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1. (n.) positivism
the state or quality of being positive.
2. positivism
a philosophical system concerned with positive facts and phenomena, and excluding speculation upon ultimate causes or origins.
Etymology: (1850–55)
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| Definition of 'Positivism' |
Princeton's WordNet |
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1. (noun) positivism, logical positivism
the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation)
2. (noun) positivity, positiveness, positivism
a quality or state characterized by certainty or acceptance or affirmation and dogmatic assertiveness
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| Definition of 'Positivism' |
Webster Dictionary |
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1. (noun) Positivism
a system of philosophy originated by M. Auguste Comte, which deals only with positives. It excludes from philosophy everything but the natural phenomena or properties of knowable things, together with their invariable relations of coexistence and succession, as occurring in time and space. Such relations are denominated laws, which are to be discovered by observation, experiment, and comparison. This philosophy holds all inquiry into causes, both efficient and final, to be useless and unprofitable
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| Definitions of 'Positivism' |
The Nuttall Encyclopedia |
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1. Positivism
the philosophy so called of Auguste Comte (q. v.), the aim of which is to propound a new arrangement of the sciences and a new theory of the evolution of science; the sciences he classes under the categories of abstract and concrete, and his law of evolution is that every department of knowledge passes in the history of it through three successive stages, and only in the last of which it is entitled to the name of science—the Theological stage, in which everything is referred to the intervention of the gods; the Metaphysical, in which everything is referred to an abstract idea; and the Positive, which, discarding at once theology and philosophy, contents itself with the study of phenomena and their sequence, and regards that as science proper. Thus is positivism essentially definable, in Dr. Stirling's words, as "a method which replaces all outlying agencies, whether Theological deities or Metaphysical entities, by Positive laws; which laws, and in their phenomenal relativity, as alone what can be known, ought alone to constitute what is sought to be known." See Dr. Stirling's "Schwegler."
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Definitions of Positivism 
