Logical Positivism held that the only meaningful knowledge is scientific knowledge that can be empirically verified. It rejected metaphysics and theology. Post-Positivism recognizes the limitations of Positivism in assuming objective truth and the fallibility of observation. Post-Positivism believes that while reality exists independently, our knowledge of it is imperfect and constructed based on fallible perceptions. The goal of science is to get closer to the truth about reality through revisable theories rather than uncover absolute truth.

1. Logical Positivism &
Post Positivism
Lecture 5

2. Positivism
• a philosophical system recognizing
only that which can be scientifically
verified or which is capable of
logical or mathematical proof, and
therefore rejecting metaphysics
• Positivism is a philosophical theory
stating that certain knowledge is
based on natural phenomena and
their properties and relations. Thus,
information derived from sensory
experience, interpreted through
reason and logic, forms the exclusive
source of all certain knowledge

3. • It’s a rejection of metaphysics (abstract truths, nature of existence etc.)
• Positivism is the philosophy of science that information derived from
logical and mathematical treatments and reports of sensory experience.
• Positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates
according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is
rejected.
• Positivism is a philosophical system deeply rooted in science and
mathematics. It’s based on the view that whatever exists can be
verified through experiments, observation, and mathematical/logical
proof.
• Knowledge of anything beyond what we can observe and measure is
impossible

4. a form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, which
considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those which
can be solved by logical analysis.
It is characterized by the view that scientific knowledge is the only kind of
factual knowledge and that all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be
rejected as meaningless.

5. Logical positivism, later called logical
empiricism, and both of which together are
also known as Neopositivism, was a movement
in Western philosophy whose central thesis
was the verification principle.
a philosophical movement that arose in
Vienna in the 1920s, that is the study of the
logical (formal) relationships between
statements, hypothesis, and empirical evidence.

6. • It holds that since the purpose of science is simply
to stick to what we can observe and measure,
knowledge of anything beyond that is impossible.
• The world and the universe are operated by laws of
cause and effect. The positivists believed in
empiricism – the idea that observation and
measurement was the core of the scientific
endeavor.
• That the key approach of the scientific method is
the experiment, the attempt to discern natural laws
through direct manipulation and observation.
• A strong form of empiricism, especially as
established in the philosophical system of Comte,
that rejects metaphysics and theology as seeking
knowledge beyond the scope of experience, and
holds that experimental investigation and
observation are the only sources of substantial
knowledge.

7. The scientific process
according to positivists
• A scientific theory, according to logical
positivism, acquires an empirical interpretation
from suitable statements which establish a
correlation between real objects or processes and
the abstract concepts of the theory
• The language of a scientific theory includes three
kinds of terms: logical, observational and
theoretical.
• Logical terms denote the logical constants and
the mathematical objects, observational terms
denote objects or properties that can be directly
observed or measured, and theoretical terms
denote objects or properties we cannot observe or
measure but we can only infer from direct
observations Examples of theoretical terms are
'electron', 'atom', 'magnetic field'.

8. The scientific
process according
to positivists
• Observation: data gathering
(fact finding) through 5 senses.
• Generalization: formulating
laws (induction).
• Verification: finding / searching
for new facts.
• Explanation: subsuming new
facts (deduction).

10. • A philosopher is a logical positivist if he holds that
there is no special way of knowing that is peculiar
to philosophy, but that questions of fact can only
be decided by the empirical methods of science,
while questions that can be decided without appeal
to experience are either mathematical of linguistic.
• It is a school of philosophy that combines
empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is
indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a
version of rationalism, the idea that our knowledge
includes a component that is not derived from
observation.
• Rationalism + Empiricism = Logical Positivism

11. • Logical Positivist thinkers proposed that philosophy
should dismiss any statements or beliefs that were not
verifiable or, at least, confirmable by observation or
experiment.
• This became known as the Principal of Verification
and was formulated by A. J. Ayer.
• According to Ayer, a principal only had meaning if it
could be logically verified.
• Therefore, the only statements and ideas that were of
any use were those that were based on logic and
scientific thought or based on observations of the
natural world, i.e. experiments. As such, philosophy
had no business engaging in discussions of morality,
religious beliefs, and metaphysics, and such avenues
were of no meaning because they could not be
verified.

12. Characteristics
• Rationality, ”positive knowledge”
• Anti-metaphysical: sharp distinction
between Science / Non-science
• Language has a logical structure
• What is meaningful = what is
verifiable
• Source of knowledge: observations +
logic

13. Only two sources of knowledge
• Logical reasoning (analytic a priori)
• Empirical experience (synthetic a
posteriori)No synthetic a priori
Verifiability principle: A statement is only
meaningful if it can be proved true or false
(in principle) by means of experience.
Metaphysics is meaningless

14. Father of Logical
Positivism
• Moritz Schlick
• – Logical Positivism, also known as Logical Empiricism, is
a philosophy developed in the early 20th Century, notably by
Moritz Schlick.
• Logical Positivism is only a special kind of positivism, an
extreme kind.

15. Criticism
• Logical Positivism did not fail because it denied human
emotion. it failed because it tried to reduce the concept of
meaning to the process of verification, and it became
increasingly clear that this was an impossible task (as the
later Wittgenstein, among other, pointed out quite
clearly).
• Logical Positivists would look at a scientific proposition
— such as the laws of gravity — and note that such
theories are meaningful precisely because they can be
used functionally in ways that verify them.
• The first – and perhaps most fundamental – flaw
of positivism is its claim to certainty. As Crotty says,
'articulating scientific knowledge is one thing; claiming
that scientific knowledge is utterly objective and that only
scientific knowledge is valid, certain and accurate is
another'.

