Positivism: Positivism, in Western Philosophy, Generally, Any System That Confines

Positivism
philosophy
Positivism, in Western philosophy, generally, any system that confines

itself to the data of experience and excludes a
priori or metaphysical speculations. More narrowly, the term designates
the thought of the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857).
As a philosophical ideology and movement, positivism first assumed its

distinctive features in the work of Comte, who also named and systematized
the science of sociology. It then developed through several stages known by
various names, such as empiriocriticism, logical positivism, and
logical empiricism, finally merging, in the mid-20th century, into the
already existing tradition known as analytic philosophy.
The basic affirmations of positivism are (1) that all knowledge regarding

matters of fact is based on the “positive” data of experience and (2) that
beyond the realm of fact is that of pure logic and pure mathematics. Those
two disciplines were already recognized by the 18th-century Scottish
empiricist and skeptic David Hume as concerned merely with the “relations
of ideas,” and, in a later phase of positivism, they were classified as purely
formal sciences. On the negative and critical side, the positivists became
noted for their repudiation of metaphysics—i.e., of speculation regarding
the nature of reality that radically goes beyond any possible evidence that
could either support or refute such “transcendent” knowledge claims. In its
basic ideological posture, positivism is thus worldly, secular,
antitheological, and antimetaphysical. Strict adherence to the testimony of
observation and experience is the all-important imperative of positivism.
That imperative was reflected also in the contributions by positivists
to ethics and moral philosophy, which were generally utilitarian to the
extent that something like “the greatest happiness for the greatest number
of people” was their ethical maxim. It is notable, in this connection, that
Comte was the founder of a short-lived religion, in which the object of
worship was not the deity of the monotheistic faiths but humanity.
David Hume
David Hume, oil on canvas by Allan Ramsay, 1766; in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
Fine Art Images—Heritage Images/age fotostock
There are distinct anticipations of positivism in ancient philosophy.

Although the relationship of Protagoras—a 5th-century-BCE Sophist—for
example, to later positivistic thought was only a distant one, there was a
much more pronounced similarity in the classical skeptic Sextus Empiricus,
who lived at the turn of the 3rd century CE, and in Pierre Bayle, his 17th-
century reviver. Moreover, the medieval nominalist William of Ockham had
clear affinities with modern positivism. An 18th-century forerunner who
had much in common with the positivistic antimetaphysics of the following
century was the German thinker Georg Lichtenberg.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, statue in Göttingen, Germany.
Daniel Schwen
The proximate roots of positivism, however, clearly lie in the
French Enlightenment, which stressed the clear light of reason, and in
18th-century British empiricism, particularly that of Hume and of
Bishop George Berkeley, which stressed the role of sense experience. Comte
was influenced specifically by the Enlightenment Encyclopaedists (such
as Denis Diderot, Jean d’Alembert, and others) and, especially in his social
thinking, was decisively influenced by the founder of
French socialism, Claude-Henri, comte de Saint-Simon, whose disciple he
had been in his early years and from whom the
very designation positivism stems.
The Social Positivism Of Comte And Mill
Comte’s positivism was posited on the assertion of a so-called law of the

