11 Facts About Positivism

Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning a posteriori facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.

Positivism was nevertheless influential: Brazilian thinkers turned to Comte's ideas about training a scientific elite in order to flourish in the industrialization process.

Positivism established the Cercle des proletaires positivistes in 1863 which was affiliated to the First International.

Positivism wrote: "Positivism is not only a philosophical doctrine, it is a political party which claims to reconcile order—the necessary basis for all social activity—with Progress, which is its goal.

Positivism developed the notion of objective sui generis "social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study.

Positivism's lifework was fundamental in the establishment of practical social research as we know it today—techniques which continue beyond sociology and form the methodological basis of other social sciences, such as political science, as well of market research and other fields.

Positivism reprised Vico's argument that scientific explanations do not reach the inner nature of phenomena and it is humanistic knowledge that gives us insight into thoughts, feelings and desires.

Positivism argued that it is not simply individual theories but whole worldviews that must occasionally shift in response to evidence.

Positivism ignored the role of the 'observer' in the constitution of social reality and thereby failed to consider the historical and social conditions affecting the representation of social ideas.

Positivism falsely represented the object of study by reifying social reality as existing objectively and independently of the labour that actually produced those conditions.

Positivism fails to prove that there are not abstract ideas, laws, and principles, beyond particular observable facts and relationships and necessary principles, or that we cannot know them.