The main directions of the philosophy of the 19th century and the emergence of positivism

If we consider the main trends of modern philosophy, then certainly one of the most prominent places in the development of philosophical knowledge is positivism. Before proceeding to the analysis of this philosophical doctrine, it is necessary to indicate those origins that formed the basis of this trend, which played and plays an appreciable role in the cognition of the world.

At the end of the 19th century, irrationalist philosophy was widely spread, which defined the unconscious, sensual, irrational beginning as the dominant factor in the process of cognition. The main cognitive resources in irrationalism are unthinkable aspects - will, feelings, intuition. Not the last place in the list of cognitive sources irrationalists assign to the unconscious, mystical illumination, which A. Schopenhauer - one of the most prominent representatives of this trend - declared in general the only source of knowledge.

The further development of philosophy and especially of the natural sciences has shown the limited nature of the irrational approach, its inability to participate in the construction of an adequate time for the scientific picture of the world. They failed to overcome the crisis that arose in philosophical knowledge, and those basic trends in philosophy that developed around the same time as irrationalism. Philosophy of life, as a philosophical doctrine, was undoubtedly a positive phenomenon from the point of view of the life of people and society in its integrity and dynamics. But it also slid to the irrational when it came to finding the reasons that induce a person to act. Representatives of this teaching believed that life is a chaotic stream that has no objective expediency, and therefore, it is pointless to talk about any laws of cognition as part of life itself.

Hermeneutics made a huge contribution to the development of scientific methodology, especially concerning issues related to methods of researching texts and their interpretation. However, here again the influence of the irrational is revealed - any vital information is represented as a way of existence of the interpreter interpreter. In short, the interpreter treats history and reality based on their own understanding.

Such basic directions of philosophy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries as existentialism and subjectivism, psychoanalysis reduced the cognitive sphere only to the limits of the existence of an individual human being, during which she can define herself in one way or another.

A significant breakthrough in solving the problems of the philosophical crisis was the emergence and development of the principles of positivism. The starting point of this doctrine is the assertion about the erroneousness of reliance on general scientific principles in cognition, as the earlier main lines of philosophy assumed. Positivism confirms the fact - as the only true source of knowledge, while stipulating the conditions that this fact should be completely cleared of the estimated loads and confirmed by experimental methods (method of verification).

The French Encyclopaedist Auguste Comte is the founder of the positivist trend in philosophy, who is still in the history of scientific thought as the founder of sociology as a science in the classical sense of this meaning. During its existence, positivism has gone through four major stages in development. This is one of the distinguishing features of positivism, if some of the main trends of philosophy of this time or could not stand under a hail of criticism, and, in fact, turned into disproved theories, then positivism found resources and new methodological methods for substantiating its basic principles. For example, when classical versions of early positivism were questioned in connection with the rapid development of the natural sciences, they were quickly and critically reinterpreted by E. Mach and R. Avenarius. Machism became the second historical form of positivism, in which critical experience ranks first. That is why this direction has one more name - empirio-criticism. Then there were already forms of positivist philosophy, such as neopositivism and postpositivism, whose prominent representatives were R. Carnap, B. Russell, K. Popper, who developed completely original methodological grounds for the cognitive process.

For example, neo-positivists believed that the main lines of philosophy are intended, first of all, for the logical analysis of the method of science, which is the main means of obtaining reliable information. Postpositivists went even further, the subject of their interest were the questions of the emergence of theoretical knowledge, the problem of scientific consensus and the advancement of knowledge. Postpositivism is more loyal to philosophy and its role in cognition.

The most important achievement of postpositivism is the justification for the absence of an obligatory conditionality of reliability by the possibility of verifying a scientific fact. It is from this that the most important conclusion is drawn about the nature of the development of all modern science: it has ups and downs in its development, but the general vector is directed toward improving scientific knowledge.