ABSTRACT
Social scientists, in the main, took their ideas about the natural sciences from the philosophy of science, with positivism as their main inspiration. Following the supposed 'scientific method' as described by positivism was the main route through which social scientists, through the 1930s to 1960s hoped to move in the direction pioneered by the most successful of the natural sciences and, eventually, equal their achievements. The logical positivists propounded what is perhaps the clearest and most influential version of positivism in the twentieth century. The group began in Vienna in the late 1920s under the leadership of Ernst Mach, Mauritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap. Logical positivism also differed from nineteenth century versions of positivism by stressing the logical character of the scientific method as well as the empirical. Positivism, with its stress on the idea of a neutral observation language, empirical generalisation, and so forth, was disinclined to concern itself with the origin and source of theories.
