Positivism and the "Enlightenment"

Positivism was introduced by Auguste Comte at the beginning of the 19th Century. His intention was to address what he saw as the intolerance, prejudice,  of the dominant worldview of that time.


This period is labelled the "enlightenment"






Key Ideas of the Enlightenment

  

Individualism - The individual is the starting point for all knowledge and action, and individual reason cannot be subjected to a higher authority (such as God or the Church).

Rationalism - Reason, or the process of rational thought, independent of experience, is innate within the human mind and is the only basis for organizing knowledge.

Empiricism - The only valid way to gain knowledge about the world is through observation or sensory experience.

Scientific Method - Science allows us to order observable facts and to discover the laws that govern them.

Progress - Knowledge gained by scientific methods can be used to explain or predict events, resulting in the improvement of the human condition.

Universalism - Scientific methods for acquiring objective knowledge are universal so they can be applied to all spheres of endeavour.

  The Main Characteristics of Positivism

1) Positivism is based on phenomenalism, which assumes that every phenomenon in the world has an independent existence, or "essence", which remains constant and can be observed.
(Assigns an object/machine like fixed identity to everything - people too, denies a level of Union and Freedom of Identification)

2) Positivism assumes that every phenomenon is governed by laws that a detached investigator using appropriate methods may discover.
(Assumes an observer can be detached (see observable quantum effects))

3) The knowledge discovered using these methods is believed to be objective and factual.
(Inducing from certain measurable examples a good idea?)

4) Positivism claims that once knowledge is gained it can be used to explain events, make predictions about future events, and control phenomena in ways that will be advantageous to the controllers.
(Who are the controllers?)

5) Positivist research is organized around the principles of verifiability or falsifiability (Popper).

6) Positivism makes a very rigid distinction between fact and value and portrays itself as neutral, objective or value-free.

(There is always a value jusgement when choosing hypothesis and criteria to judge hypothesis) (see Maxwell)

(Strange then that it is called "Positivism" which seems to assume an absolute "value")

7) The positivist or scientific method aims to build theories by incorporating different levels of classification.

8) Positivists believe in the essential unity of the scientific method, that the methods for acquiring knowledge are the same in all spheres of experience.

(Adapted from   (MRes :Lecture Notes) Kathleen Watt )

Also

9) Positivism assumes that value is inherent in the object