[From French positif: real, actual, practical, experiential.]
(epistemology) Specifically, the view of August Comte (1798-1857) that the pursuit of knowledge should limit itself to observable phenomena and the laws that determine how those phenomena interact, without any investigation of ultimate causes or metaphysics. More generally, the view that knowledge is reliable only if based on what is immediately graspable or scientifically testable (see logical positivism and falsificationism).