Positivism

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Positivism

Positivism is a philosophy developed in France by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who set out his views in the sixvolume Cours de philosophie positive (1830–1842). Comte identified three stages of human thought: (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive, this last being the culminating stage, when reliance on supernatural and abstract entities is replaced by empirical, scientific explanation. In his classification of the sciences, Comte placed sociology in a supreme position (modern sociologists do in fact regard him as one of the great pioneers in their field), whereas in his study of "social dynamics" he sought to analyze the conditions of progress. Reason, order, and progress were key terms in the Comtean lexicon. Later on, Comte tried to ground his theories in a paradoxical "religion of humanity," with ceremonies reminiscent of those of Catholicism. In Europe one of the writers most strongly influenced by positivism was Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who combined it with insights drawn from Darwinian evolutionism.

In Latin America positivist influence was at its height in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It was a major intellectual trend in the region, best seen in the context of the attempts made from the 1870s onward to modernize and rationalize the Latin American states, at precisely the moment when the region was being drawn more closely into the international division of labor that was a feature of the burgeoning world capitalist economy. Positivist ideas (not least their emphasis on order, science, and progress) proved attractive to several generations of Latin American intellectuals, who were eager to overcome the still tenacious social legacy of the colonial period and to stimulate the kind of progress they perceived as taking place in western Europe and North America. Several countries are clearly associated with the impact of positivism. In each, however, the results were somewhat different.

In Brazil, given the persistence of monarchy, positivism took a distinctively republican slant, and positivists were in the forefront of the movement to overthrow the Empire in 1889. Miguel Lemos (1854–1917) and Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (1855–1927) developed Comte's "religious" tendency and founded a Positivist Church in Rio (1881). Another major focus of positivist teaching was the Military School of Rio de Janeiro. Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães (1836–1891), one of the school's instructors, made aggressive contributions to politicizing Brazilian positivism.

In Mexico the chief agent of positivism was Gabino Barreda, educational reformer of the Benito Juárez period and director of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (1867). Barreda left as his legacy the group of advisers to Porfirio Díaz known (after 1892) as the "científicos." This group advanced an interpretation of positivism that was both elitist and informed by concerns with race. Members included Justo Sierra (1848–1912), Francisco Bulnes (1847–1924), and José Yves Limantour (1854–1935).

In Argentina, positivism was compatible with the highly influential thought of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811–1888). Comte's ideas provided him with new tools for developing the more subtle racialist contents of his early work. His book Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América (1883; Conflict and harmonies of races in the Americas) was defined by Sarmiento himself as a scientific and well-documented rewriting of his "too literary" masterpiece Facundo (1845). The "whitening" of Argentina also factored as a major concern for positivists such as Carlos Octavio Bunge (1875–1918) and José Ingenieros (1877–1925).

In Chile intellectuals developed two positivist currents. One, a strongly "religious" faction, was led by the Lagarrigue brothers, Juan (1852–1927), Jorge (1854–1894), and Luis (1864–1949). A second, more heterodox faction, advanced predominantly democratic readings of Comte, such as those of José Victorino Lastarria (1817–1888). Valentín Letelier (1852–1919), another heterodox, was a member of the Radical Party and rector of the University of Chile.

Latin American positivism was flexible in its appeal. The Puerto Rican pedagogue and sociologist Eugenio María de Hostos (1839–1903) used it to fight for a full decolonization of the Hispanic Caribbean, whereas Peruvian writers such as Manuel González Prada (1848–1918) and Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera (1845–1909) used it to criticize ethnic and/or gender discrimination. Conversely, the Venezuelan sociologist Laureano Vallenilla Lanz (1870–1936) described dictatorship as an unavoidable consequence of Latin America's history and ethnic makeup, and the Bolivian writer Alcides Arguedas (1879–1946) asserted in Pueblo enfermo (1909; A sick people) that native cultures and interracial breeding posed overwhelming obstacles for progress. Although the label becomes less useful after about 1920, traces of "positivist" thought can be found in a number of twentieth-century literary, philosophical, and political movements.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hale, Charles A. The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Martí, Oscar. The Revolt against Positivism in Latin America. Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1978.

Mead, Karen. "Gendering the Obstacles to Progress in Positivist Argentina, 1880–1920." Hispanic American Historical Review 77, no. 4 (1997): 645-675.

Woodward, Ralph L., ed. Positivism in Latin America, 1850–1900. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1971.

Zea, Leopoldo. Positivism in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974.

Zea, Leopoldo, ed. Pensamiento positivista latinoamericano, 2 vols. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1980.

Simon Collier

Miguel Gomes

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture