Positivism is a a view of scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

s and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information. Introspective and intuitional attempts to gain knowledge are rejected. Though the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day, the concept was developed in the early 19th century by the philosopher and founding sociologist, Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

.
Re-imported in the 19th century from the French word positivisme, derived from positif in its philosophical sense of 'imposed on the mind by experience'.