--- William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Thursday, June 12, 2003, at 02:29 am, Erik Reuter wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 05:20:00PM -0700, Jan Coffey wrote:
> >>
> >> Do you consider yourself a Positivist?
> >
> > If I say no, will you think negatively of me? :-)
> >
> > Ummm, wait while I look it up (I've heard it before but I don't really
> > know what it means, I'm quite ignorant on a lot of philosophy, in fact,
> > despited my 3 letter designation I can't remember having ever read a
> > philosophy book)
>
> "The basic affirmations of Positivism are (1) that all knowledge
> regarding matters of fact is based on the "positive" data of
> experience, and (2) that beyond the realm of fact is that of pure logic
> and pure mathematics, which were already recognized by the Scottish
> Empiricist and Skeptic David Hume as concerned with the "relations of
> ideas" and, in a later phase of Positivism, were classified as purely
> formal sciences. On the negative and critical side, the Positivists
> became noted for their repudiation of metaphysics; i.e., of speculation
> regarding the nature of reality that radically goes beyond any possible
> evidence that could either support or refute such "transcendent"
> knowledge claims. In its basic ideological posture, Positivism is thus
> worldly, secular, antitheological, and antimetaphysical. Strict
> adherence to the testimony of observation and experience is the
> all-important imperative of the Positivists. "
>
> "The Logical Positivist school differs from earlier empiricists and
> positivists (David Hume, Ernst Mach) in holding that the ultimate basis
> of knowledge rests upon public experimental verification rather than
> upon personal experience. It differs from Auguste Comte and J.S. Mill
> in holding that metaphysical doctrines are not false but
> meaningless-that the "great unanswerable questions" about substance,
> causality, freedom, and God are unanswerable just because they are not
> genuine questions at all. This last is a thesis about language, not
> about nature, and is based upon a general account of meaning and of
> meaninglessness. "
>
> Britannica is handy :)
>
> --
> William T Goodall
> Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
> Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
>
> One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
> lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
> their C programs. -- Robert Firth
>
Thank you Mr. Goodall. That was very consice. I would like to add that modern
"positivists" are more or less "logical positivists", and follow the idias of
Carl Poper (sp?).
=====
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Jan William Coffey
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