The Positive Mind
Its Development and Impact on Modernity and Postmodernity
Published on 1. January 2016
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-963-386-081-6 (ISBN)
Description
This book is a radical reappraisal of positivism as a major movement in philosophy, science and culture. In examining positivist movement and its contemporary impact, I had the following goals. First, to provide a more precise and systematic definition of the notion of positivism. Second, to describe positivism as a trend of thought concerned not only with the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science, but also with problems of ethics, social, and political philosophy, and show that its representatives usually thought that the problems of the latter cannot be solved without solving the former first. Third, to examine the development of positivism as a movement which preserves a certain tradition and hence possesses some coherence, although the forms of this movement changed in different historical circumstances: it was born in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment, took the form of social positivism in the nineteenth century, was transformed at the turn of the twentieth century with the emergence of empirio-criticism, and became logical positivism (or logical empiricism) in the twentieth century. Fourth, to reveal the external and internal factors of this evolution. Fifth, to disclose the relation of positivism to other trends of philosophy. Sixth, to determine the influence the positive mind had not only upon philosophy, but upon other cultural phenomena, such as the natural and social sciences, law, politics, arts, religion, and everyday life.
Reviews / Votes
"The author does not want to confine positivism to an intellectual category but rather wants to expand the word's application to include any kind of what he calls positive thinking and behavior. He speaks, for instance, of the reification and materialization of the positive mind in the artifacts of contemporary technological civilization. Cars, computers, skyscrapers, etc., which have been built using scientific knowledge, are the embodiments of the positive mind. The span of the project, from philosophy to material culture, shows how ambitious the book is. It begins with a definition of positivism, moves to the narration of particular expressions of positivism in the history of thought, from Hume to Logical Positivism, considers positivism in juxtaposition to other philosophical schools and traditions (e.g., Marxism, pragmatism, critical theory, critical rationalism, analytic philosophy, historical philosophy of science, Nietzsche and Heidegger, postmodern authors) and concludes with the influence of the positive mind on cultural phenomena such as law, science, art, politics, religion and everyday life. The most original part of the book is the part devoted to the impact of positivism on its critics and rivals. The book addresses a general audience and is informative and quite thorough in that respect". * Metascience * "The fundamental virtue of Nekrasas's work is his clear realization that positivism is far more influential than all disavowals would make it seem. Indeed, as Nekrasas rightly argues, positivism silently continues to color research programs and theories across the social sciences and humanities. What Nekrasas dubs the 'positive mind' (or the philosophical attitude of positivism) is still far more relevant and influential than many would like to admit. Nekrasas is at his best lucidly reconstructing numerous philosophies within the larger stream of the positivist tradition and drawing interesting distinctions between the many varieties of positivism (including socially progressive nineteenthcentury forms versus more logically technical forms in the twentieth). He also is admirably aware of the fact that positivism has always been a deeply political movement, with strong ambitions to either radically change or substantively reform major features of human social and ethical life by enthroning the sciences as authoritative." * Review of Politics *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
Hungary
Target group
College/higher education
Academic
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-963-386-081-6 (9789633860816)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2016
Central European University Press
€98.99
Available for download
Persons
Evaldas Nekrasas is Professor Emeritus and Head of the Department of International Relations and Professor of Philosophy at Vilnius University. He is a fellow of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, and author of several books on philosophy.
Content
Preface, Acknowledgments, Introduction: The Notion of Positivism, Part One: Development, Part Two: Impact, References, Index