positivist

[pahz-i-ti-vist]

adjective

1. relating or adhering to positivism as a philosophical system.

2. 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

1. someone who adheres to positivism as a philosophical system.

2. 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

In his positivist vision, both progress and existential doubt have the breathless optimism of a TED Talk.

From New York Times

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

You trace the development of our understanding of how and why science works, starting with the positivist explanation put forward roughly 200 years ago, which dominated for the first hundred years or so.

From Salon

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

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