Can someone explain positivism and why positivist is used as an insult?
It's always used as an insult when you see pretentious people talking about exalted topics such as art, religion (and how its so important blabla), some parts of philosophy, culture.
Then some guy wades in with logic, facts, demands for falsifiable claims... and is instantly denounced as a "positivist".
Can someone explain? I mean yeah, I guess Godel showed everything is bullshit, the idea of falsifiability isnt falsifiable, blabla we cannot know nuthin. But the idea of not being able to know nuthin is mysteriously absent when metaphysicists / literary theorists / continental philosophers are talking.
Positivism mostly fails by giving people a false sense of knowledge as something mechanical that, once you figured out the logic behind it, works like a clock and never has deviations.
It doesn't take into account that we don't know everything, we don't know how much we don't know, and that everything we do know can be instantly proven wrong without any warning whatsoever.
Ironically, most critics of positivism also seem hilariously unaware of this fact and propose 'alternatives' to it, forgetting that they will most likely suffer from the same problems
It's autism.
You can't build a philosophy on the scientific method because the scientific method itself requires a philosophical basis (rationalism). Positivism is a snake eating its own tail.
>>470649
>the scientific method itself requires a philosophical basis (rationalism
No, it really doesn't. Rationalism will tell you absolutely nothing about what you don't know. See how you're doing the very things I told you you people would do? Read this again:
>Ironically, most critics of positivism also seem hilariously unaware of this fact and propose 'alternatives' to it, forgetting that they will most likely suffer from the same problems
>>470653
What are you babbling about? The scientific method is the product of rationalism. This isn't a proposal, it's a fact.
>>470658
>The scientific method is the product of rationalism.
It isn't. It's mostly the product of trail and error.
If you think that science is some kind of centralized, planned effort that is guided top-down by a committee of wise men, then I'm afraid you're just as dumb as the positivists who according to you have autism
>First, the sterility and agnosticism of positivistic, scientistic, and merely analytic schools, characteristically, if not always originally, Anglo-American, which have frequently denied the possibility of knowledge in metaphysical or ethical matters, and sometimes the possibility of constructive philosophical knowledge at all, with, according to Karl Popper, a "concentration upon minutiae (upon 'puzzles') and especially upon the meanings of words; in brief .... scholasticism."
>As Allan Bloom said, "Professors of these schools [i.e. positivism and ordinary language analysis] simply would not and could not talk about anything important, and they themselves do not represent a philosophic life for the students." Students and the intellectually curious looking for some concern, any concern, about the truths of being and value, the content of wisdom, or some humane purpose, found instead what has aptly been called a "valley of bones." Although continuing analytic philosophy sometimes appears as a small island of some sanity in a sea of increasing nonsense, as with John Searle, it retains almost all of its sterility, futility, and what could even be called a self-referential autism.
>>470658
The use of rational thinking is not the same as capital R Rationalism. The scientific method is heavily based on Empiricism.
No one who seriously studies philosophy is a positivist. Also no, it's not compatible with science, if you are a logical positivists you cannot believe in the scientific method. Postivism is self-refuting because it cannot justify itself. It also refutes the scientific method because the method cannot be proven empirically, only rationally.
Not only that but you cannot hold a single position in positivism. Wittgenstein showed us that language is entirly subjective, so statements cannot have inherit truth-values. This negates the positivists position of trying to turn all statements into binary true or false statements. Since all thoughts need to be expressed in language this pretty much locks the postivist out of speaking. For instance you could not even reply to this post using only true statements (or if you would like to try defining the truth value of each individual part of your sentence....which them-self need to have truth values explained with yet more language, an infinite cycle).
So in short positivism is a joke, only held by hypocritical stem-fags that don't want to actually learn philosophy. Even the philosophers that went down the path ended up just refuting their own ideas, such as how Wittgenstein ended up showing his idea of atomic facts is nonsense.
Russel spent his entire career, several decades and working with multiple other people, to try to prove that 1+1=2 using hardcore logic: empiricism™ only, no items, final destination. Russel failed, he discovered his famous Russel's paradox and realized any proof he made is going to be self-referencing. Because any proof is going to be self-referencing you cannot have empirical proofs for anything, there must always be a rationalism aspect to affirm at least one part.
His pupil Wittgenstein provided a proof for 1+1=2 with a simple example "here is a hand. here is my other hand. That's two hands" Wittgenstein spent about 5 seconds of this compared to the years of time Russel had wasted on his autism.
49.5% of the time someone whining about positivism is actually just trying to deflect from the fact that they don't actually have anything to back up their statements.
49.5% of the time it's someone trying to sound deep by regurgitating YOU CAN'T KNOW NUFFIN about some scientific topic they don't understand.
The other 1% of the time it's a legitimate issue with a way of thinking.
This almost never comes up in actual scientific experiments, but it's important for the theory of science.
This guy has a long rant on it.
https://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/axioms/axioms/node45.html
>>470649
So what's an alternative to positivism that works like positivism for what we know and yet also acknowledges that we don't know everything?
>>470629
>the XIXth century was dominated by positivism
Is this true?
Stirnerfags are scourge of the earth
>>470691
Positivism on the one hand, idealism on the other. Intellectual history often moves in opposites.
>>470629
it's the difference between saying
>u can't know nuffin but what i said is more logical than the alternative
and
>u can know nuffin because i believe
>>470629
>he idea of not being able to know nuthin is mysteriously absent when metaphysicists / literary theorists / continental philosophers are talking.
are you kidding, this is like the latest fashion in continental philosophy since the fucking 60s and now it's even worse with post modernism "There is no truth" bullshit.
