Early German Positivism

Abstract This book is an attempt to recover a neglected chapter of the history of philosophy: the history of early German positivism, 1860–1914. It treats figures almost completely forgotten in the German and Anglo-American worlds: Theodor Gomperz (1832–1912), Eugen Dühring (1833–1921), Ernst Laas (1837–85), and Friedrich Jodl (1849–1914); it also examines Ernst Mach (1838–1916) and Richard Avenarius (1843–1896), who are much better known but contemporaries of these thinkers. The first four of these figures became famous, and published their major works, before the formation of the (first) Vienna Circle in 1912. 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. Positivism was thus a continuation of the Enlightenment into the 20th century. The examination of early positivism makes it necessary to question several claims made about positivism by Michael Friedman: that the positivists’ main concerns did not arise within the empiricist tradition; that the positivist rejection of the synthetic a priori arose from developments in geometry; that there is no foundationalism within positivism. Placing positivism in this broader intellectual context makes all these claims questionable. The aim throughout is to place positivism in a wider intellectual context, which goes back to the Enlightenment and the opposition to the Christian tradition.