Re: [Marxism] What is wrong with positivism?

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:59:48 -0400 Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
writes:
>   On 8/2/07, Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > >That was once a tendency in bourgeois sociology, but it collapsed
> > >along with positivism.
> > 
> > What exactly is wrong with positivism? Isn't positivism a kind of
> > materialism? (Sorry about my ignorance here).
> 
> Good question, which I can't help but address although I'm hardly
> qualified to do so. There seem to be four issues involved: a) A
> definition of positivism; b) What is wrong with positivism?; c) What
> has been its ideological function; d) Is it now dead and why? This is
> a lot, and so I'll try to keep things short and sweet.
> 
> 
> What is positivism
> 
> A development of the Enlightenment outlook associated with Auguste
> Comte and which prevailed in the philosophy of science until
> challenged after World War II. It suggests that our only real
> knowledge is scientific knowledge, and truth derives from a
> methodology that gives primacy to observables (phenomena) and their
> relations. These observables are considered to be the only real
> "facts"; one can't acquire knowledge of causes, origins and
> purposes. This view is sometimes called "scientism" because of its
> focus on the scientific method.

I am inclined to think that this runs two issues together, namely
the issue of whether science (especially natural science) constitutes
the only genuine form of human knowledge and the issue of whether
the positivism as a philosophy of science is an adquate analysis of
how science works.  One could subscribe to the first thesis while
rejecting the second one, and vice versa.  In the past lots of
people embraced the positivst analysis of science while
still holding to belief in metaphysics or theology (i.e.
the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain seems to have done
this).


> 
> Aren't science and materialism good things? Well, yes, of course, but
> this tells us little. For one thing, the term materialism is
> ambivalent. For example, it can mean a physicalism (which was 
> embraced
> by positivism but is contrary to the scientific consensus today), 

I don;t know about that.  I think that in the academic world
today, physicalism is by far the most common outlook
among philosophers of mind as well as among neursocientists.
You see very few defenders of the psycho-physical dualism
that Descartes had defended in the 17th century and which
had been embraced by Karl Popper and John Eccles in the
last century.

> or
> it can mean ontological monism (with which all scientists would agree
> today, at east as far as reliable knowledge is
> concerned). "Materialism" originated as a counter to idealism. It was
> victorious long ago and is no longer an issue except in some esoteric
> philosophical debates over modalities.
> 
> As for science, most people the world over would say that
> science/technology is a good thing in the sense that it represents
> human empowerment, which can be argued to be a good in itself as a
> necessary condition of progress. Of course, it is an empowerment to 
> do
> both good and ill, but that's a political issue. However, even simple
> empowerment has in recent years been criticized because it is
> necessarily connected with environmental dissipation (Second Law of
> Thermodynamics ["You can't get somethin' for nothin']). While the
> Marxist notion of contradiction implies that our dissipation of the
> environment is necessarily accompanied by a rise of new possibilities
> that can be actualized if accompanied by a change in social 
> structure,
> at this point I don't know how and so am forced to be a bit
> pessimistic on the issue. That is, beyond some short term bandaids, I
> don't know how we can exercise every more power without suffering 
> from
> the resulting degradation of our environment. 
> 
> More to the point, if we assume that a humanity's ability to control
> its own destiny is a good thing, then science in principle is also
> good. For most of the world's population, technology is its principle
> hope for improvement. Science is also the only universal language in
> our world. It is our principle way to acquire truth and prmote
> wellbeing. But such a defense of science per se does not in any way
> validate the kind of values associated with positivism.
> 
> 
> What's wrong with positivism?
> 
> There is no question that positivism is dead in the philosophy of
> science. It is no longer the philosophy that is supposed to underly
> scientific practice (it never was, but that's another issue). In
> support of this, let me recommend Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper, and
> J. D. Trout, The Philosophy of Science (Cambridge, MIT, 1995). This 
> is
> a synaptic and comprehensive survey that represents the consensus
> in the philosophy of science at the time of its writing. It is really
> quite excellent. 

