Why Positivism is Authoritarian

Why Believe That There Is a God?

This article presents an argument for the existence of God, showing that the evident phenomena are best explained by supposing that a God causes them. The argument is based on the inductive force of four very evident general phenomena: that there is a physical Universe; that it is governed by very simple natural laws; that those laws are such as to lead to the existence of human bodies; and tha...

Legislatures and Regime Survival: Why Strong Authoritarian Institutions Help Democratization

This paper examines how authoritarian legislative institutions affect regime survival. I argue that authoritarian legislatures and party systems, even when devised to quell threats from authoritarian rivals, can influence the distribution of power in a subsequent democracy. When legislative institutions and party systems help protect the interests of authoritarian elites in new democracies, the...

POSITIVISM OR NON-POSITIVISM - TERTIUM NON DATUR A Critique of Ontological Syncretism in IS Research

This paper revisits the debate between positivism and its alternatives in the field of information systems from a philosophical point of view. It will argue that the heart of the debate is the ontological difference between the views of reality as observer-independent versus observer-dependent. The logical axiom of the excluded third (tertium non datur) informs us that two contradictory options...

In Defense of Positivism

ion Low Empirical Generaliz-

Positivism and realism pdf