ABSTRACT
Positivism is normally understood as favoring separation of the humanities and the natural sciences, rather than interaction between them. This is because, around the 1850s, the modern scientific method seemed to provoke a progressive demarcation between the exact sciences and other disciplines. I would like to question this assumption by analyzing the attitude of Jacob Moleschott’s scientific materialism – which has typically been interpreted as one of the most radical movements within Positivism – vis-à-vis the humanities.
