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Positivism
Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Sociology'', Seventh Canadian Edition, Pearson Canada. Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, introspection, or religious faith, are rejected or considered meaningless. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of Western thought, modern positivism was first articulated in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte. His school of sociological positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to scientific laws. After Comte, positivist schools arose in logic, psychology, economics, historiography, and other fields of thought. Generally, positivists attempted to introduce scientific methods to their respective fields. Since the turn of the 20th century, positivism, although still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociology was coined in the late 18th century to describe the scientific study of society. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of Empirical research, empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from Microsociology, micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency (sociology), agency to Macrosociology, macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas Theory, theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenology (sociology), phenomenologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology, with him inventing the very term and treating the discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences. Influenced by Henri de Saint-Simon, Comte's work attempted to remedy the social disorder caused by the French Revolution, which he believed indicated an imminent transition to a new form of society. He sought to establish a new social doctrine based on science, which he labeled ''positivism''. He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. His concept of ''Sociology'' and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antipositivist
In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance which proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology. Fundamental to that antipositivist epistemology is the belief that the concepts and language researchers use in their research shape their perceptions of the social world they are investigating and seeking to define. Interpretivism (anti-positivism) developed among researchers dissatisfied with post-positivism, the theories of which they considered too general and ill-suited to reflect the nuance and variability found in human interaction. Because the values and beliefs of researchers cannot fully be removed from their inquiry, interpretivists believe research ''on'' human beings ''by'' human beings cannot yield objective results. Thus, rather than seeking an objecti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verificationism
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is a doctrine in philosophy which asserts that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable (can be confirmed through the senses) or a tautology (true by virtue of its own meaning or its own logical form). Verificationism rejects statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics and aesthetics as meaningless in conveying truth value or factual content, though they may be meaningful in influencing emotions or behavior. Verificationism was a central thesis of logical positivism, a movement in analytic philosophy that emerged in the 1920s by philosophers who sought to unify philosophy and science under a common naturalistic theory of knowledge. The verifiability criterion underwent various revisions throughout the 1920s to 1950s. However, by the 1960s, it was deemed to be irreparably untenable. Its abandonment would eventually precipitate the collapse of the bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positive Law
Positive laws () are human-made laws that oblige or specify an action. Positive law also describes the establishment of specific rights for an individual or group. Etymologically, the name derives from the verb ''to posit''. The concept of positive law is distinct from natural law, which comprises inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by "God, nature, or reason". Positive law is also described as the law that applies at a certain time (present or past) and at a certain place, consisting of statutory law, and case law as far as it is binding. More specifically, positive law may be characterized as "law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society." ''Lex humana'' versus ''lex posita'' Thomas Aquinas conflated man-made law () and positive law ( or ). However, there is a subtle distinction between them. Whereas human-made law regards law from the position of its origins (i.e. who it was th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Law
Natural law (, ) is a Philosophy, philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of a set of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles, which are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural law theory asserts that certain rights and moral values are inherent in human nature and can be understood universally, independent of enacted laws or societal norms. In jurisprudence, natural law—sometimes referred to as iusnaturalism or jusnaturalism, but not to be confused with what is called simply ''naturalism'' in legal philosophy—holds that there are objective legal standards based on morality that underlie and inform the creation, interpretation, and application of human-made laws. This contrasts with ''positive law'' (as in legal positivism), which emphasizes that laws are rules created by human authorities and are not necessarily connected to moral principles. Natural law can refer to "theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Theorist
Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups. Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.Ludovisi, S.G. ed., 2015. Critical theory and the challenge of praxis: Beyond reification. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Critical theory's main tenets center on analyzing systemic power relations in society, focusing on the dynamics between groups with different levels of social, economic, and institutional power. Unlike traditional social theories that aim primarily to describe and understand society, critical theory explicitly seeks to critique and transform it. Thus, it positions itself as both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientism
Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientists", some scholars, as well as political and religious leaders, have also adopted it as a pejorative term with the meaning "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)". Overview Francis Bacon has been viewed by some scholars as an early proponent of scientism, but this is a modern assertion as Bacon was a devout Anglican, writing in his Essays, "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." With respect to the philosophy of science, the term ''scientism'' frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical School
List of philosophies, schools of thought and philosophical movements. A Absurdism – Academic skepticism – Accelerationism - Achintya Bheda Abheda – Action, philosophy of – Actual idealism – Actualism – Advaita Vedanta – Aesthetic Realism – Aesthetics – African philosophy – Afrocentrism – Agential realism – Agnosticism – Agnostic theism – Ajātivāda – Ājīvika – Ajñana – Alexandrian school – Alexandrists – Ambedkarism – American philosophy – Analytical Thomism – Analytic philosophy – Anarchism – Ancient philosophy – Animism – Anomalous monism – Anthropocentrism – Antinatalism – Antinomianism – Antipositivism – Anti-psychiatry – Anti-realism – Antireductionism – Applied ethics – Archaeology, philosophy of – Aristotelianism – Arithmetic, philosophy of – Artificial intelligence, philosophy of – Art, philosophy of – Asceticism – Atheism – Atomism – Augustinianism – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey (; ; 19 November 1833 – 1 October 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science. Dilthey has often been considered an empiricist, in contrast to the idealism prevalent in Germany at the time, but his account of what constitutes the empirical and experiential differs from British empiricism and positivism in its central epistemological and ontological assumptions, which are drawn from German literary and philosophical traditions. Life Dilthey was born in 1833 as the son of a Reformed pastor in the village of Biebrich in the Duchy of Nassau, now in Hesse, Germany. As a young man he followed family traditions by studying th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Posteriori
('from the earlier') and ('from the later') are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience. knowledge is independent from any experience. Examples include mathematics,Some associationist philosophers have contended that mathematics comes from experience and is not a form of any ''a priori'' knowledge () tautologies and deduction from pure reason. Galen Strawson has stated that an argument is one in which "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science." () knowledge depends on empirical evidence. Examples include most fields of science and aspects of personal knowledge. The terms originate from the analytic methods found in '' Organon'', a collection of works by Aristotle. Prior analytics () is about deductive logic, which comes from d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tautology (logic)
In mathematical logic, a tautology (from ) is a formula that is true regardless of the interpretation of its component terms, with only the logical constants having a fixed meaning. For example, a formula that states, "the ball is green or the ball is not green," is always true, regardless of what a ball is and regardless of its colour. Tautology is usually, though not always, used to refer to valid formulas of propositional logic. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921, borrowing from rhetoric, where a tautology is a repetitive statement. In logic, a formula is satisfiable if it is true under at least one interpretation, and thus a tautology is a formula whose negation is unsatisfiable. In other words, it cannot be false. Unsatisfiable statements, both through negation and affirmation, are known formally as contradictions. A formula that is neither a tautology nor a contradiction is said to be logically c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
