Concept in Definition ABC

The word positivism has two recurring uses.

Tendency for those things that make our activities more practical, comfortable and useful

On the one hand, positivism turns out to be that tendency, it could almost be said innate, that we present beings human to look for those things that turn out to make our activities, whatever they are, more practical, comfortable and tools.
We must say in this regard that positivism in this sense is a attitude, an inclination towards life that certainly knows how to make our existence much simpler. The fact of approaching those issues that can bring us comfort and usefulness will not be just a fact but that attitude towards life will bring us benefits.

Philosophical current that proposes that scientific knowledge will be viable only through the positive affirmation of the theories obtained through the scientific method

And on the other hand, Positivism is also called that philosophical current created by the French sociologist, considered the father and inventor of the

Sociology as a science, August Comte, and the British philosopher John Stuart Mill in the early nineteenth century, and that the knowledge of the Man is that knowledge of a scientific type that will be viable only through the positive affirmation of the theories obtained through the scientific method. Meanwhile, it will be during the second half of the mentioned century that the new philosophical system will prevail and spread throughout almost all of Europe.

According to what Comte and Mill considered, All philosophical and scientific activities must be carried out with the support of a concrete and deep analysis of each situation and corroborated through the experience of each one..

Consequence of the French Revolution

It was by no means a coincidence that Positivism arose in France and that it did so in the time that did it (19th century), because Positivism was one of the many consequences that it generated the French Revolution occurred at the end of the previous century. From this revolutionary political, social and economic event, the human being and the community were transformed into scientific objects.

Auguste Comte, father of Positivism

Comte, by the way, liked to define that epoch of the emergence of this movement as a positive stage, in which humanity is the protagonist and in which only what is real, what exists, matters, such is the case of the facts and not the supposed supernatural entities. East thought particular has caused Comte to reject and criticize the metaphysics and proclaimed himself in favor of mathematics and empirical sciences. He even proposed a hierarchy for them, with sociology at the top of the pyramid, followed by biology, chemistry and physics, then mechanics and mathematics.

Much of the work of this sociologist, among which Positivism is prominently included, has been reflected in a work of his well-known authorship: The Course of Philosophy Positive.

Main features

Among its most salient features, we can highlight the following: it promotes ideological monism, a fact that supposes the existence of a single scientific method that will be shared by all sciences, because although there is a diversity of objects, the method through which they are known is one, explain the facts, phenomena, through universal and general laws and The form of inductive knowledge prevails above all things, discarding outright everything that has not been previously known or objectified.

When it comes to history, Positivism will make documented evidence prevail first, discarding the interpretations that mostly tend to generalize, then and as a consequence of this question is that the works that are carried out with the spirit of the positivist current have an important number of documents and very little interpretive synthesis about the topics covered.

Topics in Positivism