Secular, Social, Scientific
continuing: Logical positivism debunked (1): The philosophy that cannot even prove that its own statements have a “meaning” In the Laundry. You are handed back your belongings all washed, and you notice that this is not your jacket. Actually... Read More | Share it now!
Logical positivism: all statements that can't be empirically verified are meaningless. — Ryan (@ryan_the_kang) March 11, 2014 Response to logical positivism: you can't empirically verify that claim… — Ryan (@ryan_the_kang)... Read More | Share it now!
What would the world look like if logical positivism had been “debunked”? – A question I have been requested to answer on Quora (“your best source for knowledge”, so the advertisement). (I hate these sources that ask you instead... Read More | Share it now!
I recently listed Ludwig Wittgenstein as one of three essential philosophers who can add surprising clarity and vital new perspective to frustrating debates about ethics, political ideology and the practical problems of our planet. What’s most... Read More | Share it now!
It all started with livejournal announcing a public lecture by Tatiana Kasatkina about Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s story The Landlady. According to the invitation this was one of Dostoevsky’s most intriguing stories – one in which he dived into... Read More | Share it now!
English translation] Все началось с того, что я увидел в livejournal анонс публичной лекции Татьяны Касаткиной о рассказе «Хозяйка» Ф. М. Достоевского. В... Read More | Share it now!
Lets not pretend positivists of the “Republic of the West” can avoid Christmas. They can’t and they love it just as they love all the traditions they overcome by assimilating them. Here are my tips how to delight your beloved (or how... Read More | Share it now!
On special request. In case you have an atheist, rationalist or otherwise innovative website you can get the positivist calendar’s date with a bit of code you will have to insert. Here is the script. Paste into the header: <script... Read More | Share it now!
What puzzles me is the question how much of Mach’s positivism, or even Wittgenstein’s neo-positivism (if both allow me these categorisations) is actually inherent in Comte’s explicit positivism. I used to think: not much. Yet whenever... Read More | Share it now!
“Matter” is among the concepts he rejects – as a positivist or as a strict empiricist. In the preface to the fourth edition of his Analysis of Sensations (1902) he is happy about the company of those philosophers who have developed much the same... Read More | Share it now!
La réception du positivisme d’Auguste Comte dans les pays de langue germanique. Journée d’études organisée par l’EA 2326 et la Maison d’Auguste Comte, Vendredi 22 mars 2013, Université de Strasbourg. Institut Le Bel. Salle... Read More | Share it now!
“What you see is real” – an interesting statement made on Chen Wenling’s web page; one might ask: what else should it be? I took this screenshot, before the message will disappear into the world of unstable web artefacts, klick at it to get... Read More | Share it now!
“Science promised the truth, and it is questionable if happiness can be made out of facts” — Émile Zola on the fin de siècle and all new dreams of strength and heroism in New York Times June 11, 1893. M. ZOLA GIVES SOME ADVICE HE... Read More | Share it now!
from: Edward James Mortimer Collins, The British Birds, A Communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes. London: The Publishing Co., 1872. To Professor Tyndall Life and the Universe show spontaneity: Down with ridiculous notions of Deity! Churches and... Read More | Share it now!
From the “introductory remarks” to Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism , Bridges, J.H. (tr.) (London: Trubner and Co., 1865/ 2nd ed. 1880), pp. 1-5. Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00064-2. Positivism... Read More | Share it now!
The volume contains Comte’s first six lessons on sociology edited and freshly annotated by Michel Bourdeau, Laurent Clauzade, and Frédéric Dupin. Political arguments showing the necessity and timeliness of the science of society Survey of... Read More | Share it now!
Comte had an acute feeling for the way humanity is dependent on astronomical conditions – assume small changes in the elliptical orbit of Earth, in the inclination of Ecliptic, and life, at least life as we know it, would have been impossible.... Read More | Share it now!
“O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE.” Longum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, quam hoc exiguum. —Cicero, ad Att., xii. 18. O MAY I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their... Read More | Share it now!
Today’s date in the Positivist calendar, devised by Auguste Comte in 1849, is Caesar 24, 224. The fifth month of this 13 month calendar is devoted to Military Civilization, if that’s not an oxymoron, and is therefore stuffed with 28... Read More | Share it now!