Positivism is a deflationary view that one should only believe in things that are either tautologically true or derived a posteriori from empirical observation. To be “deflationary” means it subtracts away beliefs that are not absolutely necessary to make sense of what we observe.
Mach, famously, did not believe atoms existed, because in his time, no one had yet developed an electron microscope that could actually see atoms. He thus saw atoms as a metaphysical construct used to explain the results of experiments, but since we could not directly observe them, we did not need to commit to a belief that they literally definitely existed.
The main issue with positivism, in my view, is that it is a bit too deflationary. If you take it seriously, you basically have to adopt a kind of solipsistic stance, because I cannot observe what you observe, so I have to assume your point of view doesn’t exist, and if I am not looking at something, well, by definition I cannot observe it, so I also have to deny that things even can be said to have existence at all in any sense when I am not looking.
This is a critique that many dialectical materialists have of positivism. Dialectical materialism is sometimes viewed as positivist since dialectical materialist authors love to rail against the “metaphysicians” and engage in deflationary rhetoric. But it’s not really positivist because dialectical materialists always have defended that at least some metaphysics is necessary to make sense of the world, but they just always caution to use it very sparingly.
Positivism is a deflationary view that one should only believe in things that are either tautologically true or derived a posteriori from empirical observation. To be “deflationary” means it subtracts away beliefs that are not absolutely necessary to make sense of what we observe.
Mach, famously, did not believe atoms existed, because in his time, no one had yet developed an electron microscope that could actually see atoms. He thus saw atoms as a metaphysical construct used to explain the results of experiments, but since we could not directly observe them, we did not need to commit to a belief that they literally definitely existed.
The main issue with positivism, in my view, is that it is a bit too deflationary. If you take it seriously, you basically have to adopt a kind of solipsistic stance, because I cannot observe what you observe, so I have to assume your point of view doesn’t exist, and if I am not looking at something, well, by definition I cannot observe it, so I also have to deny that things even can be said to have existence at all in any sense when I am not looking.
This is a critique that many dialectical materialists have of positivism. Dialectical materialism is sometimes viewed as positivist since dialectical materialist authors love to rail against the “metaphysicians” and engage in deflationary rhetoric. But it’s not really positivist because dialectical materialists always have defended that at least some metaphysics is necessary to make sense of the world, but they just always caution to use it very sparingly.