positivist
Americanadjective
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relating or adhering to positivism as a philosophical system.
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relating or adhering to a theory of law based on the authority of the lawmaker rather than on ethical considerations that govern or precede the law.
noun
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someone who adheres to positivism as a philosophical system.
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someone who adheres to a theory of law based on the authority of the lawmaker rather than on ethical considerations that govern or precede the law.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A staunch positivist, Remi had refused to listen to the part of her gut that kept pumping bile, insisting that something was seriously wrong.
From Slate • Jan. 27, 2024
Drawing on positivist philosophy and Darwinian biology, such thinkers insisted, as some 21st-century neurophysiologists and evolutionary psychologists do, that free will is nothing but an illusion.
From Washington Post • May 7, 2020
Their ideas reflect not only the findings but also the values of those who have for too long commanded the science system: positivist, reductionist and focused on dominating nature.
From Nature • Oct. 7, 2019
In the same essay, Lyotard actually distinguishes between two different types of knowledge: the "positivist" kind, that is applicable to technology; and the "hermenutic" kind of knowledge.
From Salon • Apr. 13, 2019
The positivist, on the other hand, escapes the difficulty by an opposite course.
From The Philosophy of the Conditioned by Mansel, Henry Longueville
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