It seems to me that positivism has died almost as many times
as Marxism, but it seems to keep coming back in different forms.

> 
> I'm inclined to see the 1980s as the turning point at which 
> positivism
> finally died and alternatives came to take its place (but I've no
> reason to assume anyone would agree with this dating). What replaced
> it are a) scientific realism, b) neo-Kantian social constructivism,
> and c) post-positivist empiricism. 

All of which BTW were developed by people who had been
associated with the logial positivists in one way or another.
In fact the positivists, themselves, had quite varied views
on lots of philosophical issues, especially those in the
philosophy of science.

> The authors of the text cited 
> above
> suggest that these three together represent a new consensus, but I
> suspect they may be optimistic, for these three seem contradictory to
> me. I hope that that scientific realism (incorporating constructivist
> elements) will become the consensus in the next decade or two (and I
> optimistically see Marxist philosophy reviving because it its 
> original
> close association with realism and recent Marxism's association with
> social constructivism).

Some of these are or have been Marxists.  Hilary Putnam was
still a realist back around the same time that he was still a
Marxist. Wilfrid Sellars, a pioneer of post-positivist realism
was an admirer of Engels. Richard Boyd, I think, regards himself
to be a Marxist.

> 
> So what was wrong with positivism? One thing is its being wedded to
> the hypothetico-deductive method. School kids were long taught that
> this is the one and only legitimate scientific method. That is
> nonsense. It is not much carried out in practice, and it is 
> irrelevant
> in the "evolutionary" sciences (geology, meteorology, cosmology,
> evolutionary biology, human history, etc.), where an abductive method
> must be used. It is argued that all sciences in fact to some extent
> use the abductive method and its implied realism. Part of 
> positivism's
> problem is its associated verificationism theory; it simply does not
> stand up. Popper's falsificationism may be popular, but it has little
> impact on the philosophy of science because of its obvious
> problems. There's no generally accepted way in which positivism can
> justify or verify its conclusions.

BTW the behavioral psychologist, BF Skinner, who lots of people
would think as being a stauch positivist, was a great critic of
the application of the hypothetico-deductive method to psychology,
in opposition to people like Clark Hull who did believe in its
applicability to psychology.


> 
> Another thing wrong with positivism is its failure to explain
> anything. While it is commonly held that an association of an event
> with a covering law represents an explanation, there is good reason 
> to
> doubt that. General laws are a generalization of our experience and
> give us some confidence in predicting the future. This 
> instrumentalism
> has been extensively criticized. On the other hand, both the
> scientific realist and neo-Kantian social constructivist positions do
> offer real causal explanations. The former in terms of unobservable
> causal potencies; the latter in terms of social determinations. 
> Unless
> science can offer causal explanation, it never really empowers us.
> 
> Another problem with positivism is its being wedded to a naive
> phenomenalism (sometimes called a naturalism, although I'd prefer 
> that
> word to retain its validity). This phenomenalism has been entirely
> discredited. Just as all scientists in practice are realists, their
> understanding of phenomena makes them constructivists. Phenomenmalism
> has lost any merit in contemporary philosophy of science, and it is
> not the view of practicing scientists.

Some of the logical positivists like Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap
rejected phenomenalism.  BTW Neurath was an interesting figure
since he also regarded himself to be a Marxist too.

