Positivism in philosophy is one of the directions of thought. It was born in 30-40 years. the century before last, and its founder is Auguste Comte. This direction is widely popular and widespread in the modern era. Below we consider its main forms.
Philosophy of positivism
Key representatives: Comte, Spencer, Mill et al.
According to Comte, the dispute between idealists and materialists is meaningless, since it has no serious grounds. And philosophy is necessary, having left both that, and another, to be based only on scientific (positive) knowledge.
This statement means that:
1. Knowledge must be completely reliable and accurate.
2. To achieve knowledge in philosophy, the scientific method of cognition should be used, the main way to obtain which is empirical observation.
3. Philosophy should study only facts, not their causes, and should not strive to become super-science, the “queen of sciences”, a general theoretical worldview.
In addition, Comte put forward a law on the duality of evolution. He identified 3 stages of technical development (traditional, pre-industrial and industrial society), which corresponded to 3 stages of intellectual development (theological or religious, metaphysical and scientific worldview). However, Comte laid only the foundations of positivism, which were further improved, supplemented and to this day continue to develop thanks to other philosophers.
The philosophy of positivism: empirio-criticism
Key representatives: Mach, Avenarius.
Here the main task of philosophy was not the construction of an all-embracing system of empirical knowledge, but the creation of scientific knowledge in theory. Unlike Comte, representatives of this stage believed that it was necessary to deal not with creating a single picture of our world, but with establishing principles and streamlining phenomena in the minds of researchers.
The very name “empirio-criticism” implies criticism of experience as a given of the world to the knowing subject in the form of statements and statements. This trend of positivism is closely connected with conservatism, according to which general scientific provisions are a conditional product of the agreement.
The philosophy of positivism: neopositivism
Key representatives: Carnap, Bertrand, Schlick, Russell.
Another name for this stage is logical positivism. Its founders proclaimed as their goal the struggle against a metaphysical worldview. They saw the initial premises of true knowledge in facts and events, that is, “sensory data”. The concept of "objectivity" has been replaced by the concept of "scientific" as an identity. It was this stage of the development of positivism that laid the foundation for a logic that studies complex statements that can be either false, or true, or meaningless.
The subject of neo-positivist analysis was the meaning of signs and words in general, that is, linguistic, logical, psychological problems that had important practical and scientific value in the process of creating computing devices.
The philosophy of positivism: postpositivism
The main representatives: Lakatosh, Kun, Popper, Fireworks.
Postpositivism refers to many concepts that appeared after the teachings of Comte, empirio-criticism and neopositivism. Representatives of this stage paid special attention to the rational method of cognition.
So, according to Popper, an increase in knowledge can be achieved only in the process of rational discussion as an invariable criticism of the existing worldview. He also argued that scientists make discoveries, following not from fact to theory, but from hypothesis to a single utterance.
Positivism as a philosophical movement had a significant impact on the methodology of both the social and natural sciences (especially in the second half of the century before last).
