1. Polanyi's criticism: Human observers are not objective. They start with their own biases. That means that any observations of events cannot be 100% trusted as a source of truth.
2. Francis Schaeffer's criticism: Within the structure of positivism, there is no way to know that what you observe is actually data. It has no basis for saying that it should be data.
3. Greg Koukl's criticism: Since positivism is a set of statements in epistemology, and not either direct observation or true by pure logic, positivism says that you can't know that positivism is true. It is self-inconsistent.
Positivism "alive" only by inertia. The position doesn't need to be "surpassed" by something, it only needs to be refuted in a way that can't really be answered - and it has been.
Anyway, none of that was my main point. My main point was that it's not positivism that is driving the closing of minds and narrowing of discourse on campuses.
1. Polanyi's criticism: Human observers are not objective. They start with their own biases. That means that any observations of events cannot be 100% trusted as a source of truth.
2. Francis Schaeffer's criticism: Within the structure of positivism, there is no way to know that what you observe is actually data. It has no basis for saying that it should be data.
3. Greg Koukl's criticism: Since positivism is a set of statements in epistemology, and not either direct observation or true by pure logic, positivism says that you can't know that positivism is true. It is self-inconsistent.
Positivism "alive" only by inertia. The position doesn't need to be "surpassed" by something, it only needs to be refuted in a way that can't really be answered - and it has been.
Anyway, none of that was my main point. My main point was that it's not positivism that is driving the closing of minds and narrowing of discourse on campuses.