Positivism in Sociology was the first direction that developed in the XIX century. Its essence consisted in the formation of a new system of knowledge about society based on the application of the methods and laws of the natural sciences.
Initially positivism in sociologyopposed to speculative speculative theorizing. It arose as a result of the rejection of simple arguments about the society, as well as the desire to create a social theory that would in all respects correspond to the natural-scientific theory.
Positivist sociology the main task of his discipline was that,using analytical and empirical means, based on facts, to investigate phenomena occurring in the life of society. Only in that case could she claim the title of "positive", which meant the ability to successfully and positively solve various problems existing in the life of the society.
The founder of positivist sociology is O. Kont. According to the French social scientist, social theory was to be an "exact natural science", which relies on scientific methods.
ABOUT.Comte believed that knowledge about society should be strict, based on reliable and well-founded facts, as knowledge about nature. In O.Cont's work "The Spirit of Positive Philosophy" he wrote about the meaning of the term "positive". This concept meant the opposition of the real ephemeral, useful - unfit, reliable - dubious, exact - vague, positive - negative.
The laws of the functioning of society were considered in positivism as a continuation of natural laws. Therefore, it was considered impossible to penetrate into the essence and causes of social processes and phenomena.
Representatives of positivism studied society not in dynamics, but in statics, since it was a question of society as a system in stability and balance.
Positivism in Sociology determined that knowledge about society should berequirements of reality and science, so it must be extracted with the help of natural-science methods. The main methods were observing, comparing, experimenting, historical and mathematical methods.
Positivism in sociology was most clearly manifested intheir directions (which are often called features of positivism), such as naturalism, evolutionism, organicism. In addition to these trends, positivism includes mechanism, social Darwinism, racial-anthropological direction, geographical determinism, and others. All the directions of positivism were distinguished by the general principle of reductionism. Its meaning lies in the desire to explain the phenomena of social life from the position of the only factor that is determining (biological, racial, geographical, etc.). These currents were called "schools of one factor".
The most complete ideas of positivism have been revealed in such a direction as neopositivism in sociology. This sociological trend became the mainsociological and philosophical direction of the XX century, which relied on the established principles of logical positivism. Each branch of the doctrine of neopositivism had unique features peculiar to it in the field of applied methods.
Neopositivism tended to consider socialphenomena, relying on laws common to both nature and social reality. This manifested itself in the school of naturalism. Scientology mainly focused on the use in social studies of the methods of the natural sciences. Objectivism declared its freedom from value judgments. Operationalism defined social concepts as operational ones. Behaviorism investigated subjective factors through behavior. Quantification sought to describe social phenomena in a quantitative characteristic.
