Positivism-Online Journals
Positivism may be a philosophical doctrine stating that certain ("positive") knowledge is predicated on natural
phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus,
information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge. Positivism holds that valid knowledge (certitude or truth) is found only during this a posteriori knowledge. Verified data (positive facts) received from the senses are referred to as empirical evidence; thus positivism is predicated on empiricism. Positivism also holds that society, just like the physical world, operates consistent with general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology because metaphysical and theological claims can't be verified by sensation . Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme within the
history of western thought, the fashionable approach was formulated by the philosopher Comte within the early 19th century. Comte argued that, very much like the physical world operates consistent with gravity and other absolute laws, so does society. Positivism asserts that each one authentic knowledge allows verification which all authentic knowledge assumes that the sole valid knowledge is scientific. Thinkers like Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) and Comte (1798–1857) believed the methodology , the circular dependence of theory and observation, must replace metaphysics within the
history of thought.[citation needed] Durkheim (1858–1917) reformulated sociological positivism as a foundation of social research.
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