From Positivism to Post-Positivism
The
Rejection of Positivism to Post-Positivism
The Rejection of Positivism to Post-Positivism
Positivism
When the enlightenment took off in
18th century, empiricism kicked in as the dominant explanation that
knowledge is attainable through sense experience, during the arousal of
experimental science the theory that all knowledge is derived from
sense-experience. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it
discredited innate and priori knowledge, beliefs as well as information through
mentalism (Carruthers, P., n.d. p. 65).
Now, that’s how positivistic philosophy or ideology came in. in the 19th
to the 20th century, the dominant philosophy in the West, was that:
“any system that confines itself to the data of experience and excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations. More narrowly, the term designates the thought of
the French philosopher Auguste Comte 1798–1857 “(Feigl, H., 2016).
This
philosophic ideology movement, adopted critiques’ from Comte, who’s the father of sociology and the enriched by philosophies of empiriocriticism, logical positivism and logical empiricism and
emerged as analytic philosophy in the mid 2oth century (Feigl,H.,2016). In
other words, positivism rejected anything beyond real world or tangible world
if it cannot be observed through five senses of smell, taste, sight, touch and
hearing (Anon, n.d).
Post-Positivism.
Now
Post-positivism came as total rejection of the empiricist ideas and
philosophic-ideological approach of positivism, it shuts down the view of
empiricism to apply natural science to social science (Ryan, A.B.,
n.d.p.16-17). Ryan, A.B (n.d.p.16) states that, the rejection of the positivism
philosophic approach to research came from different social and societal
critiques such as feminism,, post-structuralism, critical psychology,
anthropology, ethnography and qualitative research, these critiques of positivism
have emphasis for social change and the critical study of Eastern and
indigenous societies, as this knowledge approach had been outweighed by the
empiricists scientific approach of Western Tradition has been reborn. “Post-positivist
research principles emphasise meaning and the creation of new knowledge, and
are able to support committed social movements, that is, movements that aspire
to change the world and contribute towards social justice” (Ryan,A.B.,n.d.p.13)
Positivist Approach
Positivism Empiricist View
The
positivism view was that, research should be based on a natural scientific
model; that is on facts, figures, statistics, objectivism, validation, science
and logic-so that’s why even today people still have that empiricist positivism
mind-set, even students and lectures on academia (Ryan, A.B., n.d.p.13).This is
since, the positivists had the philosophy that using scientific methods to
investigate social realm brings objectivism, liberating the research from the
values, passion and ideologies of the researcher-this mind-set approach known
as positivist-empiricist, has been so dominant in the public realm (Ryan,A.B.,n.d.p.13). Ryan, A.B (n.d.p.13) on quote “positivist
researchers believe that they can reach a full understanding based on
experiment and observation. Concepts and knowledge are held to be the product
of straightforward experience, interpreted through rational deduction”.
This
view of empiricism holds that all knowledge has to be attained by introspection
and self-experiment (Carruthers, P., and n.d.p.64). It did was rejection of
Nativism, to the belief in innate concepts or knowledge are credible in
acquiring substantial information (Carruthers, P., n.d.p. 67). According to Ryan, A.B (n.d.p.13) a society
can predict social trends and control societal patterns, if scientific models
could be used, since social research that is credible is the one that will go
by scientific model in providing clear and unambiguous path to the societal
patterns pertaining social and psychological phenomena. This is due to the
preposition that there were interlinks betwixt social phenome and its
causation. Ryan, A.B (n.d.p.14) argues that: “the idea that the only way to do
social research is to follow a scientific model can lead to the dismissal of
research as a valuable tool in understanding the rich complexity of social
life. This scientific approach which positivism espouses is rightly thought to
be inadequate when it comes to learning about how people live, how they view
the world, how they cope with it, how they change it, and so on”.
Failure of Positivism
What has
now been realised is that the metaphysics which had
been discredited positivism philosophy, does exists and its’s the one which
links ontology with epistemology, that’s
explaining the field of investigation correlated method of knowing; therefore,
a perception nor perspective of the world is formed either it be
Judeo-Christian theism, secular naturalism and paganism (Russell, R,.1995). His argument is that: “no field of scholarship — not even
mathematics — is metaphysical or religiously neutral. It is not about the
criticism of metaphysics or religious theoreticism in the disciplines either it
be Darwinism or Freud or Durkheim but
the constitutive presuppositions of the theories themselves” (Russell, R., 1995).
Modernism’s
Dominance of Natural Science
Modernism
view came as an outcome of the four intellectual rational thought in Europe;
the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, this new philosophy in post enlightenment concluded that
to know realm world only certainty and empirical knowledge are valid and
rationalism being valued more than other epistemologies such as intuition (Ryan,
A.B.,n.d.p.14). So then, positivism movement
was to invalidate other ways of accruing knowledge by the reduction of everything
to abstract and has tendency of imploding human experience instead of treating
it as a complex whole (Ryan, A.B.,n.d.p.14). “Modernity led to a split between science and
literature as different ways of understanding Human experience”, […], which became
known as positivism or positivist-empiricism, it places trust in quantification
with the view that correct techniques gives correct outcome or answers
(Rayn,A.B.,n.d.p.14).
The Shift Away From Positivism
According to Ryan, A.B (n.d.p.16) “Opposition to positivist epistemologies
has come from feminism, post structuralism, critical Psychology, anthropology,
ethnography and developments in qualitative research”. What has been notified is that there is no neutralism
in knowledge, the shift from dualistic way of critical taught; either black or
white perception and the emphasise on ethical aspect of research. There is not neutrality since positivism’s epistemologies
dualism of objectivism and subjectivism, scientism or emotionalism are social
constructs. The critique on positivism is that it is improbable to separate ontology
and each man’s experience form knowledge (Ryan, A.B., n.d.p.16).
Reference Lists
Anon.n.d Positivism.
Basic Philosophy. [e-Blo0g]. Online Available at :< http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_positivism.html\> [Accessed
18 February 2017].
Caruthers and Macdonald, C.n.d. What is Empiricism? University of East Anglia. (Pdf) Online
Available at :< http://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/pcarruthers/What%20is%20empiricism.pdf>
Feigl, H.2016.Positivism. Encyclopedia Britannica.
[E-Blog]. Available at:<https://global.britannica.com/topic/positivism> [Accessed 20 February 27,
2017].
Friedman, M. 1999. Reconsidering
Logical Positivism. Indiana University. Cambridge University Press. Russell, R.1999. The Failure of Positivism and Some Lessons for Science and the Humanities.Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, [e-Blog], Available at<:https://www.brlsi.org/events-proceedings/proceedings/17730> [Accessed 18 February 2017].
Ryan,
A.B.n.d. Post
Positivist Appr0ach to Research. […] (pdf) Online Available
at :<https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5b8c/729175658fce52fa637a200d189855ced822.pdf>
Siya Manci
27 February 2017
Siya Manci
27 February 2017
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