Haven't had time to follow up on all the places the discussion went to; this is more a supplement of what JF posted about positivism. I found it a good review from a 'philosophy of sociology' perspective.
Link and excerpt follows. CJ ------- http://www.bangladeshsociology.org/CV%20of%20Nazrul%20-%20Pub%20-%20Positivism.htm Early Sociological and Marxist Positivism· excerpt: >>Perhaps it amounts to heresy to call Karl Marx a positivist. By the same token, with the exception of a few like Comte or Mach, no one ever claimed to be a Positivist, though Mill, Spencer, Durkheim Trade, Wundt or Lundberg were all as positivists. This paper also does not make Marx into a positivist; it only attempts to point to the similarities between the Marxist methodology and those of the early sociologists, like Comte and Spencer, who were positivists. No attempt is made here to denounce the dialectical basis of Marx's methodology. Nor is positivism posed against dialectics as is done by a number of German sociologists (see Adorno et. al. 1976 and Gellner 1985). This essay is not even directed at exploring the merits or demirits of positivism vis a vis dialectics, nor even to salvage positivism by anchoring it in the works of Marx. It is, however, expected here that a demonstration of parallelism between Marxist methodology and early sociology will go a long way to bridge the ever widening gap between Marxist science of society and modern sociology and can be immensely beneficial to the latter. Over the period of one and a half centuries positivism has acquired various meanings and seen numerous shifts in the emphasis of its contents. Though its origin is intertwined with that of sociology and had the social sciences as its focus, much of the later development of positivism is attributed to the natural scientists and philosophers of science in general. The derogatory connotation associated with positivism may be imputed to the easy passage it provides towards empiricism or "scienticism," which have always remained only a step beyond. Left within its bounds, positivism provides a strong foundation on which the social sciences, and sociology in particular, or at least the main stream of it, continue to build themselves. Because of its chequered history, a unitary definition or even a simple explanation of positivism is difficult to attempt. According to Keat and Urry (1978) the main arguments of positivism are as follows. For the positivist, they say, science is an attempt to gain predictive and explanatory knowledge of the external world (1978: 4). Toward this end the positivist constructs theories, or highly generalized statements (laws) expressing the regular relationships that are found in the external world discovered through systematic observation and experimentations. To explain or to predict something is to show that it is an instance of these regularities. Statements expressing these regularities cannot be known by a priori means, nor are their truth a matter of logical necessity, it is only contingently so. All such statements must therefore be objectively tested through observation and experiments, which are the only source of sure and certain empirical knowledge. Science does not go 'behind' or 'beyond' the phenomena revealed to us through sensory experience to attain knowledge of the unobservable, essence or mechanisms that somehow necessitate these phenomena. For the positivist there is no necessary connections in nature, there are only regularities, meaning succession of phenomena, which are systematically presented in terms of universal laws of scientific theory. The region beyond this is the realm of metaphysics. (Keat and Urry 1978: 4-5). The positivist, thus, looks for regularities in the external world, presented in the form of sensory data. These are built into universal laws verified through observation and experimentations. No metaphysical speculation or search for the "essence" of phenomena is entertained. Such philosophical orientations and methodological requirements obviously relate to the domain of the natural sciences. But sociology, or part of it, has sought to emulate these standards since its inception. Thus the natural sciences became the model for sociology. Giddens (1978) identifies this "positivistic attitude" in sociology as comprising of the position (a) that the methodological procedures of natural science may be directly applied to sociology; (b) that the outcome or the end result of sociological investigations can be formulated in terms parallel to those of natural science – that is to formulate laws or law like generalizations; and (c) that the findings of sociological research do not carry any logically given implications for practical policy or for the pursuit of values. (Giddens 1978: 3-4). Giddens (1978) notes that acceptance of any one of these three suppositions do not necessarily entail the adoption of the other two. And as will be shown later, for the early sociologists like Comte in particular, attainment of sociological knowledge, as opposed to point (c) above, was directed to influence policy matters, to change society in a desired direction. Similarly, von Wright (1976) also suggests three 'basic tenets' of positivism: (a) Methodological monism, or the idea of the unity of scientific method against the diversity of subject matter. (b) The exact natural sciences, in particular mathematical physics, as setting a methodological ideal for all other sciences. And (c) causal scientific explanation that consists in sub-sumption of individual cases under hypothetically assumed general laws of nature.>>end of excerpt _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
