The

Demise of
Positivism

Positivism

An allegory for the

fate of positivism

During the
Russian
Revolution, the
received
account is
that the Czar
and all his
family died
after being
taken prisoner.

But rumors persisted

that Princess Anastasia
survived and lived to a
ripe age in hiding.

Presumably she
changed her name, but
those close to her
would have known her
true identity.
Once a Romanov,
always a Romanov.

The Parallelism.

It has been claimed by many that a

philosophical assumption, POSITIVISM,
was dominant during the second half of
the 19th century.
However, it was believed to have a
destructive influence on the conceptions of
nature of science. As a result, many
researchers in education and social
sciences were in turn influenced by this
erroneous view of science.

Luckily, however, positivism eventually

sickened and died.

But rumors persisted about the

positivisms continued healthy
existence.
Just like the Romanovs, although, many
have died, one might have survived
but found it healthier to change
identity

Before we proceed
just some
clarifications

What is a
philosophical
assumption?

All theories and

researches are based on
some underlying
assumptions about
reality.
Provides the framework for which man
can understand the world.
Provides the premises by which man can
discover truth.

Philosophical Assumptions
Ontological Assumption What
is the nature of reality? Is reality
singular or multiple?
Epistemological Assumption
What counts as knowledge?
Where does knowledge reside?

Axiological Assumption
What is the role of values?
What is the place of value?

Methodological Assumption
How knowledge is arrived at
Means of knowing

What
is positivism?

Labels of
of Positivism

1.Comtean-type
positivism

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is the

founding father of sociology and has
been known for the scientific worldview
and philosophy he called positivism

- Comte believed that scientific

method could be applied to
human affairs, including the study
of morals
He tried to explain the history of society
by using scientific methods and found a
common denominator among the
sciences, which he called the law of
three phases.

Theological or
Fictitious Stage

At this phase people use myth and

supernatural entities, such as gods, angels
and souls to explain and understand natural
phenomena.

Metaphysical or
Abstract Stage
Although at this point events are still
explained by unseen forces, they are no
longer anthropomorphized as gods and take
more abstract or philosophical forms, such
as Aristotle's concepts of essences or the
existence of hidden purposes in all things.

Scientific or
Positive Stage
At this point, there is no recourse to invisible
entities or hidden structures. They are
replaced by acute observation of facts and
cause and effects with precise mathematical
principles, all of which end up giving
humanity control over predicting and
eventually manipulating nature and society.

- Comte argued that sciences focus on observable,

objectively determinable phenomena
- He regarded all sciences as being related, and as
forming a sequence that has developed
historically from mathematics, through
astronomy, the physical and then the biological
sciences to sociology

In the scientific stage, the scientist is in

power and creates what Comte called
sociology, a study of society that is based
on scientific facts and precise descriptions
and theories. Both superstition and religion
are said to give way to a rational and
naturalistic approach to the world, a kind of
scientific religion of (and for) humanity.

"Foresight of phenomenon and

power over them depend on
knowledge of their sequences,
and not upon any notion we may
have formed respecting their
origin or inmost nature."
John Stuart Mill (Auguste Comte
and Positivism)

2. Logical positivism (or consistent

empiricism or logical empiricism)
- Developed in Austria and Germany in the 1920s
(but base of the movement is in Vienna)
- Members of the Vienna Circle came from
different scientific backgrounds

- Was never marked by unanimity of opinion

there were many active but friendly
disagreements

A. Marked by a great hostility

towards metaphysics

Logical positivists
wanted to expunge
metaphysics from
science

B. Adopted the
verifiability principle of
meaning.

Something is meaningful if and only if it is

verifiable empirically by observation via the
senses.
A statement which cannot be verified is held
to be automatically invalid and meaningless.

C. What will count as a

satisfactory verification?

Verification had to be in terms of simple,

rock-bottom, elementary, direct and
indubitable descriptions of sense experience.

D. Logical positivists were

not realists with respect
to the status of
theoretical entities
Subatomic theories (protons, electrons or
quarks

Laws of nature
Universal generalization of the form all X are
Y (its impossible to check on all members of
the class X)

Many of the logical

positivists were led to
take a non-realist stand

several became instrumentalists (the view

that a concept or theory should be evaluated
by how effectively it explains and predicts
phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it
describes objective reality)

3. Behaviorism
-Behaviorists favored
operationalism and have been
hostile to abstract theorizing in
the sciences
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a
purely objective experimental branch of
natural science. Its theoretical goal is the
prediction and control of behavior
John Watson

4. Empiricism
-Logical
positivism is
type of
empiricism, but
not all types of
empiricism are
positivistic

So is
positivism
really dead?

Peter Halfpenny writes:

And even if in its simpler

philosophical forms it is dead,
the spirit of those earlier
formulations continues
to haunt sociology,
In a full range
of guises

Which aspects of
positivism died,
and how?

Some of the four positions have

died, but others are still alive in
one form or another.

Bits and pieces of them have managed to

escape death

1. Comtean
positivism as a
general position it is
no longer espoused,
but like an old
soldier it faded away
rather than died

-Application of scientific inquiry into

social science
- Scientific inquiry is a normal everyday
inquiry, including solving a moral
problem

- Some social scientists regard their

discipline as being irreducible to some
more fundamental science (Comte
resists any reduction of the social to
some other level)

2. The verifiability principle of the Logical

positivism suffered the same fate as the
Elephant Man it became contorted
monstrosity that choked to death under its own
weight

Problem with what was

regarded as meaningful
Problem with testability and
verifiability

Popper wrote:
A further and less interesting point was the
sheer absurdity of the use of verifiability as a
meaning criterion: how could one ever say that
a theory was gibberish because it could not be
verified? Was it necessary to understand a
theory in order to judge whether or not it could
be verified? And could an
understandable theory
be sheer gibberish?

3. Descendants of behaviorists still

flourish calling themselves neobehaviorists or cognitive
behaviorists

They no longer avoid reference to inner

psychological causes and events, but rather they
construe these so as to allow empirically
detectable consequences (in other words, in
much scientific practice a weakened form of the
verifiability principle lives on)

Albert Bandura writes:

Because some of the inner
causes invoked by theorists
over the years have been
ill-founded does not justify excluding all
internal determinants from scientific
inquiry With growing evidence that
cognition has causal influence on
behavior, the arguments against the
influence of internal determinants began
to lose their force.

4. What happened to empiricism? Is it no

longer held that our concepts or knowledge
claims are justified in terms of experience?

The point is that it is difficult to deny some

role of empirical data or evidence in the
growth of human knowledge

Mistaken claims
about the death
of positivism

Some of the most boisterous

celebrants at positivisms wake
are actually more positivistic that
they realize or have more in
common with
the positivists
than they would
care to admit.

R.W. Ashby wrote:

The logical positivists contributed a great deal

toward the understanding of the nature of
philosophical questions, and in their approach
to philosophy they set an example from which
many have still to learn. They brought to
philosophy an interest in cooperation. They
adopted high standards of rigor And they
tried to formulate methods of inquiry that
would lead to commonly accepted results.

Thanks
Joane V. Serrano

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/positvsm.php

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Epistemology_Philosophy.html

http://greatthinkers.suite101.com/article.cfm/comtes_positivism_and_the_hi
storical_phases#ixzz0OPGjSEVt