16. Karl Marx
• Karl Marx was a philosopher of economics born in the German
states in 1818. ... Such capitalist systems, Marx argued, created a
class struggle between the rich factory owners (bourgeoisie) and the
working class (proletariat).
• Marx's methodology was expressly anti-positivist, and he referred to
it as historical materialism although supports scientific methods.
Arguably, he developed a version of dialectical materialism (which
is different to the realist materialism of later so-
called Marxist dialectical materialists
• Positivism is the view that philosophy can and should use the
methods of the natural sciences, (e.g. physics and chemistry). ...
Anti-positivists, or interpretivists, argue the opposite
• The definition of Marxism is the theory of Karl Marx which says
that society's classes are the cause of struggle and that society should
have no classes. An example of Marxism is replacing private
ownership with co-operative ownership. "Marxism."

17. Post-
Positivism
• One of the first thinkers to criticize
logical positivism was Sir Karl Popper
• Postpositivism is not a rejection of the scientific
method, but rather a reformation of positivism to
meet these critiques.
• It reintroduces the basic assumptions of
positivism: the possibility and desirability
of objective truth, and the use
of experimental methodology.
• The work of philosophers Nancy
Cartwright and Ian Hacking are representative of
these ideas. Postpositivism of this type is
described in social science guides to research
methods.

18. • One of the most common forms of post-positivism is
a philosophy called critical realism. A critical realist
believes that there is a reality independent of our
thinking about it that science can study.
• Positivists were also realists. The difference is that
the post-positivist critical realist recognizes that all
observation is fallible and has error and that all
theory is revisable. In other words, the critical realist
is critical of our ability to know reality with certainty.
• Most post-positivists are constructivists who believe
that we each construct our view of the world based
on our perceptions of it. Because perception and
observation is fallible, our constructions must be
imperfect.

19. • Positivism is an epistemological position that holds that the goal of knowledge is
simply to describe the phenomena that we experience
• Postpositivism recognizes that the way scientists think and work and the way we
think in our everyday life are not distinctly different.
• Scientific reasoning and common sense reasoning are essentially the same
process. There is no difference in kind between the two, only a difference in
degree.
• Postpositivism recognizes that all observation is fallible and has error and that all
theory is revisable. Where the positivist believed that the goal of science was to
uncover the truth, the post-positivist believes that the goal of science is to hold
steadily to the goal of getting it right about reality, even though we can never
achieve that goal.

20. • Postpositivists believe that human knowledge is based not on a priori
assessments from an objective individual, but rather upon
human conjectures. As human knowledge is thus unavoidably
conjectural, the assertion of these conjectures are warranted, or more
specifically, justified by a set of warrants, which can be modified or
withdrawn in the light of further investigation. However,
postpositivism is not a form of relativism, and generally retains the
idea of objective truth.

21. • A metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism.
While positivists believe that the researcher and the researched
person are independent of each other, postpositivists accept that
theories, background, knowledge and values of the researcher can
influence what is observed.
• Post‐positivistic research assumes that social reality is measurable
and knowable, though difficult to access.

22. • Robert Dubin describes the basic components of a postpositivist
theory as being composed of basic "units" or ideas and topics of
interest, "laws of interactions" among the units, and a description of
the "boundaries" for the theory.
• A postpositivist theory also includes "empirical indicators" to connect
the theory to observable phenomena, and hypotheses that are testable
using the scientific method.
• According to Thomas Kuhn, a postpositivist theory can be assessed on
the basis of whether it is "accurate", "consistent", "has broad scope",
"parsimonious", and "fruitful"

23. The post-positivist approach prioritizes quantitative data and
emphasizes to strengthen their finding with the help
of qualitative data

24. Criticism
• Positivists believed that objectivity was a
characteristic that resided in the individual scientist.
Scientists are responsible for putting aside their
biases and beliefs and seeing the world as it 'really'
is. Post-positivists reject the idea that any individual
can see the world perfectly as it really is. We are all
biased and all of our observations are affected
(theory-laden).
• We never achieve objectivity perfectly, but we can
approach it. The best way for us to improve the
objectivity of what we do is to do it within the
context of a broader contentious community of
truth-seekers (including other scientists) who
criticize each other's work.

25. Criticism
• Our best hope for achieving objectivity is to
triangulate across multiple fallible perspectives!
Thus, objectivity is not the characteristic of an
individual, it is inherently a social phenomenon. It
is what multiple individuals are trying to achieve
when they criticize each other's work. We never
achieve objectivity perfectly, but we can approach
it. The best way for us to improve the objectivity
of what we do is to do it within the context of a
broader contentious community of truth-seekers
(including other scientists) who criticize each
other's work.

26. Post-Positivists concern:
• Understanding
• Working Hypotheses
• Mutual interaction between inquirer and the
object of study
• Observing evidence=> continued use of case
studies
• Intuition & Total immersion in relevant
information
• Multiple realities, cause and effects cannot be
distinguished as entities mutual simultaneous
shaping
• post-positivism encourages a ‘Socratic method
,
Positivists concern:
• Prediction
• Rigorous Hypotheses testing Require
Analyst’s Detached observation
• Sophisticated techniques of analysis
(hard data, quantification, statistical
techniques etc.)
• Value free, reality single, tangible,
knower & known are dependent, real
causes= clear cause and effect
• positivism is methodologically
dogmatic