> 
> Yet another criticism is the tendency to isolate the natural sciences
> from other fields of knowledge and to appeal to mechanics as the 
> model
> of science in general. The new discoveries of physics in the 20th
> century, such as general relativity and the Bell Theorem have clearly
> demonstrated that the presumptions of positivism cannot claim
> universal validity, which was a cornerstone of positivism, and its
> privileging astract or general truth over particular and concrete
> truth has alienated social scientists and makes it of little use for
> practicioners of the evolutionary sciences.
> 
>  
> What has been the ideological function of positivism?
> 
> I see that I need to be brief, which is an excuse to come out with
> some questionable generalizations, I know ;-)
> 
> Positivism has its roots in the Enlightenment, which was the ideology
> of the European bourgeoisie in the Age of Bourgeois Revolution. In
> retropect, it seems positivism is the Enlightenment gone beserk ;-) 
> 
> Positivism was first articulated in a comprehensive manner by August
> Compte. Compte reached his peak before the mid-19th century, at a 
> time
> when the bourgeoisie was consolidating its power. His personal
> background was bourgeois, and he went to the Ã?cole Polytechnique in
> Paris, which was a major source of bourgeois ideology (republicanism
> and progress). He wrote a defense of positivism in support of a 
> reform
> of bourgeois society (1822).
> 
> One weakness of positivism was its objectivism, for its method
> precluded knowledge of the self and the relation of self to the world
> or any social construction of reality. This objectivism served an
> ideological end, for it validated property as a self-sufficient
> objective entity. An aim of the bourgeois revolution was to sever
> property from traditional moral, ideational and legal constraints to
> make it an autonomous commodity (e.g., enclosure movement) so that it
> could be privately possessed and exchanged. Marxism on the contrary
> sees property as being caused by society's relation with nature and
> not as a thing in itself.
> 
> The remarkable scientific achievements toward the end of the
> nineteenth century tended to legitimate the bourgeois state and big
> capitalists. For example, tycoons open to criticism from the yellow
> press bought respectability by donating huge telescopes (Yerkes) or
> funding scientific scholarly projects (Oriental Institute). I suspect
> NASA long served that function in the USA, although today people have
> a very ambivalent attitude toward the state and science.
>    
> The operationalism associated with positivism when carried over to
> politics becomes the source of ideas such as those of Leo Strauss at
> Chicago and the neo-conservativism he inspired. It arrogantly rejects
> the fetters of (irrational) working-class mass democracy on the state
> and sees state action as being legitimate if it brings the citizenry
> security and prosperity. I see neo-conservatism as the dying gasp of
> positivism, although I don't know whether anyone would agree with me
> here.

I think the Straussians would disagree with you on that point.
Strauss, as I recall, proclaimed himself to be an enemy of
positivism in the social sciences.

> 
>    
> Is positivism now dead?
> 
> Well, I guess I've sort of already answered this. However, I answered
> it in terms of the philosophy of science, not in terms of popular
> consciousness, and perhaps I should say something about that.
> 
> Teachers in K-12 (the first twelve grades in the US) treat the
> scientific method associated with positivism (hypothetico-deductive)
> as holy writ. This is because an education major is so demanding that
> future teachers never learn much of anything about the subject they
> will eventually teach, and science in their hands becomes a
> caricature. For example, the "Two Cultures" divide of C.P. Snow still
> persists, and so most historians still see science in terms of
> scientism and therefore reject its relevance. By having an excuse to
> ignore science, their work looses explanatory power beyond short 
> range
> causal explanations embedded in narration. I'm sure to raise hackles
> with this point, but my aim is not to criticize historians, but to
> suggest that positivism is not entirely dead outside the philosophy 
> of
> science.
> 
> And as I suggested above, positivism continues an implicit existence
> in the Machiavellian globalism of U.S. foreign policy. These policies
> may well be dying, but not yet.
> 
> Positivism perhaps also exists in the minds of those who embrace
> consumerism and need material possessions to feel good about
> themselves. This is a difficult argument to justify, but in many 
> areas
> of life, people have reason to sever the relationship of things to
> society and to moral values, and to the extent such behavior is
> abnormal, it can be said to be implicitly positivist. But don't ask 
> me
> to prove this; it is intuitive.
> 
> Well, sorry to go on at such length, but you raised an interesting
> question that I couldn't resist.
> 
> Haines Brown
> 
> 


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