Understanding Positivism: Origins, Stages, and Impact

Understanding Positivism

Positivism emerged in France in the first half of the nineteenth century and spread throughout Europe in the second half. Some concepts of positivist philosophers date back to David Hume, Kant, and Saint-Simon. It integrates different cultural traditions: in France, it aligns with the rationalism that runs from Descartes to the Enlightenment; in England, it develops on empiricist and utilitarian traditions and relates to Darwinian evolution; in Germany, it takes the form of a rigid scientism; and in Italy, its roots go back to Renaissance naturalism. Significant representatives include Comte in France, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer in England, Jakob Moleschott and Ernst Haeckel in Germany, and Roberto Ardigò in Italy. Its most important representative is Auguste Comte.

A key proposal is the use of empirical research to understand social phenomena, social structure, and social change, which is why Comte is considered the father of sociology as a scientific discipline.

Comte's Three Stages of Humanity

Comte believed that humanity has progressed through three stages:

1. The theological stage corresponds to the infancy of mankind. During this time, people give fantastic explanations of natural phenomena and use magical techniques to dominate the world.
2. In the metaphysical stage, imagination is replaced by reason, seeking abstract explanations for the why of things. It is fundamentally a critical stage of transition.
3. The third phase is the scientific or positive phase, the stage of maturity. It focuses not on why things happen (cause), but on how facts and laws operate. It is based on observation and experience and expresses itself through mathematical resources.

From this conception of human history comes the main positivist thesis: a critique of traditional philosophy and religion, and the valuation of science as the ultimate achievement of the human spirit.

Key Tenets of Positivism

• Proposes a new model of rationality: scientific rationality.
• Intends to remain in the realm of facts, meaning not immediate data of sense, but relationships between these data, i.e., scientific laws.
• Rejects as unknowable what is beyond the facts: denial of metaphysics.
• The method of natural science applies not only to the study of Nature but also to the study of Society. This leads to Sociology, a characteristic of the positivist program.
• Science is the only guide of humanity, and positivism trusts in infinite progress.

Moreover, from a moral point of view, positivism defends utilitarianism from the bourgeois political ideology, which is conservative.

Influence and Legacy

Its most important development has been its influence on Neopositivism in Austria with Ludwig Wittgenstein and on the British philosophers Bertrand Russell and George Edward Moore. Positivists who rejected the so-called Vienna School preferred calling themselves logical empiricists.