Positivism in Poland

Positivism in Poland was a sociocultural movement that defined progressive thought in literature and in the social sciences in partitioned Poland following the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire. The Positivist period lasted until the turn of the 20th century and the advent of the modernist Young Poland movement.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Overview
* 2 Positivist objectives
* 3 Leading authors
* 4 See also
* 5 Notes
* 6 References

## Overview

In the aftermath of the 1863 Uprising, many thoughtful Poles argued against further attempts to regain independence from the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire by force of arms. In their polemics over the wisdom of resistance against the partitioning powers, published between 1868 and 1873 in Przegląd tygodniowy ("The Weekly Review") and Prawda ("Truth"), they – often reluctantly and only partly – discarded the stylistics of the earlier Polish Romantic period.[1]

Polish positivism drew its name from the philosophy of French philosopher Auguste Comte, while much of its ideology was inspired by the works of British scholars and scientists including Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill. The Polish positivists advocated the exercise of reason before emotion. They believed that independence, if it was to be regained, must be won gradually, by "building from the foundations" (by creating a material infrastructure and educating the public) and through organic work that would enable Polish society to function as a fully integrated "social organism" (a concept borrowed from a number of European thinkers, including Herbert Spencer).[2]

## Positivist objectives

A leading Polish philosopher of positivism, the journalist, novelist, and short-story writer Bolesław Prus (author of The Outpost, The Doll, The New Woman, and Pharaoh), advised his compatriots that Poland's place in the world would be determined by Poland's contributions to the world's scientific, technological, economic, and cultural progress.[3]

Specific societal questions addressed by the Polish positivists included the establishment of equal rights for all members of society, including peasants and women; the assimilation of Poland's Jewish minority; the elimination of illiteracy among ordinary citizens resulting from the closure of Polish schools by the occupying powers; and the defense of the Polish population in the German-ruled part of Poland against the German Kulturkampf and the German government's displacement of the Polish population.[1][4]

The Polish positivists viewed work, rather than uprisings, as the true path to maintaining a Polish national identity and demonstrating a constructive patriotism. Aleksander Świętochowski (editor of Prawda) held that "All the great problems [abiding] in the [bosom] of mankind can be solved by education alone, and this education must be compulsory."[5]

## Leading authors

Writers and novelists

* Adam Asnyk (1838-1897)
* Adolf Dygasiński (1839–1902)
* Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910)
* Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
* Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916; Nobel Prize, 1905)
* Bolesław Prus (1847-1912)
* Wiktor Gomulicki (1848–1919)
* Aleksander Świętochowski (1849–1938)
* Antoni Sygietyński (1850–1923)
* Teodor Jeske-Choiński (1854-1920)
* Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921)
* Maria Rodziewiczówna (1863-1944)

Poets:

* Adam Asnyk (1838-1897)
* Felicjan Faleński (1825-1910)
* Maria Ilnicka (1825 or 1827-1897)
* Aleksander Michaux (1839-1895)
* Wacław Rolicz-Lieder

Dramatists:

* Adam Asnyk (1838-1897)
* Michał Bałucki (1837-1901)
* Józef Bliziński (1827-1893)
* Felicjan Faleński (1825-1910)
* Edward Lubowski (1837-1923)
* Józef Narzymski (1839-1872)
* Zygmunt Sarnecki (1837-1922)
* Józef Szujski (1835-1883)
* Aleksander Świętochowski (1849-1938)
* Kazimierz Zalewski (1849-1919)
* Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921)

Philosophers and critics

* Franciszek Krupiński (1836–98)
* Adolf Dygasiński (1839–1902)
* Piotr Chmielowski (1848-1904)
* Władysław Mieczysław Kozłowski (1858–1935)
* Marian Massonius (1862–1945)
* Julian Ochorowicz (1850–1917)
* Bolesław Prus (1847–1912)
* Aleksander Świętochowski (1849–1938)

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## See also

* Polish literature
* History of philosophy in Poland: Positivism

## Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, pp. 281–321. "Positivism." University of California Press, 1983. ISBN 0-520-04477-0. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
2. ↑ Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, pp. 283–84.
3. ↑ Edward Pieścikowski, Bolesław Prus, p. 49.
4. ↑ Zygmunt Szweykowski, Twórczość Bolesława Prusa (The Art of Bolesław Prus), 2nd ed., Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972, pp. 130–51.
5. ↑ Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, pp. 285–286.

