Anastasia Might Still be Alive, But the Monarchy is Dead

Abstract

all knowledgeable philosophers and social sc ient is ts have con cluded tha t logical positivism is dead, but that they might be mis taken. Like Anastasia, positivism might be hiding out somewhere or even walking among us. To devel op his thes i s Phi l l ips t akes us through the intellectual history of positivistic thought, identifies the confusions he perceives among ed ucators and social scientists re garding the nature of positivism, and points out what he believes to be the dangers inheratiLin the re-action against positivism by those in educatioń añd the social sci ences. His argument has several parts. First, he points out that positiv ism is not a single philosophic view, but that it has many aspects and has changed over time. While philosophers, he claims, know the difference between the varieties of view tha t constitute positivism, "researchers in education and the social sciences have become a little less discerning. " Put less charita bly, Phill ips believes that social scientists and educators have con fused positivism with other philos ophies. Second he claims tha t This article was prepared as a re-sponse to Denis Phillips ' "After the