positivim

positivism


Is not to admit as other scientifically valid knowledge, but those who come from experience, rejecting, therefore, any notion a priori and all universal and absolute concept. The fact is the only scientific reality, and experience and induction, the exclusive methods of science. On the negative side, positivism is the negation of all ideals, principles and necessary absolute right, that is, metaphysics. Positivism is a mutilation of human intelligence, which makes it possible not only the metaphysics but science itself. This, not the ideal principles, is reduced to a classification of facts, and science is a collection of experiences, but the general idea, the law that interprets the experience and crosses. Considered as a religious system, positivism is the worship of humanity as a whole being and simple or singular.
Evolution.
The term positivism was first used by the French mathematician and philosopher Auguste Comte nineteenth century, but some of the positivist concepts date back to the British philosopher David Hume, the French philosopher Saint-Simon, and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
Comte positivism chose the word based on reality and pointing out that he claimed constructive tendency for the theoretical aspect of the doctrine. In general, became interested in the reorganization of social life for the good of humanity through scientific knowledge, and in this way, control of natural forces. The two main components of positivism, the philosophy and the Government (or program of individual and social behavior), were later unified by Comte in a whole under the concept of a religion in which humanity was the object of worship. Many disciples of Comte rejected, however, accept the religious development of their thinking because they seemed to contradict the original positivist philosophy. Many of the doctrines of Comte were later adapted and developed by British social philosophers John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer as well as the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach.
Comte, Auguste (1798-1857).
French positivist philosopher and one of the pioneers of sociology. Born in Montpellier on January 19, 1798. From an early age rejected the traditional Catholic and monarchical doctrines. He managed to enter the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris from 1814 to 1816, but was expelled for participating in a student revolt. For some years was secretary to the theoretical socialist Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, whose influence would be reflected in some of his works. The last years of French thinker were marked by mental alienation, the crisis of madness in which he sank for prolonged time intervals. He died in Paris on September 5, 1857.
To respond to the scientific revolution and industrial policy of his time, offered a reorganization Comte intellectual, moral and social policy. Adopt a scientific attitude was the key, thought so, any reconstruction.
He claimed that the empirical study of the historical process, in particular the progression of various interrelated sciences, showed a law called the three stages and that governs the development of mankind. Analyzed these stages in his voluminous work Course of Positive Philosophy (6 vols., 1830-1842). Given the nature of the human mind, he said, each of the sciences or branches of knowledge must pass through "three different theoretical stages: the theological or fictitious stage, the metaphysical or abstract stage, and finally, the scientific or positive." In the theological stage events are explained in a very basic appeal to the will of the gods or a god. In the metaphysical stage phenomena are explained by invoking abstract philosophical categories. The last stage of this evolution, the scientific or positive, is determined to explain all material facts by clarifying the causes. All attention should focus on finding out how phenomena occur with the intention of reaching generalizations in turn subject to observational verification and verifiable. Comte's work is considered the classic expression of the positivist attitude, ie the attitude of one who asserts that only empirical science are the proper source of knowledge.
Each of these stages, said Comte, has its counterpart in certain political attitudes. The theological stage is reflected in these concepts that speak of the divine right of kings. The metaphysical stage includes concepts such as social contract, equality of people or popular sovereignty. Positive stage is characterized by scientific analysis or "sociological" (a term coined by Comte) of political organization. Highly critical of democratic procedures, Comte longed for a stable society governed by a minority of scholars who employ methods of science to solve human problems and to impose new social conditions.
Although he rejected the belief in a transcendent being, Comte recognized the value of religion, it contributed to social stability. In his book Positive Political System (1851-1854, 1875-1877), proposed a religion of humanity that would stimulate a beneficial social behavior. The greater relevance of Comte, however, derives from its influence on the development of positivism.
The Law of the three states.
According to Comte, knowledge goes through three different theoretical states in both the individual and the human species. The law of three states, the foundation of positive philosophy, is both a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of history. These three states are called
Theological.
Metaphysical.
Positive.

