Early German Positivism

Early German Positivism is a history of the origins of the scientific worldview of positivism. This worldview arose in a struggle against the Roman Catholic tradition and the traditions of metaphysics prevailing in Austria and Germany. This study covers positivism even before the first Vienna circle (1907).

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In Early German Positivism, Frederick C. Beiser explores a much neglected or forgotten period of the history of philosophy: the history of German positivism from 1860 to 1907. Almost all studies of positivism revolve around the Vienna Circle. Instead, this study covers positivism even before the first Vienna circle (1907). Beiser delves into figures almost completely forgotten in the German and Anglo-American worlds: Theodor Gomperz (1832-1912), Eugen Dühring (1833-1921), Ernst Laas (1837-1885), and Friedrich Jodl (1849-1914); he also examines Ernst Mach (1838-1916) and Richard Avenarius (1843-1896), who are much better known but contemporaries of these thinkers. Several positivist themes unite these thinkers: rejection of the synthetic a priori; opposition to pessimism; a philosophy of monism, naturalism and historicism; and the belief that the highest good can be achieved only under the guidance of science. Early German Positivism aims to place positivism in a wider intellectual context, which goes back to the Enlightenment and the opposition to the Christian tradition.