The Dictionary of Human Geography

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scientific knowledge is authentic knowledge,

and denying validity to metaphysical (non-

scientific) speculation (see alsoscience). The

antecedents are Enlightenment thinkers such

as David Hume (1711–76) and Pierre-Simon

Laplace (1749–1827). But the term was first

invented, and the philosophy formally codi-

fied, by the French philosopher and sociologist

August Comte (1798–1851), and published in

hefty instalments in hisCourse in positivist phil-

osophybetween 1830 and 1842 (six volumes).

Subsequently, each future generation con-

structed positivism in accordance to its own

ends, frequently minting a new title, perhaps

the best known being logical positivism,

born at discussions of the Vienna Circle during

the 1920s (see alsological empiricism).

Six features characterize the different strains

of positivism (Hacking, 1983):

(1) An emphasis on the importance ofobser-

vationas the foundation for all (non-

mathematical) knowledge. Scientific

statements were to be grounded in im-

mediate and accessible experience of the

world, through the five senses (cf.em-

piricism). Such immediacy guaranteed

that facts were pure, untainted by theory

or value judgements; they represented

the world as it really was – incorrigible

and inviolate. In particular, for Comte

recognition of observation as the source

of knowledge was the culmination of an

historical process in which the errors of

previous eras, characterized by the (mis-

taken) dominance of first religious and

later metaphysical thought, were finally

overcome.

(2) A belief in either verification (using ob-

servations to prove a thesis), or its vari-

ant,falsification(using observations to

disprove a thesis). Verification or falsifi-

cation is undertaken formally, using

common methods and employing rigor-

ous techniques such as statistical infer-

ence to scrupulously determine the truth

or falsity of a statement.

(3) A conviction that causality seen inna-

tureandsocietyis nothing more than

the repetitive concurrence of one event

followed by another. Positivism rejects

the usual interpretation of cause reckon-

ing it obscure metaphysical baggage

(who has ever observed ‘a cause’?). The

alternative is a formulation tethered only

to experience, the constant conjunction

of observable events (‘If event A, then

event B’: seelaw(scientific).

(4) A suspicion of theoretical entities that by

definition are non-observable. Comte

said that theoretical generalizations

must always be regarded at best as mere

hypotheses, and logical positivists tried

to reduce all theoretical statements to

(legitimate) propositions of logic (an en-

deavour that ended disastrously). Even

the less extreme solution of ‘operational-

ism’, that tied the meaning of a theoret-

ical term to the empirical operations

required to measure it, unravelled given

the implication that each new measuring

instrument defined a new theoretical

term.

(5) A faith in the unity of the method allow-

ing positivism to be as efficaciously ap-

plied to the humanities and social

sciences as to the physical and life sci-

ences. This is known asnaturalism: one

method fits all, revealing Truth wherever

it is found. Comte envisioned the unity

as a hierarchy in which disciplines study-

ing more complex phenomena relied on

the laws discovered in disciplines con-

cerned with less complex phenomena

(Hacking, 1983), whereas logical positiv-

ists (or at least Otto Neurath) cham-

pioned the Unity of Science Movement,

which cast knowledge of any discipline

into the single mould of physics (the

monumentally conceived International

encyclopaedia of unified science was to

show how this was to be done, but only

two volumes were ever written: Reisch,

2005).

(6) The ardent denial of metaphysics (i.e.

propositions bearing on the non-

physical). Comte had no interest in meta-

physical meaning, believing that their

time literally had passed: now was the

era of positivism. Logical positivists were

just as extreme. A.J. Ayer (1936) titled the

first chapter in his logical positivist mani-

festo for an English-language audience

‘The elimination of metaphysics’.

Several of these six features have been found

ingeographysince its institutionalization in

the nineteenth century, although sporadically,

oftenonly tacitlyand never all at once. Before

the Second World War, Anglo-American geog-

raphy was not much of a fit. While the discip-

line defined itself in terms of the meticulous

recording of empirical observations, often

from the field, and so met positivism’s first

criterion, very few of the other criteria held,

or at least for the reasons given by positivists.

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POSITIVISM