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The concept would be that positive knowledge is associated in particular with the sciences as in things must be observed and there is no questioning of knowledge beyond. Kent (1999: 454).
Therefore other fields such as theology and metaphysics would be regarded as speculation. Kent (1999: 454).
The term 'positivism' was introduced by French socialist Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and noted by his student Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Both of these men rejected traditional Christianity and its working with the existing social system. Kent (1999: 454). Comte held that the highest or only form of knowledge is the description of sensory phenomena. Blackburn (1996: 294). This being the empirical. He held to three stages of human belief the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. It is a version of traditional empiricism. Blackburn (1996: 294).
Paul Weirich writes that Comte was influenced by Kant and held that the causes of the phenomena (or that phenomena realm one could state, my add) in themselves are not knowable. Comte was critical of speculation on such matters. It is stated that he went beyond many empiricists by denying knowledge other than from observable objects. Weirich (1996: 147).
In other words he was a strict empiricist.
From my PhD research, I was forced post-Viva to do some fairly extensive related work on Kant.
This certainly does make me a Kantian scholar, but I can cite on this subject.
Kant was not a noted Christian, nor an empiricist.
From my PhD and my Kant post edited:
Guyer and Wood point out that Kant was not
an empiricist,[1] as
while Kant criticized and limited the scope of traditional metaphysical
thought,[2] he also sought to defend against empiricism’s claim of the
possibility of universal and necessary knowledge which he called a priori [3]
knowledge,[4] because no knowledge derived from experience, a posteriori [5]
knowledge, could justify a claim to universal and necessary validity.
Guyer and Wood explain that Kant sought to defend the scientific approach to the acquisition of knowledge against skeptics that dismissed rigorous arguments in favor of ‘common sense.’[6] Kant critiqued the dogmatism of certain metaphysicians negatively,[7] and he also negatively noted as dogmatists those that would be intellectually indifferent to metaphysical inquiry.[8] Kant wished to limit the pretensions of dogmatic empiricists while defending metaphysical theories as a science and necessary in terms of practical reason.[9] Basically, Kant defended metaphysics as important and necessary, but was sympathetic to the empiricists view that certain metaphysical questions were insoluble.[10]
Guyer and Wood explain that Kant sought to defend the scientific approach to the acquisition of knowledge against skeptics that dismissed rigorous arguments in favor of ‘common sense.’[6] Kant critiqued the dogmatism of certain metaphysicians negatively,[7] and he also negatively noted as dogmatists those that would be intellectually indifferent to metaphysical inquiry.[8] Kant wished to limit the pretensions of dogmatic empiricists while defending metaphysical theories as a science and necessary in terms of practical reason.[9] Basically, Kant defended metaphysics as important and necessary, but was sympathetic to the empiricists view that certain metaphysical questions were insoluble.[10]
Kant noted that a priori is relational without its own inherent content.[11] It is synthetic and incapable of serving as metaphysical proof. A priori is relative to an experience only capable of producing appearances, and so a priori is factual as experience which it conditions.[12] Kant reasons objects that were present in empirical human experience were in the phenomena realm, while objects outside were the noumena realm.[13] He writes that the contingent things experienced by persons are phenomena.[14] These are things that could be experienced empirically and would be reasonably accepted as reality.[15] The noumena realm was not available to empirical senses.
[16] Kant explains in a follow up work entitled The Critique of Practical Reason from 1788, that the noumena is the theoretical department of knowledge denied, while the phenomena is one’s own empirical consciousness.[17] All positive speculative knowledge should be disclaimed for the noumena realm according to Kantian thought.
