Diana asked:

I am a doctorate nursing student at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I found your
website through my journeys on the web. I have a question and I seem to be having some difficulty
getting it answered. Perhaps you could answer this.

Where did the term "Positivism" come from, as in Comte's work and the later Logical Positivists? Is is
synonomous with Empiricism?

I would really appreciate any insight you could shed on this matter. I am eager to find this out and
share it with my Philosophy class.

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There are two main stream of positivism, both with a somewhat unfortunate history. The first was
actually inaugurated by Auguste Comte, who was a contemporary of Schopenhauer, Balzac, Byron.
His philosophy comprised, roughly, an evolutionary argument for philosophy: the oldest and most
primitive stage is theology, the second metaphysics and the third, last and pinnacle, science. His
special scientific interest, remarkably, was sociology, from which he expected great things for the
future of mankind. Now the term 'positive', by which he identified his philosophy, was intended to
convey the notion that philosophy must take proper account of experience, and to this extent there is
an unquestioned affinity to empiricism. The difference may be seen in the approach he preferred,
which is essentially descriptive rather than conceptual or analytic. It would be nice to say something
deep and meaningful about Comte now, but his philosophy never gained much of a foothold even in
his native France.

The positivist movement was revived under changed auspices in the 1920s by Moritz Schlick, Rudolf
Carnap and a few like-minded thinkers, whose 'place of business' was Vienna, on which account they
are collectively known as the 'Vienna Circle', even though they themselves preferred the designation
'Logical Positivists'. Their principles were rather more radical than Comte's and pretty aggressive too.
They condemned all metaphysics as stupid and demanded that philosophy admit only propositions
which can be incontrovertibly 'proved'. An outgrowth of this is verificationism, the idea that test and
experiment, sufficiently repeated with similar results, yield philosophically acceptable propositions.
This too, was an eminently optimistic philosophy; but unbeknownst to them, Hume had already
disproved the tenets which they used for their foundation stone 200 years before the Viennese ever
met.

An important issue arises out of 'positivism', pretty much the only genuine philosophical value that
can still be attributed to it. It is the recognition that we humans cannot 'in principle' have positive
knowledge. We can enjoy the positive aspects of our science for the fruits which it yields, but these
are strictly 'subject to change without notice' at any moment. All theories have a 'use by' date written
on them, except that we never know what that date is. The only positive logical certainties given to us
are false theories. What has been proved false, is truly so. Coda: what has been said above has
application to a critical appreciation of much of the verbiage produced these days in favour of
science. Every time you read a sentence containing the word, 'Science has proved x', examine it for
its contents: if the claim is for positive proof, you can safely dismiss it. This is especially the case in
the field of medical science, where certain medicines may be pronounced 'safe' on the basis of
experimentation, but I'm sure you are aware that every one of these carries the indispensable
disclaimer. (I sometimes wonder how advertisers get away with claiming that 'science' has proved the
efficacy of one brand of shampoo over another!).

Jürgen Lawrenz

Sydney