Positivism

Summary

Dominique Pagani links positivism to Auguste Comte, whose philosophy he also treats as the implicit thinking of the hard sciences. He sets out its law of three stages, which runs from the religious to the metaphysical and then to the positive1. The positive age gives up first and final causes, keeping to the field of experience and going as far as possible in what lies within our reach23. He regards this positivism, heir to the Enlightenment, as progress. He draws a clear line between it and neo-positivism, which he judges regressive: it applies the methods of the natural sciences to the human world and erases the advances of Marx and Freud45. He gives the example of brain imaging that claims to explain love or anxiety, and dismisses this position alongside irrationalism6. He sees this naturalism as a dominant ideology that limits knowledge to external objects and wants to know nothing of the negative. He connects this to a limit he finds in Comte himself, who ignores that the subject is doubled by itself7.

1. 1#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 16:33
2. 2#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 30:01
3. 3Worldliness in Clouscard: Aragon and the positivity of the negative29 Jun 2023 · 1:13:11
4. 4#12 Nietzsche (right up) against Wagner28 Jan 2021 · 43:51
5. 5Being born human is not enough to be human19 Jul 2021 · 2:07
6. 6#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 11:15
7. 7From Copernicus to Lenin: revolution!28 Aug 2026 · 1:12:36

Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.