The other theory is Empiricism, this holds the belief that knowledge can only gained through the experience of the senses. In contrast to Rationalism, it states that in order to gain knowledge about the world facts must be, measured, calculated and collated in a scientific and controlled way to ensure that we have a correct picture of the world we live in.
August Comte (1798 – 1857) was an empiricist who believed that by studying society you could find laws and apply them to all societies thus enabling a sociologist to predict how a society will develop. He coined the term sociology in 1830 and applied the empirical method to his study. The empirical method requires that facts should be quantative and, especially in sociology, internal emotions and points of view must be discounted. This belief in observational science is called the Positivist Approach.
Positivism is an extension of the Empirical Theory. By rejecting the claims of rationalism and theology, it seeks to extend human knowledge thorough observation and scientific/empirical method.
Comte believed the study of science was the main driving force of change within society. He believed that society passed through three stages of development;
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Superstition - The belief in religion and the enacting of rites to control nature
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Rational/Metaphysical - People begin to question the world around them and begin to formulate natural laws
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Positivist/Scientific - Society no longer has a need for religion. Everything is based on society’s knowledge of itself.
Comte realised that religion had an important cohesive role in society and he predicted that once society had reached the positivist state, then science would be the new religion. Scientists would be regarded as priests and the common people with no great scientific knowledge would be the clergy.
In twenties and thirties Austria, the Vienna Circle was a group who brought philosophy, mathematics, and science together under the banner of Logical Positivism. They campaigned to use only logical and observable data as the basis of human knowledge. They were very much concerned with how we verify what is true, rejecting the unverifiable claims of theology and metaphysics. Their work is relevant today because they gave practical demonstrations of how we could reach conclusions about what is or is not relevant to positivist human knowledge.
Sources
Introduction to Political Philosophy - Geoffrey Thomas
The Great Philosophers – Ray Monk and Frederic Raphael
