Any philosophical position which maintains that all genuine knowledge is acquired by science, and denies the validity of metaphysical speculation. Positivism flourished in the latter half of the 19th century; its elements can be found in such diverse thinkers as Comte the French philosopher and the founder of positivism, the English social theorist, Herbert Spencer and Ernst Mach.
The French philosopher Auguste Comte holds that the observable data of sense faculties experience constitute the sole basis for assertions about matters of fact; only the truth of logic and mathematics are additionally admitted. The speculative claims of theology and metaphysics, regarded as past history and should be discounted.
Logical positivism is another philosophical movement under the leadership of Moritz Schlick a German founder of the “Vienna circle” which is an influential school of logical positivism. The heart of the matter was only mathematics, logic and science are meaningful. Ethics, metaphysics, and religion were meaningful because their truth was unverifiable.