Kant concludes The Critique of Practical Reason by noting that the phenomena realm is the external realm where consciousness has existence.[18] The noumena realm is invisible and has true infinity where Kant believes one can reason that contingent personality is dependent on the universal and necessary connection to the invisible world.[19]
Importantly Kant thought it legitimate for one to postulate the noumena realm in a ‘negative sense’ meaning things as they may be independently or how they are represented, [20] but not noumena in the ‘positive sense’ which would be things based on pure reason alone.[21] Instead, noumena categories were only useful by applying them to empirical data structured in forms of intuition.[22]
Christian scholarship does not rely primarily on natural theology or it could be stated a vast understanding of the noumena, which would
be considered by certain scholars to require pure reason which some also
think Kant had demolished. Revelation from God in Scripture and resulting
claims made within could perhaps be tied to Kantian concepts and intuition arising
from empirical sensations. This is not a difficulty for a Reformed and some
other approaches to Christianity, which do not rely primarily on philosophical
deductions, but in supernatural revelation of God through empirical sensations,
such as prophets, Christ, the apostles and scribes. Scripture is not primarily metaphysical
speculation about God but is rather coming through the authors
and players within his Bible, which are reasoned to be historically divinely guided by God.
Positivism appears to me to at least risk at times to be what Blackburn describes related to the pejorative term of ‘scientism’ which categorizes things in the natural sciences as the only proper form of academic
inquiry. Blackburn (1996: 344).
In other words, positivism risks being a form of
scientism.
[1] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
2).
[2] Kant was opposed to speculative views of
indefensible rationalism.
[3] Kant called cognitions independent of all
experience and the impressions of the senses a priori. Kant
(1781)(1787)(1998: 136).
[4] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
2).
[5] Empirical experiences are called a posteriori. A posteriori knowledge is empirical
knowledge through experience. Kant
(1781)(1787)(1998: 136).
[6] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
2).
[7] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
3).
[8] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
3). Kant notes in ‘Critique of Practical
Reason’ empiricism needs to be contrasted by the necessity of rational a priori principles. Kant (1788)(1997: 11).
[9] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
3).
[10] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
3).
[12] Kant (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006: 43).
[13] Kant (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006: 482). Guyer and Wood note that the phenomena realm
is the category applied to appearances whereas things in themselves are the
noumena realm, which might be thought of but not known. Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
10). The phenomena realm is that which
appears and is therefore empirical.
[14] Kant (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006: 482).
[15] Kant (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006: 482).
[16] Kant (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006: 393).
[17] Kant (1788)(1898)(2006: 3).
[18] Kant (1788)(1898)(2006: 100).
[19] Kant (1788)(1898)(2006: 100).
[21] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
13).
[22] Guyer and Wood in Kant (1781)(1787)(1998:
13).
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
GUYER, PAUL AND ALLEN W, in KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, London, Macmillan.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1997) Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1898)(2006) The Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, London, Longmans, Green, and Co.
KANT, IMMANUEL (1791)(2001) ‘On The Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, in Religion and Rational Theology, Translated by George di Giovanni and Allen Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
KENT, JOHN (1999) ‘Positivism’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.
WEIRICH, PAUL. (1996) ‘Comte, Auguste’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Cited
The periodicals edited by Saint-Simon, L’industrie (1816–1818), Le politique (1819), L’organisateur (1819–1820), and Du systeme industriel (1821–1822), are often catalogued by libraries under Saint-Simon’s name. Manuel 1962 describes them as appearing intermittently, in part to evade the rules of censorship applied to serial publications, but chiefly because Saint-Simon found it difficult to raise the money necessary to publish them.
1807 Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du dix-neu-vième siècle. Paris: Scherff.
(1813a) 1876 Memoire sur la science de l’homme. Volume 40 of Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin. Paris: Dentu.
1813b Travail sur la gravitation universelle. Paris. → No publisher given.
(1825) 1952 New Christianity: Dialogue. Pages 81-116 in Saint-Simon, Selected Writings. Edited and translated by F. M. H. Markham. Oxford: Blackwell. → First published in French. A new French edition was published in 1943 by Aubry.
Henri de Saint-Simon: Social Organization. New York: Harper, 1964. → Also published in 1952 by Macmillan under the title Henri de Saint-Simon: Selected Writings.
Oeuvres de Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon. 6 vols. Paris: Éditions Anthropos, 1966. → Volumes 1-5 reprinted from Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin, 1865— 1878. Volume 6 reprinted from other works.
Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d’Enfantin. 47 vols. Paris: Dentu, 1865–1878. → Saint-Simon’s writings are in Volumes 15, 18-23, and 37-40.
Selected Writings. Edited and translated with an introduction by F. M. H. Markham. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952.