Theological State:
Is fictional, provisional and preparatory. In it, the mind seeks the causes and principles of things, deep, distant and unattainable. In it three distinct phases:
Fetish: which personify things and they are attributed a magical or divine power.

Political: the animation is removed from material things to move it to a number of deities, each of which presents a group of powers: the waters, rivers, forests, etc.

Monotheism: the highest stage, that all these divine powers are concentrated in one meeting and called God.
In this state, dominates the imagination, and corresponds to the infancy of mankind. It is also the primary provision of the mind, which again falls in all ages, and only a slow evolution can make the human spirit apart from this conception to move to another. The historical role of theological state is irreplaceable.
Metaphysical State:
Or abstract state, is essentially critical, and transition, is an intermediate stage between the theological and the positive state. In it are looking for absolute knowledge. Metaphysics tries to explain the nature of beings, their essence, their causes. But that does not resort to supernatural agents, but abstract entities that give it its name ontology. The ideas in principle, cause, substance, essence, designate something different from things, but inherent in them, closer to them, the mind that after throwing away, is getting closer, step by step things, and so as in the previous state powers are summarized in the concept of God, here is the nature, the great general entity that replaces it, but this unit is weaker, both mentally and socially, and character of the metaphysical state, is about all critical and negative, in preparation for the transition to the positive state, a kind of crisis of puberty in the human spirit, before reaching adulthood.
Positive State:
Is real, is definitive. It's imagination is subordinated to observation. The human mind sticks to things. Positivism seeks just the facts and laws. No causes or principles of essences or substances. All this is inaccessible. Positivism is consistent with the positive, what is given, or given: it is the philosophy of data. The mind, in a long decline, was arrested at the end to things. Resignation to what is futile to try to learn, and seeks only the laws of phenomena.
THE SOCIAL CHARACTER OF POSITIVE SPIRIT.
The positive spirit must establish a social order. The creation of a positive knowledge is the condition that there is sufficient social authority, and this reinforces the historic character of positivism.
Comte, the founder of sociology, attempts to take the positive state the study of collective humanity, that is, make a positive science. Also applies in society, and especially the law of three states, and there are many stages, of which one dominates in the military.
Comte highly values ​​the role of organization that corresponds to the Catholic Church, at the time metaphysics, social influence corresponds to the lawyers, is the time of the emergence of the middle classes, the pace of military society of the economic society, is a period of transition, and critical solvent Protestantism contributed to this solution. Finally, the positive state is for the industrial era, governed by economic interests, and it has to restore social order, and this must be based on a mental and social power.
Positivism and Philosophy.
It is apparently a reflection on science. After been exhausted, there is a separate object for philosophy, but they themselves, philosophy becomes a theory of science. Thus, positive science becomes unity and consciousness of itself. But the philosophy is clear, disappear, and this is what happens to the positive movement of the nineteenth century, which has very little to do with philosophy.
But Comte same is not true. Besides do you think is what they actually do. We have seen that:
It is a philosophy of history (the law of three states.)
A metaphysical theory of reality, understood as original characters and be as new as the social, historical and relative.
An entire philosophical discipline, the science of society, to the point that sociology, in the hands of later sociologists, has never reached the depth of vision that reached its founder.
This is definitely the most real and interesting aspect of positivism, which makes it really, despite all appearances and indeed of all positivist philosophy.
THE MEANING OF POSITIVE.
This positive science is a discipline of modesty, and this is its virtue. The positive knowledge humbly complies things, it is to them, without interference, without jumping over to jump to false ideas games, no longer calls causes, but only laws. And thanks to this austerity does these laws, and has accurately and with certainty.
Over and over again Comte, the most explicit, the problem of history, and claims it as its own domain of positive philosophy. This relationship is the historical character of this philosophy, which can explain the entire past.