POSITIVIST PARADIGM - Personal Pages

1 POSITIVISTPARADIGMP ositivism emerged as a philosophical PARADIGM in the19th century with Auguste Comte s rejection of meta-physics and his assertion that only scientific knowledgecan reveal the truth about reality. It was later formallyestablished as the dominant scientific method in theearly part of the 20th century by members of the ViennaCircle, including Gustav Bergmann, Rudolf Carnap,Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Karl Menger, OttoNeurath, and Moritz Vienna Circle sought to construct a unified sci-entific world-conceptionthat rejects the use of philoso-phy as a means of learning about the true nature ofreality. Unfortunately, it failed as a coherent philosophyof science because of a critical inconsistency betweenits theory of reality and its theory of knowledge. Positivism adopted David Hume s theory of thenature of reality ( , philosophical ontology). Humebelieved that reality consists of atomistic (micro-level)and independent events.

2 He believed in the use of thesensesto generate knowledge about reality ( , scien-tific method). He thought that philosophical and logi-cal reasoning could lead us to see nonexisting linksbetween events occurring simultaneously. However,positivism also adopted Ren Descartes s epistemol-ogy ( , theory of knowledge). Descartes believedthat reasonis the best way to generate knowledgeabout reality. His deductive method implies that eventsare ordered and interconnected, and therefore reality isordered and deducible. This internal inconsistencyeventually undermined the validity of POSITIVIST PARADIGM asserts that real events canbe observed empirically and explained with logicalanalysis. The criterion for evaluating the validity of ascientific theory is whether our knowledge claims ( ,theory-based predictions) are consistent with the infor - mation we are able to obtain using our senses. Positivistresearch methodology (methodological individualism)emphasizes micro-level experimentation in a lablikeenvironment that eliminates the complexity of the exter-nal world ( , social, psychological, and economiclinkages between unemployment, and crime or suicide).

3 Policies are then prescribed based on conclusionsderived via the scientific method ( , job training forthe unemployed, antidepressants for the suicidal, andjail time for the criminal). Psychologists now realizethat this yields results that have internal validity ( , therelations observed in the experiment are valid withinthat context). While the results obtained using experi-mental methods provide valuable insights into thenature of reality, those results may lack external is, the relations observed in the laboratory may notbe the same in the more complicated external worldwhere a much greater number of factors POSITIVIST dealing with complex social problemssuch as unemployment and crime would be concernedwith their visible manifestations ( , the unemployedindividual or criminal who can be sensed or per-ceived) rather than with the underlying causal mecha-nisms that are invisible to us. Hence, positivistprescriptions tend to treat the symptoms rather thanthe root cause of the exerted an important influence onscientific practice in the social sciences for decades inthe early 20th century.

4 This was especially true in thenatural sciences where laboratory experiments canclosely approximate the real world environment, thusallowing for accurate predictions. In the social sci-ences, however, human volition and uncertainty makethe laboratory experiment less reliable. Ultimately, itsinternal inconsistency resulted in the abandonment ofpositivism in favor of scientific approaches such ascritical multiplism,which is based on the belief thatno one approach is ever sufficient for developing avalid understanding of a phenomenon. The applica-tion of critical judgment in investigating multipleresearch questions using multiple measures, samples,designs, and analyses are necessary to permit a con-vergence on a valid understanding of a KaboubSee also Behavioral Observation Methods, Assessment (v1);Evidence-Based Treatments (v2); Empirically BasedProfessional Practice (v1); Psychometric Properties (v2);Qualitative Methodologies (v1); QuantitativeMethodologies (v1)Further ReadingsDescartes, R.

5 (1998). Discourse on method and meditationson first philosophy (4th ed; Donald A. Cress, Trans.).Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. (Original work published 1637)Hume, D. (1993). An enquiry concerning humanunderstanding(2nd ed.; Eric Steinberg, Ed.). Indianapolis,IN: Hackett. (Original work published 1777)Neurath, O. (1973). The scientific conception of the world:The Vienna Circle. In M. Neurath & R. Cohen (Eds.),Empiricism and : PARADIGM 343 Leong (Encyc)-Vol -2 (Pat 2) 1/2/2008 8:38 PM Page 343