Positivism and Post-positivism

Concept

Positivism is the view that genuine knowledge comes from sensory experience and scientific method, and that social phenomena can be studied like natural ones. It was named and systematised by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in his Course of Positive Philosophy; he also coined the word “sociology”. Comte’s law of three stages says that human thought passes from the theological stage (explanations by gods and spirits), through the metaphysical stage (abstract forces and essences), to the positive or scientific stage (observation and laws). Earlier roots lie in the empiricism of Bacon and Hume and in Saint-Simon’s ideas; Durkheim later applied positivist method to sociology.

Concept

Positivism assumes a single, objective, external reality (realist ontology), that the researcher can stand apart from what is studied (objectivist epistemology), and that research should be free of values (value-free axiology). Methodologically it favours experiments and surveys, quantitative measurement, hypothesis testing through the hypothetico-deductive model, and the search for law-like generalisations. Observation is supposed to be neutral, causes are sought through control, and knowledge grows by verification.

Concept

Logical positivism emerged in the 1920s–30s in the Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath) and was popularised in English by A. J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936). Its central claim, the verification principle, holds that a statement is meaningful only if it is either analytically true (true by definition, as in logic and mathematics) or empirically verifiable. Metaphysical, ethical and theological claims were therefore dismissed as meaningless. The doctrine was criticised because the verification principle itself is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable.

Concept

Karl Popper rejected verification and induction. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery (German 1934, English 1959) he argued that what separates science from non-science is falsifiability: a scientific theory must make claims that could, in principle, be refuted by observation. No amount of confirming instances proves a universal law, but a single contrary instance (one black swan) can refute it. Science advances by bold conjectures and severe attempts at refutation, a position called critical rationalism. Popper cited Marxist history and Freudian psychoanalysis as theories so flexible that nothing could count against them, contrasting them with Einstein’s risky predictions. His ideas are the starting point of post-positivism.

Concept

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) argued that science does not grow only by steady accumulation. Mature science works in normal science within a shared paradigm; accumulating anomalies create a crisis, followed by a scientific revolution and a paradigm shift to a new framework, such as the move from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics. Rival paradigms are partly incommensurable. Imre Lakatos offered a middle path with research programmes made of a hard core protected by a belt of auxiliary hypotheses, judged as progressive or degenerating. Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method, defended epistemological anarchism with the slogan “anything goes”.

Concept

Post-positivism keeps the aim of studying reality scientifically but admits that humans can know it only imperfectly. It is often described as critical realism: a real world exists, yet our observations are theory-laden, fallible and shaped by the observer’s background. Objectivity is therefore a regulative ideal rather than an achievable state. Researchers use multiple methods and triangulation to approximate truth, accept probabilistic rather than certain conclusions, and hold that hypotheses are not proved but only not yet rejected. Quantitative methods remain common, though qualitative ones are accepted. Influential discussions come from Popper, Kuhn, Guba and Lincoln, Phillips and Burbules, and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism.

Concept

These three terms define a research paradigm. Ontology asks what exists and what reality is. Epistemology asks how we can know it and what relationship the knower has with the known. Axiology asks about the role of values and ethics in research. The combination determines the methodology, meaning the practical way of studying the problem.

Concept

Interpretivism holds that social life must be understood from the meanings people give to it; Max Weber’s Verstehen (interpretive understanding) and the hermeneutic tradition of Dilthey and Gadamer are key sources. Constructivism adds that reality is socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann), so there are multiple realities and the researcher is part of the inquiry. Phenomenology (Husserl, Schutz) studies lived experience. These paradigms prefer qualitative methods and rich description. Critical theory, from the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas), goes further by examining power and inequality and aiming at emancipation. Hermeneutics is the theory and method of interpretation, originally of texts.

Concept

A paradigm, in the sense used by Kuhn and later by Guba and Lincoln, is a worldview that shapes what questions are asked and how they are answered. Pragmatism, drawn from Peirce, James and Dewey, rejects the fight between paradigms and chooses whatever method best answers the question; it is often called the philosophy of mixed methods. Triangulation means using more than one source, method, investigator or theory to cross-check findings. Norman Denzin listed four types: data, investigator, theory and methodological triangulation.