Machian positivism:

E. Mach (1880s , physicist, "Science of mechanics", "Contributions to the analysis of sensations"-deeply influenced by Fechner)
• Sensory experience as fundamental data of all science

• Theoretical speculation is beyond sensory data and inappropriate

no relational principle or force is needed in science, just mathematical rules describing how the parts exist relative to one another

Elementalism (elementary sensations as fundamental elements of all natural phenomena)

Mach (1910) "Only in so far as we establish the dependence of the elements on one another and explore those connections, whose stability is determined by the elements, can we orient ourselves in the world . . . . [w]hat we call spatial and temporal order is abstracted from the behavior of elements".

• Avoids metapbysics:  science has no need for explanation of causestoo metaphysical-just mathematical description

Instead science must be based on:

• mathematical description of formal relationships among perceived elements
• atheoretical emphasis on mathematical functional relationships, e.g.  a = f(x)--empirical laws
• experimental methodology is all you need
• usually reductionistic relations among sciences
• inductive rather than deductive methods

In Psychology

    Positivism rejects Wundt’s volitional approach

    (over) extends experimental method to all psychological phenomena

    emphasizes passive processes of association—intervening (black box) variables

    rejection of volition as too speculative, too foreign to physics

Examples of Mentalistic Positivists----H. Ebbinghaus, E.B. Titchener

Examples of Objectivistic Positivists--E. Thorndike, J. Watson, B. Skinner