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Palgrave Macmillan

The Worlds of Positivism

A Global Intellectual History, 1770–1930

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Johannes Feichtinger

    1. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

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  2. Franz L. Fillafer

    1. Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. Jan Surman

    1. University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

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  • Presents the first global history of positivism

  • Explores the relationship between natural sciences and the humanities, science and religion, and universalism and cultural diversity on a global scale through Positivism’s culture of enquiry

  • Provides a geneaology of scientific governance, with important social and ethical implications for today

  • Appeals to scholars of intellectual history, global history, transnational history, sociology, and philosophy

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xx
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  2. Introduction: Particularizing Positivism

    • Franz L. Fillafer, Johannes Feichtinger, Jan Surman
    Pages 1-27

  4. Positive Knowledge and the Making of Positivism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 109-109
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    2. An Enlightened Path to Positivism? Reflections on the Institutionalization of Science in Bourbon Spain

      • Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas, Sara Muniain Ederra
      Pages 111-135

    3. Trading Epistemological Insults: “Positive Knowledge” and Natural Science in Germany, 1800–1850

      • Denise Phillips
      Pages 137-154

    4. The French Philosophical Crisis of the 1860s and the Invention of the “Positivist School”

      • Nathalie Richard
      Pages 155-188

  5. The Liberal Politics of Science and Society

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189
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    2. Habsburg Positivism: The Politics of Positive Knowledge in Imperial and Post-Imperial Austria, 1804–1938

      • Franz L. Fillafer, Johannes Feichtinger
      Pages 191-238

    3. The Contexts of Early Polish Positivisms, 1840s–1900s

      • Jan Surman
      Pages 239-272

    4. Positivism in Late Tsarist Russia: Its Introduction, Penetration, and Diffusion

      • Thomas Nemeth
      Pages 273-291

  7. Epilogue

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 347-347
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    2. The Worlds of Positivism: An Analytical Synopsis

      • Franz L. Fillafer, Johannes Feichtinger
      Pages 349-356

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 357-367
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Keywords

About this book

This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society—a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central Europe, Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism’s impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy.

Reviews

“This long-overdue collection represents the single best volume on positivism's remarkable influence throughout the world. The authors have done a stunning job of research and analysis. Every page brims with surprising revelations. I can't recommend this work highly enough.” (Mary Pickering, San José University, USA, author of Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Johannes Feichtinger

  • Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Franz L. Fillafer

  • University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

    Jan Surman

About the editors

Johannes Feichtinger is Senior Research Associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Visiting Professor for modern history and the philosophy of science at the University of Vienna, Austria.


Franz L. Fillafer is Lecturer in modern and contemporary history at the University of Konstanz, Germany.


Jan Surman is Visiting Scholar at the Max Web Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany.



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Worlds of Positivism

  • Book Subtitle: A Global Intellectual History, 1770–1930

  • Editors: Johannes Feichtinger, Franz L. Fillafer, Jan Surman

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65762-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-65761-5Published: 07 February 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88099-0Published: 04 June 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-65762-2Published: 25 January 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XX, 367

  • Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: World History, Global and Transnational History, Intellectual Studies, History of Science, History of Philosophy, European History

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