Logical Positivists Of Logical Positivism Essay

Positivism originated with August Comte. It was considered a philosophical approach that replaced speculation with science. Positivist theorists believe

With their powerful warning against ideological certainty, these books had a profound influence on my thinking which is now axiomatically anti-foundationalist. I now seek deeper understanding of, rather than a facile allegiance to any particular dogma. To that end, I try maintain an ideological

Positivism or more specifically, logical positivism, is “maintained that science is value free, independent of the scientist, and obtained using objective methods” (McEwen & Wills, 2007, p.8). This leads to no biased interpretation of the data. In summary, objectivity and facts are the basis of received view.

In the following paper I intend to compare and contrast the three major philosophical viewpoints regarding this question, and come to a

The author takes a distinct standpoint from what many people conventionally hold on; for example, he rules out the tendency of

Positivists utilize the tenets of scientific realism because they feel that the social and psychological world can be evaluated mathematically in the same way that quantitative research explains phenomena in the natural world (p.13).

The positive theory is the final stage in which truth is told through sciences;

This is, however, a perception; in a theoretical analysis it is important to make no assumptions and a wealth of definitions. We will discuss the pragmatism of this perception.

Weber, the founding father of the Anti-Positivist School of Thought, rejected the assumptions of positivism stating that they produce numbers, results and statistics that are based on meanings, negotiations and interactions and advocated the use of

Pragmatism is described in the book as a method for settling philosophical disputes. It is based on the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory says that a 'proposition p is true if and only if the belief that 'p is true' works'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). In order

Patricia Hill Collins explains that the two approaches to ascertaining truth are “reflected in positivist science has long claimed that absolute truths exist and that the task of scholarship is to develop objective, unbiased tools of science to measure these truths. . . . Relativism, the second approach, has been forwarded as the antithesis of an inevitable outcome of rejecting a positivist science”(Collins, 80). Collin comments about how each group had their own separate ideas, and both ideas are valid and important to the construction of the truth, but relativism contradicts scientific ideologies of objectivity. Collins states that “As epistemological stances, both positivist science and relativism minimize the importance of specific location

The Pessimistic Meta Induction is one of the most notable arguments against scientific realism, it specifically rebuts the scientific realist notion of epistemic optimism. The argument presented by scientific realist defends that it is rational to believe that our presently successful scientific theories are true or approximately true, where approximate truth is defined as a theory being able to make novel predictions towards what the central terms of such theories genuinely refer. The Pessimistic Meta Induction undermines the realist 's warrant for epistemic optimism by using historical counter examples. The theory centers around this historical pattern of scientific theories being abolished and replaced, essentially deeming the old theories false. Because of this the Pessimistic Meta Induction argues that current scientific theories will eventually be deemed false as well, and therefore we

Both Marxist and positivist stress the need for a rigorous scientific method, for scientific analysis of the social phenomenon and natural world.

Prior to the 1990’s, the problem of scientific objectivity was a question many philosophers tried to grapple with. Initially, the Logical Positivist’s view of scientific objectivity was most popular. They held to the belief that science was overall objective because of the distinction between the “context of discovery” and “context of justification,” which still allowed for science to contain some subjective elements (Longino 172). Basically, Positivist’s allowed for subjective qualities, such as mental makeup of scientists and values scientist brought in to their scientific work, by stating that the initial formulation or “discovery” of hypothesis/theories included subjective qualities. However, these subjective characteristics were

Positivism is a rigorous and formal way to collect and analyze data that was developed around the 1960’s by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who is also credited with formalizing it. Studies are clear and straight forward and researchers believe that there is only one method that all sciences should rely on. Positivism believes