifically tested are to be rejected as unknowable
A system of philosophy originated by M
This philosophy holds all inquiry into causes, both efficient and final, to be useless and unprofitable
legal positivism
A school of thought in jurisprudence in which the law is seen as separated from moral values, i.e. the law is posited by human lawmakers
logical positivism
The name adopted by the Vienna Circle (including Rudolf Carnap and Alfred Ayer) for their philosophical position, most famous for introducing the verification principle as a criterion for meaning of synthetic propositions, and for dismissing metaphysics as meaningless
logical positivism
A philosophy asserting the primacy of observation in assessing the truth of statements of fact and holding that metaphysical and subjective arguments not based on observable data are meaningless. Also called logical empiricism. Early school of analytic philosophy, inspired by David Hume, the mathematical logic of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, and Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1921). The school, formally instituted at the University of Vienna in a seminar of Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) in 1922, continued there as the Vienna Circle until 1938. It proposed several revolutionary theses: (1) All meaningful discourse consists either of (a) the formal sentences of logic and mathematics or (b) the factual propositions of the special sciences; (2) Any assertion that claims to be factual has meaning only if it is possible to say how it might be verified; (3) Metaphysical assertions, including the pronouncements of religion, belong to neither of the two classes of (1) and are therefore meaningless. Some logical positivists, notably A.J. Ayer, held that assertions in ethics (e.g., "It is wrong to steal") do not function logically as statements of fact but only as expressions of the speaker's feelings of approval or disapproval toward some action. See also Rudolf Carnap; emotivism; verifiability principle
logical positivism
the philosophical school of thought associated with Carnap and Ayer that claims only analytic and synthetic statements are meaningful and that because metaphysical and ethical statements are neither, the latter are meaningless
logical positivism
Says its language is meaningless
logical positivism
Twentieth-century philosophical movement that is known for its determination to police assertive statements in order to reject as meaningless non-empirical statements that can not be verified This means that logical positivism rejects all statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics and aesthetics as nonsense The philosophy is represented by the work of Bertrand Russell, (early but not late) Ludwig Wittgensein, A J Ayer and the members of the Vienna Circle
logical positivism
a general philosophical position, also called logical empiricism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle on the basis of traditional empirical thought and the development of modern logic Logical positivism confined knowledge to science and used verificationism to reject metaphysics not as false but as meaningless The importance of science led leading logical positivists to study scientific method and to explore the logic of confirmation theory
logical positivism
The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which any purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to conform or deny it
logical positivism
system of philosophy based on experience and empirical knowledge of natural phenomena, in which metaphysics and theology are regarded as inadequate and imperfect systems of knowledge See also Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann, Russell, Bertrand, and Analytic and Linguistic Philosophy
positivist
Relating to positivism
positivist
someone who emphasizes observable facts and excludes metaphysical speculation about origins or ultimate causes
positivist
someone who emphasizes observable facts and excludes metaphysical speculation about origins or ultimate causes of or relating to positivism; "positivist thinkers"; "positivist doctrine"; "positive philosophy
positivist
{i} advocate of positivism (philosophical viewpoint founded by Auguste Comte that concentrates on definite fact and avoids speculation)
positivist
of or relating to positivism; "positivist thinkers"; "positivist doctrine"; "positive philosophy"
positivist
A believer in positivism
positivism

    Hyphenation

    pos·i·ti·vi·sm

    Turkish pronunciation

    päzıtîvîzım

    Pronunciation

    /ˈpäzətəˌvəzəm/ /ˈpɑːzətɪˌvɪzəm/

    Etymology

    () From the french word positivisme, derived from positif (positive).
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