The dissertation is devoted to a comprehensive historical and philosophical study of positivism as one of the key directions of European philosophy of the 19th–20th centuries, as well as an analysis of its theoretical origins, methodological principles, internal dynamics of development and forms of representation in the Ukrainian intellectual space. The work reconstructs the philosophical and theoretical prerequisites for the emergence of positivism, elucidates the role of the legacy of A.-R. Turgot, N. Condorcet and A. Saint-Simon in the formation of positive philosophy, as well as the study of the main stages of the evolution of the positivist project – from the classical positivism of O. Comte to empirio-criticism, logical positivism and logical empiricism. Special attention is paid to the understanding of the methodological status of positive knowledge, the problem of induction, the transformation of ideas about science, logic and experience within the positivist tradition. The specifics of the perception, reception and development of positivism in Ukraine are analyzed, in particular in historical science, in the philosophical searches of M. Dragomanov, I. Franko, V. Lesevich, as well as in the context of the Lviv-Warsaw School and the further fate of positivist thinking after 1918.
The purpose of the dissertation research is a comprehensive historical and philosophical reconstruction of the genesis, methodological principles, main stages of development of positivism and features of its reception in the Ukrainian intellectual tradition.
The object of the research is positivism as a historical and philosophical and epistemological phenomenon of European intellectual culture.
The subject of the research is the process of development of positive philosophy and the specifics of its functioning and transformation in the Ukrainian intellectual context.
A retrospective analysis of historical and philosophical, epistemological, socio-philosophical and philosophical-scientific works made it possible to trace the formation of positivism as a holistic program of reorienting philosophy towards scientific knowledge, to explore its connection with the criticism of metaphysics, the development of empirical sciences, the formation of new ideas about method, experience, fact and law. The dissertation examines how the ideas about the structure of scientific knowledge, the boundaries of philosophy, the status of logic, the problem of induction and the relationship between experience and theoretical generalization changed within the positivist tradition. At the same time, historical and philosophical interpretations of positivism in modern research were analyzed, which allowed us to reveal the ambiguity of assessments of the positivist heritage and outline its significance for the development of the philosophy of science, social cognition and modern European rationality.
The first section considers the theoretical and methodological principles of the study of positivism. The section is aimed at identifying the philosophical, intellectual and cultural and historical prerequisites for the emergence of positive philosophy, as well as at analyzing the current state of the historical and philosophical study of positivism.
The second section examines the key methodological elements and principles of positive philosophy, as well as the internal dynamics of its development. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of ideas about positive knowledge, the scientific method, experience, logic, the language of science, and the problem of induction within various forms of positivism.
The third section examines the perception and representation of positivism in Ukraine. The section is devoted to the analysis of the ways in which positivist ideas penetrated the Ukrainian intellectual space, the forms of their adaptation, transformation, and functioning in historical science, philosophy, and related branches of humanitarian knowledge.
The general conclusions of the dissertation prove that positivism should be considered not only as a separate historical direction in philosophy, but as a broad intellectual tradition that significantly influenced the formation of the modern understanding of science, method, experience, and boundaries of philosophical cognition. It is established that the evolution of positivism from O. Comte to empiriocriticism, logical positivism and logical empiricism testifies not to the exhaustion, but to the internal differentiation of the positivist project. At the same time, the Ukrainian context testifies that positivism played an important role in the formation of modern scientific and philosophical culture, although it did not always take the form of a completed and institutionally formed school.
