Positivism

This philosophy holds that only facts of experience are worth knowing and scientific achievement is of the greatest worth. Knowledge is said to have past through three stages: (1) theological, or the childhood of mankind, when all was explained by the existence of spirit behind phenomena, every occurrence being the action of some god; (2) metaphysical, when fancy and speculation result in explanations based on principles, abstractions and metaphysical theories; (3) positive or scientific, when facts are explained by causes or necessary relations discovered through observation, experiment, induction and generalization. [Logical positivism]

rejects personal experience as the basis for knowledge, accepting only experimental verification.