BROKEN IMAGES 75
population control); his work, perhaps as a result of its specificity, has rarely been
contrasted directly with the founding philosophies of positivism (Gutting 2014). By
focusing on the original thinking of these three scholars, this paper will offer a unique
perspective on how the two epistemologies can produce very different understandings
of Belfast’s visual landscape.
Positivist Epistemology: The Clear Image
Comte’s neologism – positivism – reflects his utopian belief that “positive”
knowledge could enable social harmony in what was proposed as the final stage of
human development (Comte, 1893: 22-25).
Comte proposed the human race
progresses through three stages: firstly, the theological stage, in which phenomena is
explained supernaturally; secondly, the metaphysical stage, considered a transitional
point, similar to the first stage whereby causes are attributed to abstracted
supernatural forces; and finally the positive stage in which the human mind
independently seeks causal explanations of the natural and social world (Comte 1893:
22-51). In this last stage, the scientific method is elevated as the legitimate means of
determining causality between variables. The causal relationships uncovered in the
positive epoch of development are used to posit the existence of laws governing our
world (Comte 1893: 52-81).
Although it has been misrepresented as such, Comte’s three stage theory is not simply
the idolization of the scientific method; rather, Comte understood science as a
connaissance approchée, or ‘approximated knowledge’, meaning it is the medium
through which man comes ever closer to truth without reaching it (Bourdeau 2015).
For the Positivist, absolute truth does not exist (Bourdeau 2015). The central tenet of
original positivism is therefore the assertion of a moral doctrine which owes nothing
to the supernatural; for the positivist mind, absolute concepts are usurped entirely by
relative ones (Benton and Craib 2001: 23). Cause and effect are then the building
blocks of positivist ontology.
Begun in the work of Comte, positivism has developed into a theory of knowledge
that makes several assumptions about the way the world is. Firstly it is naturalistic: