Riley, Dylan (Author)
Emigh, Rebecca Jean (Author)
Ahmed, Patricia (Author)
What social conditions produce positivism? One position, common to both positivists and some of their major critics, suggests that positivism is an “ideology” or “worldview” of industrial capitalism. Positivism therefore resonates with the basic experience of capitalism for all social groups. Intellectuals draw on this experience in formulating positivist social science. A second position suggests that positivism is a strategy of distinction by which intellectuals attempt to accumulate symbolic capital against their rivals. This position suggests that positivism is a resource for establishing a social science that imitates the methodology of natural science. Our article argues for a third view focused on the internal structure of the intelligentsia as a social group. Positivism could emerge in both industrial capitalist and preindustrial contexts; however, the types of positivism differ in these two cases because the structure of the intelligentsia differs. In preindustrial contexts, such as nineteenth-century Italy, which is the focus of our analysis, positivists claim an ontological continuity between natural and social sciences. In industrial contexts, on the basis of which most theories of positivism rest, positivists claim a methodological similarity between natural and social sciences. We conclude our analysis by reflecting on the implications of our study for work on positivism and social ontology in the social sciences.
...More
Book
W. J. Mander;
(2014)
The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB624199481/)
Thesis
Thomas Lalevee;
(2022)
From Perfectibility to Progress: The Search for a Science of Society in France, 1750-1850
(/isis/citation/CBB368433669/)
Book
Leonardo Ciacci;
(2023)
Patrick Geddes
(/isis/citation/CBB502845517/)
Article
Mischa Suter;
(2017)
Debt and Its Attachments: Collateral as an Object of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Liberalism
(/isis/citation/CBB850632526/)
Article
Foschi, Renato;
(2016)
La rappresentazione psico-antropologica dei meridionali tra Ottocento e Novecento
(/isis/citation/CBB415529966/)
Article
Lorenzo Leporiere;
(2023)
Lombrosian Creatures: Literary Devices for an Effective Popularisation of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB180612452/)
Article
Alessandro Savorelli;
(2010)
Galileo "positivista"
(/isis/citation/CBB368144360/)
Book
Pietro Ficarra;
(2016)
La modernizzazione in Italia e Lombroso. La svolta autoritaria del progresso (1876-1882)
(/isis/citation/CBB424815764/)
Book
Dario Muti;
Elena Calamari;
(2021)
L'ingegnere del ragionamento. Eugenio Rignano, la memoria organica e la psicologia
(/isis/citation/CBB040941369/)
Article
Leporiere, Lorenzo;
(2016)
Filippo Bottazzi e le sue indagini sulla ‘medianità’ di Eusapia Palladino.
(/isis/citation/CBB424502076/)
Article
Robert Fredona;
Sophus A. Reinert;
(Spring 2020)
Italy and the Origins of Capitalism
(/isis/citation/CBB952405438/)
Book
Savage, Michael;
(2010)
Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: The Politics of Method
(/isis/citation/CBB001214385/)
Article
Brian, Eric;
(2006)
Les phénomènes sociaux que saisissait J. Bernoulli: de Condorcet à Comte
(/isis/citation/CBB001021376/)
Book
Oishi, Takahisa;
(2001)
Unknown Marx: Reconstructing a Unified Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB000102182/)
Article
William J. Novak;
(Winter 2019)
Institutional Economics and the Progressive Movement for the Social Control of American Business
(/isis/citation/CBB921649138/)
Article
Kilborne, Benjamin;
(1992)
Positivism and its vicissitudes: The role of faith in the social sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB000057656/)
Book
Maurice A. Finocchiaro;
(2021)
Science, Method, and Argument in Galileo: Philosophical, Historical, and Historiographical Essays
(/isis/citation/CBB922757604/)
Article
Jenny Bulstrode;
(2018)
Riotous Assemblage and the Materials of Regulation
(/isis/citation/CBB081395084/)
Book
Johannes Feichtinger;
Franz L. Fillafer;
Jan Surman;
(2018)
The Worlds of Positivism: A Global Intellectual History, 1770–1930
(/isis/citation/CBB298923215/)
Article
Bresadola, Marco;
(2008)
Animal Electricity at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Many Facets of a Great Scientific Controversy
(/isis/citation/CBB000831384/)
Be the first to comment!