In this chapter, we will look at what is meant by positivist research, and consider how a positivist approach to research leads to the use of experimental and quantitative methods. We will also be introducing you to the idea of research paradigms. This is important because carrying out research involves an understanding of the philosophy that underpins the research – or ‘paradigm’ – because thi...

In “The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism,” Peter Ross argues against what he calls subjectivism — the view that “colors are not describable in physical terms, ... [but are] mental processes or events of visual states” (2), and in favor of physicalism — a view according to which colors are “physical properties of physical objects, such as reflectance properties” (10). He rejects an argume...

the aim of the present paper is to sbo» that anti-realism in science, 1vhich has a1;guab/y become more fashionable in recentyears, contrary to tuha: its proponents assert, cannot make use of quantum mechanics and its impressiue achievements as a frump card in justifying its claims. i will argue that scientific anti-realism far from providing scientific communiry with a progressive methodologica...

SENSATION AND PERCEPTION provided the starting points for modern research into our mental processes. In the early nineteenth century the French philosopher Auguste Comte argued that the study of behavior should become a branch of the biological sciences and that the laws governing the mind should be derived from objective observation. Comte's new philosophy, which he called positivism, was infl...