Word: positivists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), French positivist philosopher: "What an irreparable loss...
...Descartes, Kant, Spinoza and Hegel. Their particular enemy is Hegel, for his insistence that all reality can be encompassed in a rational structure. It was this that inspired the melancholy Dane, Sören Kierkegaard (1813-55), to raise the flag of philosophic revolt against all purely rationalist and positivist systems, and to declare that reality and truth are within man himself and his actions, whether they be rational or no. Kierkegaard argued that the central, all-important fact about man is the simplest one: his existence. But because man is the only creature who is self-conscious...
...fact to the world of value. No one trained in the Anglo-American tradition, who paused to consider what 'law' was as administered by Hitler's judges, or who has tried to grasp the essential theories of Soviet jurisprudence, could remain entirely satisfied with a positivist, empirical approach to his profession...