4. John Locke
Birth of modern empiricism
“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we
say, white paper, void of all characters, without
any ideas: How comes it to be furnished?[…]
Whence has it all the materials of reason and
knowledge? To this I answer, in one word,
from experience.”
Experience Matters the Most in enhancing Knowledge
5. David Hume
Dismissing the concept of Self evident Truths
Using Inductive Methods
men can know more about the world than that which can
be experienced.
Science,in so far as it aims to establish general truths about
the world arrived at exclusively from experience, must fail
Because……………………………..
6. “An empirical science cannot be
justified on its own terms, but must
be taken on faith.”
David Hume
8. Auguste Comte
Phenomenalism
Nominalism
Respect of Fact-Value Distinction
Commitment to Apply inductive method to
all sciences
9. Auguste Comte
Humes concept of cause and effect is set aside
as knowledge is much developed and
complete
He has ignored the Descartes “I concept”
Positivism is unconceivable without
determinism because it starts from the view
that all phenomena are ruled by universal and
invariable natural laws.(Lucent Int Example)
10. Positivism
Positivism as a whole rests on the belief that the world
can(and must) be studied through phenomena and
that observations of these phenomena are, or can be
made to be, objective (value-free).
Positivism looks at the world as a collection of objects
that can be reduced to their external qualities, with the
further assumption that these are measurable without
any preconception. Now the ability to measure
requires a measuring framework
Measuring assumes some sort of general theory about
what is measured. This theory must be available before
the facts can be collected.
11. Popper (1989: 39–41
Arguments like these led Popper (1989: 39–41)
to reject the logical positivism of the Vienna
Circle and develop his own philosophy of
science, briefly mentioned above, according to
which science must start with theories and not
observations.
Positivism’s influence on 19th century thought was
profound (if not always acknowledged), because it
provided historical, moral, and epistemological
legitimacy to the scientific enterprise.
12. ,Rousseau and McCarthy(2007) argued that
management must be evidence-based.
13. Descartes safeguarded psychological freedom,
the “I.” If society really is the primary reality
that can be known objectively, then social
phenomena and entities, such as work
organizations, their culture, and their
members, develop and behave according to
universal and immutable patterns, the laws
that positivist social scientists seek to discover
and codify but the existence of which they take
for granted.
14. The behavior of individuals is controllable
through suitable incentives and appropriate
structures.
Employees are to be motivated and defines
motivation, in transparent positivist language,
as “the set of forces that causes people to
engage in one behavior rather than some
alternative behavior” (Griffin &
Moorhead,2012)
15. Abraham Maslow’s (1943) theory of human
motivation(the hierarchy of needs
A great illustration of the above line of thinking. As per
Maslow’s theory, when managers are deprived of an
office with a view, their self-esteem needs cause them to
look for a new one.
Now if employees are motivated by their managers, one
can legitimately wonder who or what motivated these
managers to motivate their subordinates, or, for that
matter, what motivated Maslow and the authors of the
text book just quoted to write their works in the first
place. God (as first cause) or the pitfall of infinite regress
awaits all deterministic psychological models and those
who promote them.
16. Freud’s fundamental assumption is that
whatever a person does is caused by events
taking place in this person’s psyche, the
tripartite structure(if not the balance) of which
is part of the person’s immutable human
nature. He further believed that early
childhood, especially its sexually connoted
experiences, molds the internal dynamics of the
mind, shapes psychic life, and eventually
determines adult behavior.
17. psychoanalysis is a deterministic model of human
existence. In typical positivist fashion, it opens
very attractive perspectives to marketers,
managers, consultants, and those who study
organizations. Once they understand the
workings of consumers’ or employees’ psyches
through the tools that the theory provides,theycan
make better informed marketing or staffing
decisions or uncover the unconscious processes
laying behind the expectations of markets and the
problems of organizations
18. To Sum up
Renel Descarte - Reasoning
John Locke (1988) - Experience
David Hume
(1985) - Causal
Auguste Comte - Determinism
Popper (1989) - Theory
Rousseau McCarthy – F-I-SP-MA-SF
Freud (2005) –Psychoanalysis
19. Conclusion
1. Scientific Theory is a pre-requisite if
still inductive knowledge is collected
2. Human part cannot be ignored to
understand philosophical knowledge
(Internal & External)
3. The Concept of determinism can’t be
ignored to understand positivism
![John Locke
Birth of modern empiricism
“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we
say, white paper, void of all characters, without
any ideas: How comes it to be furnished?[…]
Whence has it all the materials of reason and
knowledge? To this I answer, in one word,
from experience.”
Experience Matters the Most in enhancing Knowledge](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/positivism-250420090403-e49bf7b5/85/POSITIVISM-philosophy-of-management-science-4-320.jpg)
