Positivism
Etymology
From Latin "positivus," "laid down, settled." The term was coined by the French thinker Auguste Comte in the early 1800s, who saw human thought progressing from religion to metaphysics to a final “positive,” scientific stage. In the 1920s the Vienna Circle sharpened this into logical positivism, which dismissed unverifiable claims as literally meaningless.
noun · /POZ-ih-tiv-iz-um/
The view that genuine knowledge comes only from observable facts and scientific method, and that claims beyond what can be tested are meaningless.
What it names
A handle for a strict standard of what counts as real knowledge — if you can’t observe or verify it, positivism says, it isn’t knowledge but speculation.
Example
His hard positivism made him impatient with any question — about beauty, say, or duty — that no experiment could settle.
Related idea
Empiricism grounds knowledge in experience but stays open to more; positivism goes further, ruling untestable claims out of bounds entirely.