Word: positivists
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...there is something missing in all our lives, and there is something radically wrong with us as a country. Thus far we have peered somewhat foolishly at America through the positivist telescope that Marx built a century ago rather than analyzing ourselves in a softer, less "scientific" manner. We are, I think, an attentive and sensitive people, needful of homily and love and sense in our dealings with the world of ideas, with which, after so long a battle with material things, we are scarcely accustomed to dealing. It is renewed notions of community and ethics that our generation will...
...Named for the 19th century French Positivist philosopher who added the word "sociology" to the language. * Playboy has itself practiced entrapment at times by hiring private investigators who pretend to be eager Johns and ask club bunnies for a date. If the bunnies are dumb enough to accept, they may get fired...
...mostly with second-order problems of method. The existentialists, on the other hand, continue to ask large-size questions, but because of their man-centered approach they are indifferent to systematic thinking. Thus, for both movements, a question such as "What is truth?" becomes impossible to answer. The logical positivist would say that a particular statement of fact can be declared true or false by empirical evidence; anything else is meaningless. A language philosopher would content himself with analyzing all the ways the word true can be used. The existentialist would emphasize what is true for a person...
...professor who has questioned his "simple positivist faith" in research carried on ad Infinitum can evade the problem by devoting himself to teaching--in which case he traps himself in repetition and self-dramatization, becoming a "quaint figure" beloved of undergraduates, "the legendary hero of local folk-lore...
...This failure caused him considerable anguish. It was primarily a personal trait against which he struggled and not a necessary consequence of his philosophic doctrine. One the contrary, James felt that the formal doctrine--over the long run--contained a theory of truth as rigorous as that of any positivist. But, in addition to the demand for rigor, it stresses man's freedom and ultimate moral responsibility. If it were not for his optimism, one might call James an existentialist. And the optimistic style did not come easily. With it James sought to encourage, to cure and rejuvenate--none other...