In this master’s thesis, we deal with the epistemological base of modern scientific thought, and with classical/social positivism in sociological and general terms. The text consists of two thematically completed and epistemologically, historically and conceptually interwoven parts. In the first part, we focus on the most important scholars who significantly influenced the creation of a new scientific thought through the concept of early positivism. We thus open the discussion with Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Kepler, since it is their work that shifted the paradigm regarding the representation of the universe (Copernican Revolution), the meaning of mathematics (mathesis universalis) and the human worldview. For the transformation of scientific epistemology, we use the Old Greek term téchne, denoting the set, pre-given thought process and, primarily, the science-as-art character of modern science. In the second part, we further our discussion by focusing on the concrete-material creation of neologisms from and after the period of the French Revolution: classical positivism, social sciences and sociology. We see classical positivism as a manifestation of a new science as well as the conceptual basis of social sciences. Heidegger writes that positivism is not merely one of the cognitive-research modes-how, but a theory (theória-insight) of modern science. An investigation into the archeological heritage of the social physics, later sociology, shows that positivism and sociology share the same founding fathers with an emphasis on Saint-Simon and Comte, although sociology was only institutionalised by Durkheim.
|
