Positivism

Positivism is a philosophical school 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.^[1]^[2] Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, introspection, or religious faith, are rejected or considered meaningless.

Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, modern positivism was first articulated in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte.^[3]^[4] His school of sociological positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to scientific laws.^[5] After Comte, positivist schools arose in logic, psychology, economics, historiography, and other fields of thought. Generally, positivists attempted to introduce scientific methods to their respective fields. Since the turn of the 20th century, positivism, although still popular, has declined under criticism within the social sciences by antipositivists and critical theorists, among others, for its alleged scientism, reductionism, overgeneralizations, and methodological limitations. Positivism also exerted an unusual influence on Kardecism.^[6]^[7]^[8]

^ John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, Sociology, Seventh Canadian Edition, Pearson Canada.
^ Larrain, Jorge (1979). The Concept of Ideology. London: Hutchinson. p. 197. one of the features of positivism is precisely its postulate that scientific knowledge is the paradigm of valid knowledge, a postulate that indeed is never proved nor intended to be proved.
^ Cohen, Louis; Maldonado, Antonio (2007). "Research Methods In Education". British Journal of Educational Studies. 55 (4): 9. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00388_4.x. S2CID 143761151.
^ "Auguste Comte". Sociology Guide. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 2 October 2008.
^ Macionis, John J. (2012). Sociology (14th ed.). Boston: Pearson. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-205-11671-3.
^ Monroe, John Warne (2008). Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France. Cornell University Press. pp. 97, 106. ISBN 978-0-8014-4562-0. Spiritist philosophy, so accessibly presented in Kardec's books, struck many educated middle- and lower middle-class people as rational, consoling, and reassuringly familiar. Rooted in Romantic Socialism and Positivism, it fit the expectations of many seekers of alternative cosmologies especially those sympathetic to the visionary discourse of the mid-nineteenth-century left. (...) He accomplished this change of direction by adapting one of the key elements of Charles Fourier's cosmology—the idea of reincarnation—and bolstering it with an epistemology drawn from Comtean Positivism.
^ "Spiritism | Beliefs, Practices, & History | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
^ Jones, Lindsay (2005). Encyclopedia of Religion. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 5089. ISBN 978-0-02-865734-9. In short, Rivail was a typical European scholar of his time, with a classical training in letters, positivist beliefs, an interest in the theoretical and applied development of science, and a professional specialization in teaching. But Rivail was not an orthodox positivist. Imbued with a great curiosity about phenomena unheeded and even shunned by official science, he belonged to the French Society of Magnetists. Hypnotism, sleepwalking, clairvoyance, and similar phenomena strongly attracted him.

[MacionisGerber7ed-1] John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, Sociology, Seventh Canadian Edition, Pearson Canada.

[Larrain1979p197-2] Larrain, Jorge (1979). The Concept of Ideology. London: Hutchinson. p. 197. one of the features of positivism is precisely its postulate that scientific knowledge is the paradigm of valid knowledge, a postulate that indeed is never proved nor intended to be proved.

[Cohen,_Manion_et_al.-3] Cohen, Louis; Maldonado, Antonio (2007). "Research Methods In Education". British Journal of Educational Studies. 55 (4): 9. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00388_4.x. S2CID 143761151.

[4] "Auguste Comte". Sociology Guide. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 2 October 2008.

[5] Macionis, John J. (2012). Sociology (14th ed.). Boston: Pearson. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-205-11671-3.

[6] Monroe, John Warne (2008). Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France. Cornell University Press. pp. 97, 106. ISBN 978-0-8014-4562-0. Spiritist philosophy, so accessibly presented in Kardec's books, struck many educated middle- and lower middle-class people as rational, consoling, and reassuringly familiar. Rooted in Romantic Socialism and Positivism, it fit the expectations of many seekers of alternative cosmologies especially those sympathetic to the visionary discourse of the mid-nineteenth-century left. (...) He accomplished this change of direction by adapting one of the key elements of Charles Fourier's cosmology—the idea of reincarnation—and bolstering it with an epistemology drawn from Comtean Positivism.

[7] "Spiritism | Beliefs, Practices, & History | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 8 February 2025.

[8] Jones, Lindsay (2005). Encyclopedia of Religion. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 5089. ISBN 978-0-02-865734-9. In short, Rivail was a typical European scholar of his time, with a classical training in letters, positivist beliefs, an interest in the theoretical and applied development of science, and a professional specialization in teaching. But Rivail was not an orthodox positivist. Imbued with a great curiosity about phenomena unheeded and even shunned by official science, he belonged to the French Society of Magnetists. Hypnotism, sleepwalking, clairvoyance, and similar phenomena strongly attracted him.

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