Humanities Studios: Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy

Positivist ideas in the philosophical legacy of Ivan Franko: An epistemological dimension

Alina Suprun
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Abstract

The research relevance is determined by the need to redefine the epistemological foundations of the Ukrainian philosophical tradition of the late 19th – early 20th centuries through the prism of the reception of positivist ideas in the works of Ivan Franko. The study aimed to conduct a comprehensive analysis of positivist methodology in the epistemological views of the Ukrainian thinker and to identify the specifics of Ukrainian positivism as an original philosophical phenomenon. The study employed methods of historical and philosophical analysis, comparative studies, hermeneutic interpretation of texts, epistemological reconstruction, and critical analysis of philosophical concepts. The influence of the ideas of Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer on the formation of Ivan Franko’s epistemological views and the peculiarities of the reception of European positivism in the Ukrainian intellectual tradition were investigated. I. Franko’s definition of the nature of scientific knowledge, the relationship between the empirical and theoretical components of cognition, the concept of scientific truth, approaches to the inductive method and the logic of scientific research were analysed. The study established that Ivan Franko’s positivist methodology was an original synthesis of European philosophy of science with the needs of Ukrainian intellectual and national revival, combining methodological rationalism with social activism and national liberation aspirations. Elements of scientific realism and instrumentalism were identified in the epistemological views of the thinker, and critical attitude towards the extremes of positivism, in particular physicalist reductions in humanistic knowledge, was substantiated. The results of the study can be used by teachers of higher educational institutions in courses on the history of Ukrainian philosophy, epistemology and philosophy of science, as well as by researchers for further study of the positivist tradition in Ukrainian philosophical thought

Keywords

positivism in Ukrainian philosophy; Ukrainian positivism; positivism in Ivan Franko’s philosophy; epistemology; theory of knowledge; truth

Suggested citation
Suprun, S. (2026). Positivist ideas in the philosophical legacy of Ivan Franko: An epistemological dimension. Humanities Studios: Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy, 14(2), 166-175. https://doi.org/10.31548/hspedagog/2.2026.166
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