three phases (or stages) of intellectual development. There is a parallel, as
Comte saw it, between the evolution of thought patterns in the
entire history of humankind, on the one hand, and in the history of an
individual’s development from infancy to adulthood, on the other. In the
first, or so-called theological, stage, natural phenomena are explained as
the results of supernatural or divine powers. It matters not whether
the religion is polytheistic or monotheistic; in either case, miraculous
powers or wills are believed to produce the observed events. This stage was
criticized by Comte as anthropomorphic—i.e., as resting on all-too-
human analogies. Generally, animistic explanations—made in terms of the
volitions of soul-like beings operating behind the appearances—are rejected
as primitive projections of unverifiable entities.
Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte, drawing by Tony Toullion, 19th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. H. Roger-Viollet
The second phase, called metaphysical, is in some cases merely a
depersonalized theology: the observable processes of nature are assumed to
arise from impersonal powers, occult qualities, vital forces,
or entelechies (internal perfecting principles). In other instances, the realm
of observable facts is considered as an imperfect copy or imitation of
eternal ideas, as in Plato’s metaphysics of pure forms. Again, Comte
charged that no genuine explanations result; questions concerning ultimate
reality, first causes, or absolute beginnings are thus declared to be
absolutely unanswerable. The metaphysical quest can lead only to the
conclusion expressed by the German biologist and physiologist Emil du
Bois-Reymond: “Ignoramus et ignorabimus” (Latin: “We are and shall be
ignorant”). It is a deception through verbal devices and the fruitless
rendering of concepts as real things.
The sort of fruitfulness that it lacks can be achieved only in the third phase,
the scientific, or “positive,” phase—hence the title of Comte’s magnum
opus: Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42)—because it claims to be
concerned only with positive facts. The task of the sciences, and of
knowledge in general, is to study the facts and regularities of nature and
society and to formulate the regularities as (descriptive) laws; explanations
of phenomena can consist in no more than the subsuming of special cases
under general laws. Humankind reached full maturity of thought only after
abandoning the pseudoexplanations of the theological and metaphysical
phases and substituting an unrestricted adherence to scientific method.
In his three stages Comte combined what he considered to be an account of

the historical order of development with a logical analysis of the leveled
structure of the sciences. By arranging the six basic and pure sciences one
upon the other in a pyramid, Comte prepared the way for logical positivism
to “reduce” each level to the one below it. He placed at the fundamental
level the science that does not presuppose any other sciences—viz.,
mathematics—and then ordered the levels above it in such a way that each
science depends upon, and makes use of, the sciences below it on the scale:
thus, arithmetic and the theory of numbers are declared to be
presuppositions
for geometry and mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology (inclu
ding physiology), and sociology. Each higher-level science, in turn, adds to
the knowledge content of the science or sciences on the levels below, thus
enriching this content by successive specialization. Psychology, which was
not founded as a formal discipline until the late 19th century, was not
included in Comte’s system of the sciences. Anticipating some ideas of
20th-century behaviourism and physicalism, Comte assumed that
psychology, such as it was in his day, should become a branch of biology
(especially of brain neurophysiology), on the one hand, and of sociology, on
the other. As the “father” of sociology, Comte maintained that the social
sciences should proceed from observations to general laws, very much as
(in his view) physics and chemistry do. He was skeptical of introspection in
psychology, being convinced that in attending to one’s own mental states,
these states would be irretrievably altered and distorted. In thus insisting
on the necessity of objective observation, he was close to the basic principle
of the methodology of 20th-century behaviourism.
Among Comte’s disciples or sympathizers were Cesare Lombroso, an

Italian psychiatrist and criminologist, and Paul-Emile Littré, J.-E. Renan,
and Louis Weber.
Despite some basic disagreements with Comte, the 19th-century English

philosopher John Stuart Mill, also a logician and economist, must be
regarded as one of the outstanding positivists of his century. In his System
of Logic (1843), he developed a thoroughly empiricist theory of
knowledge and of scientific reasoning, going even so far as to regard logic
and mathematics as empirical (though very general) sciences. The
broadly synthetic philosopher Herbert Spencer, author of a doctrine of the
“unknowable” and of a general evolutionary philosophy, was, next to Mill,
an outstanding exponent of a positivistic orientation.
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill, 1884.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Neg. Co. LC-USZ62-76491)

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Positivism

Positivism, in Western philosophy, generally, any system that confines

As a philosophical ideology and movement, positivism first assumed its

The basic affirmations of positivism are (1) that all knowledge regarding

There are distinct anticipations of positivism in ancient philosophy.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

The Social Positivism Of Comte And Mill

Comte’s positivism was posited on the assertion of a so-called law of the

In his three stages Comte combined what he considered to be an account of

Among Comte’s disciples or sympathizers were Cesare Lombroso, an

Despite some basic disagreements with Comte, the 19th-century English

John Stuart Mill

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