Positivism

This is a concept founded by the philosopher, Auguste Comte and the philosophers who believe in this concept consider natural sciences to be the only source of true knowledge and reject cognition as a source of knowledge. This came into existence because of the inability of speculative philosophy to solve many problems of the society which is the out come of scientific and industrial development. Positivism is based on knowledge from ephemeral studies and rejects all kinds of speculation and metaphysical abstractions that failed to solve the problems of the society. The development of Positivism was in three stages. The work of Comte, E. Littre and P. Laffitte in France, J S Mill and Herbert Spencer can be attributed to the first stage. The second stage of Positivism term as empirio criticism between 1870^s - 1890^s is associated with sociologists like Ernst Mach and Avenarius, who criticized the features of early Positivism. The third and the final stage of Positivism also termed as neo-positivism is associated with the works of O. Neurath, Carnap, Schlick, Frank and others in Vienna. This was a stricter version of Comete''s philosophy that rejected all kinds of metaphysical speculation and focus on pure logic. However, in the 20th century, German sociologists like Max Weber and George Simmel presented anti positivist theory which was in contrary to the positivism theory of sociology.