>>470705
Scourges are spooks.
>>470629
positivism is the idea that the laws of nature is the way nature works, and applying such knowledge to create technology.
>>470791
>he thinks we experience life as pure logic
>he thinks pure logic can solve problems where consciousness is the variable, such as how to live a good life, how to find meaning, how to create good government etc
>>470629
It's usually used to describe people who are showing signs of being logical positivists. It's a popular view among people who don't know philosophy nor know the huge faults of it.
People speaking about "the scientific method" is a dead give-away since said people aren't well-versed in scientific theory, so they'll think there's a single scientific theory and not several.
>>470794
prove that something can be true
>>470849
>they'll think there's a single scientific theory and not several.
Name them
>>470629
>discussion about art, philosophy and culture
>some fag wades in and start sperging about falsifiable claims
You sound like a massive pleb honestly.
Also Popper isn't a positivist, but you wouldn't know the difference. You're probably one of those "I fucking love science" faggots who spout both positivist and realist stuff you randomly picked up without realizing they are incompatible.
>>470629
>pretentious people
>exalted topics heh
>then some guy wades in with logic, facts, demands
>logic
>art
kill yourself you soulless drone faggot
>>470864
I don't have to because my starting point is the metaphysical premise that language can accurately represents objects. If you don't agree, then I have nothing to say to you.
>>470906
none falsifiable bullshit
>>470906
>my starting point is the metaphysical premise that language can accurately represents objects
And how do you know this?
>>470868
There's a divide between formal and non-formal sciences to begin with. Among non-formal, you have qualitative and quantitative research. Among qualitative research you find, among others, discourse analysis and plain ol' empirical studies (behavioural studies if it's a living object).
>>470910
the lazy man's argument
>>470906
Language cannot represent accurately objects, what it can do is create mental labels sufficientaly detailed to be shared and decoded by other people
>>470931
>I don't have to prove my point because of a leap of faith
That's not an argument. This makes you just as full of shit as the people you claim are wrong
>>470830
that was actually the point. logic has a value on certain levels and the important thing is recognizing which ones those are.
>>470956
ayy you mah nigga then
>>470906
>the metaphysical premise that language can accurately represents objects
That's not positivist at all m8. I'm not surprised.
I tend to reject this dense epistemological discussion about the status of truth because if you take it to the end, it leads you to an immovilist position in which the inability to know anything prevents you from doing anything, which helps maintain a CERTAIN STATU QUO. For me there is a subjective experience of reality and then one can abstract from in order to grasp, for example, objective historical knowledge by means of the application of materialist dialectics.
Isn't the reproductability of phenomenons already a good sign that something, while perhaps not known to its fullest extent, at least exists?
>>470978
>because if you take it to the end, it leads you to an immovilist position in which the inability to know anything prevents you from doing anything
loads of bullshit
There is ONE epistemological position that maintains truth is attainable, realism, and it's not even the majority position among scientists.
Positivists, relativists and pragmatists all don't care about attaining "za truth" and guess what they all have effective methodologies. It's not necessary at all to do anything.
Even fucking Popper admits you can't establish truths, well guess what that didn't prevent him from establishing a methodology that is far and wide the most used in experimental sciences.
>>470668
>Russel failed, he discovered his famous Russel's paradox and realized any proof he made is going to be self-referencing
Is that similar to Godel's theorem?
>>471003
no
Why do you even argue with pretentious philosophy students? get smarter friends.
>>471042
How is russell showing that mathematics and logic rely on self-reference different from Godel's second incompleteness theorem?
>>471071
Russel's paradox shows that naive set theory is inconsistent.
Godel's 2nd incompleteness theorem shows that you a theory cannot self-reference itself to be consistent.
Ask a legal positivist anything.
The History of an
Error
1. The true world — attainable for
the sage, the pious, the virtuous man;
he lives in it, he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relati
vely sensible, simple, and persuasive.
A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.")
2. The true world — unattainable for
now, but promised for the sage, the
pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents").
(Progress of the idea: it b
ecomes more subtle, insidious,
incomprehensible — it becomes female, it becomes Christian. )
3. The true world — unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but
the very thought of it — a consola
tion, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen th
rough mist and skepticism. The idea
has become elusive, pale
, Nordic, Königsbergian.)
4. The true world — unattainable?
At any rate, unattained. And being
unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating:
how could something unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)
5. The "true" world — an idea which is no longer good for anything, not
even obligating — an idea which has
become useless and superfluous —
consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of
bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato's
embarrassed blush; pandemoni
um of all free spirits.)
6. The true world — we have abol
ished. What world has remained? The
apparent one perhaps? But no! With the
true world we have also abolished the
apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shad
ow; end of the longest error; high
point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)
>>471085
Right. So they're really looking at the same thing. Russell realized that you can't use math to prove it's own axioms. Godel showed that every suffiently powerful system is either inconsistent or incomplete. Math, being consistent, must be incomplete (you can't use math to prove it's own axioms).
>>471121
go ask Kant
ye ur moms kant
>>470629
mfw this thread
>>470658
Rationalism plus empiricism. Lrn2philosophy.
Because they believe in atheism without evidence.
>>470924
how do you know language can't accurately represent objects?
Language MUST be able to accurately represent objects because it can be used in an infinitely diverse way.
Because the possible utterances in a language are infinite, for an object to be unable to be represented accurately it must have properties we can't perceive. (and so speak of)
If that is the case, how would you know?