## References

* Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, 2nd edition, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983, ISBN 0-520-04477-0, pp. 281–321.
* Edward Pieścikowski, Bolesław Prus, 2nd edition, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1985, ISBN 83-01-05593-6.
* Jan Zygmunt Jakubowski, ed., Literatura polska od średniowiecza do pozytywizmu (Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979, ISBN 83-01-00201-8, pp. 543–692.

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* t
* e

Positivism

| Perspectives|

* Antihumanism
* Empiricism
* Rationalism
* Scientism

|

Declinations|

* Legal positivism
* Logical positivism / analytic philosophy
* Positivist school
* Postpositivism
* Sociological positivism
* Machian positivism (empirio-criticism)
* Rankean historical positivism
* Polish positivism
* Russian Machism

Principal concepts|

* Consilience
* Demarcation
* Evidence
* Induction
* Justificationism
* Pseudoscience
* Critique of metaphysics
* Unity of science
* Verificationism

Antitheses|

* Antipositivism
* Confirmation holism
* Critical theory
* Falsifiability
* Geisteswissenschaft
* Hermeneutics
* Historicism
* Historism
* Human science
* Humanities
* Problem of induction
* Reflectivism
* Methodological dualism / Praxeology

Related paradigm shifts
in the history of science|

* Non-Euclidean geometry (1830s)
* Uncertainty principle (1927)

Related topics|

* Behavioralism
* Post-behavioralism
* Critical rationalism
* Criticism of science
* Epistemology
* anarchism
* idealism
* nihilism
* pluralism
* realism
* Holism
* Instrumentalism
* Modernism
* Naturalism in literature
* Nomothetic–idiographic distinction
* Objectivity in science
* Operationalism
* Phenomenalism
* Philosophy of science
* Deductive-nomological model
* Ramsey sentence
* Sense-data theory
* Qualitative research
* Relationship between religion and science
* Sociology
* Social science
* Philosophy
* Structural functionalism
* Structuralism
* Structuration theory

Positivist-related debate

| Method|

* Methodenstreit (1890s)
* Werturteilsstreit (1909–1959)
* Positivismusstreit (1960s)
* Fourth Great Debate in international relations (1980s)
* Science wars (1990s)

|

Contributions|

* The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830)
* A General View of Positivism (1848)
* Critical History of Philosophy (1869)
* Idealism and Positivism (1879–1884)
* The Analysis of Sensations (1886)
* The Logic of Modern Physics (1927)
* Language, Truth, and Logic (1936)
* The Two Cultures (1959)
* The Universe in a Nutshell (2001)

Proponents|

* Richard Avenarius
* A. J. Ayer
* Alexander Bogdanov
* Auguste Comte
* Eugen Dühring
* Émile Durkheim
* Ernst Laas
* Ernst Mach
* Berlin Circle
* Vienna Circle

Criticism|

* Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909)
* History and Class Consciousness (1923)
* The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
* The Poverty of Historicism (1936)
* World Hypotheses (1942)
* Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951)
* Truth and Method (1960)
* The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
* Conjectures and Refutations (1963)
* One-Dimensional Man (1964)
* Knowledge and Human Interests (1968)
* The Poverty of Theory (1978)
* The Scientific Image (1980)
* The Rhetoric of Economics (1986)

Critics|

* Theodor W. Adorno
* Gaston Bachelard
* Mario Bunge
* Wilhelm Dilthey
* Paul Feyerabend
* Hans-Georg Gadamer
* Thomas Kuhn
* György Lukács
* Karl Popper
* Willard Van Orman Quine
* Max Weber

Concepts in contention|

* Knowledge
* Objectivity
* Phronesis
* Truth
* Verstehen

Category

pl:Literatura polska - pozytywizm

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