Positivism

INTRODUCTION

Positivism is a way of seeing the world, a philosophical orientation that views the material world as the only reality. The scientific method is used to find new information about the material world. Positivists depend on underlying patterns that humans can discover accurately. Once we find these patterns, then we can divide them into smaller parts to learn something about the whole. The scientific method is perceived as an objective, value-free way to view the world.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF POSITIVISM

The broad movement of thought which marked the second half of the nineteenth century is called Positivism. The name is due to the fact that thinkers returned to the appreciation of positive facts so as to restore the world of nature, which the Idealists had reduced to a mere representation of the ego. The Positivists conceived of primordial matter as a unique reality having the power of evolving from the lower to the higher forms, mechanically and by means of immanent energy. This evolution was even extended to include man. Positivist philosophy consists in knowing the fundamental laws, which govern matter in its process of evolution. The founder of Positivism was Auguste Comte; its most representative thinkers were English; its remarkable materialistic development occurred in Germany.

THE REASON FOR THE EMULATION OF POSIVISM
In France, the Enlightenment, based on naturalistic thinking, resulted in the disturbing social and political changes of the Revolution. After the Revolution the popular materialistic theories faded and new philosophies appeared. Excessive radical liberalism aroused a conservative reaction.

The opposite to materialism appeared in the supernatural philosophy of Joseph de Maistre (1754-1821) and the current psychology of the times:

Cabanis, the materialist, called attention to the difficulty of explaining vital feelings, instinctive reactions, and elements of the conscious life by the external senses.

Maine de Biran (1766-1824) emphasized inner experience (feeling of effort) and declared it to be the central element of consciousness and basic to our notions of causality, unity, etc.;
Royer-Collard (1763-1845) was influenced by the common-sense philosophy of the Cambridge Platonist, Thomas Reid;

Victor Cousin (1792-1867), an inspirer of French education, developed an eclectic spiritualistic keynote following Reid, Schelling, Hegel, and others.

The reform of human society, based on liberty, equality, fraternity, remained a dream of French thinkers. Social evolution could be achieved through education and enlightenment.

Claude Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) conceived the idea of a new science of society that would result in the economic and intellectual emancipation of man, readjusting the inequalities of property, power, and happiness; thus, a new Christianity was needed, built not on self-denial but love of the poor and lowly, and the sciences must give foundation to this reconstruction and the sciences must be reformed to achieve this reconstruction of society. Saint-Simon regarded the medieval age as the age of construction, spiritual and social organization. To this spirit man must return. The new system of thought must be a positive philosophy based on experience and science.



Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Auguste Comte (picture) was born in Montpellier, the son of an orthodox Catholic family. He attended the polytechnic school in Paris and acquired knowledge of the exact sciences and the philosophy of Saint-Simon. After leaving school he studied biology and history and earned a living by giving lessons in mathematics. He became associated with Saint-Simon for a number of years, disagreed with him and worked independently. Comte tried several times to obtain a professorship but without success.

Comte's objective was the reform of society. To achieve this end he contended for a positive social science, and worked at it throughout his life. He argued that the theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages represented primitive thought. The new natural sciences indicated that a new social science should be built on observation and experience (positive knowledge). His major works are Course of Positive Philosophy and System of Positive Polity.

Doctrine
According to Comte, historical observations on the process of human society show that man has passed through three stages:

1.The theological state, in which nature was mythically conceived and man sought the explanation of natural phenomena from supernatural beings;

2. The metaphysical stage, in which nature was conceived of as a result of obscure forces and man sought the explanation of natural phenomena from them;

3. The positive stage, in which all abstract and obscure forces are discarded, and natural phenomena are explained by their constant relationships.
Comte extended the law of the three stages to include all reality. The progress of the sciences is subject to the same law. Comte was the founder of a "positive religion" in which there was the cult of a positive trinity -- the Great Being (humanity), the Great Medium (the world-space), and the Great Fetish (the earth) -- with temple, pontiff, and priests.

Comte advocates two phases of positivistic philosophy:
ü Social Statics -- recognizing society as a fact with laws that constitute the social order;
ü Social Dynamics -- recognizing the evolution of society in its history and progress.

In his later life Comte laid great stress on the emotional and practical life. Reason and science are brought into relationship. Ethics is made the highest in his hierarchy of the sciences (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, ethics). Humanity is the "God" of positivism and the object of worship. A new Christianity is presented:

The first religion is a reverence for nature -- all is God (pantheism).
The second religion is the worship of the moral law as authority.
The third religion is the infinite power revealed in nature which is the source and end of the moral ideal -- morality is the nature of things.
Positivism ends in dogmatism and becomes a system of metaphysics.

The positive contributions of Positivism in general to the Perennial Philosophy
Positivism made no contributions at all in the areas of theory of knowledge, metaphysics, theory of nature, and philosophical psychology, and was manifestly unintelligible and incorrect in the area of ethics or moral philosophy. Overall, Positivism has been a negative factor in the development of philosophical truth. We still suffer from this intellectual insanity today.

Positivistic Assumptions surrounding deviance
Deviance is real
Deviants possess certain traits, commonalities.
Understanding these traits gives us an understanding of the "causes" of deviance

Positivistic Approaches:
Ø Are characterized by Essentialism
Ø Seek understanding of Cause and Effect (forces, determinism)
Ø Have "objective" explanation as their goal

Theory of Action-Reaction
Ø Action is rational and non-problematic
Ø Deviants deviate and are labeled as such. Enforcement is directed at maintaining Order.
Ø Norms: protect the group, They are enacted for the common good.
Ø Deviance/deviants harm society.
Ø Social control is rational, and directed towards restoring societal integration
Ø Question is: Why do they do it? Discover cause; control individual (group); restore order.

Critical Analysis
Ø Positivist approaches tend to ignore the subjective experience of the deviant and the meaning the behavior has for the actor.
Ø They blindly accepts the "wrongness" of deviance (ideology supports the status quo)
Ø Issue of relativity and constructionism and definition of the situation is glossed over
Ø Problem of determinism--final/absolute causes?
Ø The question of objectivity is not addressed, but assumed
Ø Constructionism Critiques Positivism

1. Positivism Ignores Subjective Experience, or the meaning to the participants
By only studying the objective features of an act; meaning is ignored. For the Constructionist, meaning is the heart of the social process. Two actions that are superficially and mechanically similar may mean very different things to the participants as opposed to the individuals who react to the participants and what they are doing. i.e. homosexuality. So, what something is, is entirely dependent on how it is interpreted by the relevant audience, including the actor. "Meaning is not inherent in the act; it must be constructed". Thus, an act "is" nothing until it is categorized, conceptualized and interpreted. It is this subjective process that locates the act as a specific instance of a general type of behavior.

2. Positivists should be skeptical toward Determinism
Causality, or to say that one factor caused or causes another cannot be determined with any real degree of precision.

3. Positivists are overly naive toward objectivity
True objectivity is impossible. Every observer is to a degree contaminated by personal, political and ideological sympathies. We cannot avoid taking sides. So, pursuing and reporting the facts is always enmeshed in ideological and political choices.