![]() ![]() honors thesis advisor and Gov. 104 Modern Political Theory professor, Harvard, student of William Yandell Elliott, now professor of political studies at neighboring Pitzer College, Claremont, California, authority on Hegel, T.H. Green, dolphins, and man-nature relationships. Founder and Director of Pitzer Arboretum. Perhaps the worst that can be said of positivism is that it violates human nature by denying philosophy. Put another way, man is a partly rational being who tries by the use of his reason to lift himself high enough to interpret, criticize, and modify his environment, that is, who engages in philosophy. Positivism makes him a prisoner of the world of facts and sense-experience; it ultimately denies his capacity to criticize the facts by any standard other than personal whim or cultural custom; therefore it denies his capacity to modify them rationally; therefore it denies his freedom in the most meaningful sense. Positivism cuts man off from the most important realm of his experience, and would also cut him off, if it could, from the most important problems which he faces. A Reinterpretation of the Concept of Public Interest, May 1955 |
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