positivisme

Positivisme was coined by Auguste Comte in the 1830s, from French positif (certain, definite, explicitly laid down), from Latin positivus (settled, placed), from ponere (to put, to place). Comte argued that human thought progresses through three stages: theological (gods explain events), metaphysical (abstract forces explain events), and positive (observation and scientific law explain events). The positive stage was the final one. Speculation was over. Only verifiable knowledge counted.

Comte took the idea further than philosophy. He established the Religion of Humanity — a secular religion with its own saints (Newton, Dante, Shakespeare), sacraments, and a positivist calendar with thirteen months of twenty-eight days each. The religion attracted some followers, especially in Brazil, where Ordem e Progresso (Order and Progress) on the flag comes from Comte's motto. The philosophy survived. The religion did not.

Logical positivism, a related but distinct movement, emerged in Vienna in the 1920s. The Vienna Circle — Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath — argued that a statement is meaningful only if it can be verified by observation or is true by definition (tautology). Everything else — metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics — is literally meaningless. This verificationist principle was enormously influential and, by mid-century, had been abandoned by most of its own proponents. It could not verify itself.

The word 'positive' in positivism does not mean optimistic. It means given, factual, observable — what is positively there. Comte's original insight — that science should deal with observable phenomena, not unobservable essences — became the working methodology of most scientific disciplines even after positivism as a philosophy was critiqued by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and others.