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Full Idea
In the positive state, the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of obtaining absolute truth, gives up the search for hidden and final causes. It endeavours to discover, by well-combined reasoning and observation, the actual laws of phenomena.
Gist of Idea
Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation
Source
Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
Book Ref
Comte,Auguste: 'Introduction to Positive Philosophy', ed/tr. Ferré,Frederick [Hackett 1988], p.2
A Reaction
[compressed] Positivism attempted to turn the Humean regularity view of laws into a semi-religion. It is striking how pessimistic Comte was (as was Hume) about the chances of science revealing deep explanations. He would be astoundeds.
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte] |
| 12106 | Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte] |
| 7491 | The phases of human thought are theological, then metaphysical, then positivist [Comte, by Watson] |
| 15873 | Laws of nature are just records of regularities and correlations, with concepts to make recording them easier [Mach, by Harré] |
| 15236 | Positivism says science only refers to immediate experiences [Harré/Madden] |
| 3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
| 3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
| 4222 | If all that exists is what is being measured, what about the people and instruments doing the measuring? [Lowe] |