positivisticadj.

1859 C. Blanchard Essence of Sci. 20 Positivistic, scientifically discovered general law will displace the forgeries, the arbitrarily made shams, which pass for law, and regulate society and each individual, as impartially and harmoniously as gravitation does all matter and each particle.

1875 N. Amer. Rev. Apr. 280 A positivistic, yet anti-Comtian spirit.

1898 Contemp. Rev. Sept. 421 Roberty is professedly a naturalistic, or positivistic, sociologist.

1927 M. R. Cohen in Proc. 6th Internat. Congr. Philos., 1926 471 The same system of legal rights and duties may be expressible in positivistic or in idealistic language.

1935 Mind 44 108 The prevailing positivistic and anti-metaphysical philosophies of science.

1961 M. Čapek Philos. Impact Contemp. Physics xvi. 297 A similar positivistic motive is conspicuously present in the minds of physicists dealing with the problems of determinism in quantum mechanics.

1989 Art Line Apr. 26/3 Belief in the world as God's creation has been severely shaken by the force of positivistic science.

1996 New Scientist 3 Feb. 41/1 Research on human sexuality has traditionally taken place within a positivistic framework, focussing on observable aspects of the body and on biology.

1893 F. W. L. Adams New Egypt 36 There was abundance of pretty red herrings here to draw themselves across the trail of a direct and positivistic pursuit of the real game.