positivist

American  

[pahz-i-ti-vist] / ˈpɑz ɪ tɪ vɪst /

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.

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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

See Examples For:

positivist

Alan Sokal, a mathematician at New York University and a leading positivist, once dared Dr. Latour to leap from Dr. Sokal’s 21st-floor apartment to test whether gravity was real or just a social construct.

From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

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

There is still mysticism in the kernel of this philosophy: the identity of the soul with the divine; but in its practical results it is a positivist, a realist philosophy.

From Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck by Jethro Bithell