The rationale for my current conception of this, my personal website, is to be found in existential positivism. The proximate provocation for existential positivism lies in the scientific evangelism of Richard Dawkins, who, perceiving an attack on rational science from fundamentalist religion has responded with a critique of faith (in general) and a defence of scientific rationality. This seems to me too much like a conflict between different systems of institutionalised dogma for me to enrol on either side, but the battle lines drawn up by Dawkins have made me feel the need to state my own counter position to dogma of all kinds. My position is rooted in a positive scepticism, for which the word positivism, coined by Auguste Comte is apt (even though positivisms have their dogmas).

I already was engaged in positivistic analytic philosophy, under the heading metaphysical positivism, which is at best tenuously relevant to present concerns. I have opened up a second positivist front, more broadly scoped, under the heading existential positivism. This is really no more than an account of my own personal belief system, extending to matters beyond the scope of analytic philosophy, taking a more definite stance on social, economic, political, moral, and of course existential concerns than could ever be justified analytically, and serving as an exemplar of the kinds of belief system which can sustain a sense of meaning and purpose in life in default of religious or other dogma.

Metaphysical Positivism is systematic constructive positivist philosophy. We present here sketches of Metaphysical Positivism together with some related historical material which might possibly help the reader come to an understanding of this system and its place in the history of ideas.

My interest here is in the automation of deductive reason, and is mainly philosophical but includes some discussion of high level design.

Existential positivism is positive practical philosophy. It builds from a base of pragmatic scepticism, and is closely related to, though not strictly dependent on existential expressionism. It bears on philosophical matters which depend in some way on subjective values, or upon some other kind of essential reference to our personal feelings and intutions.

Materials on the history of philosophy which provide context for an understanding of Metaphysical Positivism.

In essence Metaphysical Positivism is a positivisitic philosophy with negative dogmas excised, with a positive attitude towards metaphysics, based around a method of logical analysis together with appropriate philosophical (including metaphysical) underpinnings.

The motivation.

Metaphysical Positivism is a positivistic philosophical system formulated for the twenty first century, building on a heritage going back at least as far as David Hume; cognisant of developments in logic and computer science which have taken place in the 20th Century, but turning away from some of the recent tendencies in analytic philosophy.

Leibniz dreamed of a universal language and a calculus of reason which would reduce all problems to numerical computation. Unrealisable in his time, it is still today a dream, but one which (subject to qualifications) advances in mathematics, logic and information technology may have brought within our grasp.

The X-Logic project has two sides. It is Part IV of an "Evolution Rationality and Deduction" book project, and as such provides an informal exposition of an information architecture designed to capture the results of diverse methods of analysis, applicable both to philosophical and to other problem domains. Its other side is formal, and is represented by an open source project hosted on Google code under which formal models of this architecture are to be developed. These models, as well as furthering the philosophical analysis, are intended as an input to a process of formulating standards for some future generation of "The Semantic Web".

The term "Existential Positivism" combines two terms which are normally poles apart, apparently an oxymoron.This represents a weakness in positivistic phlosophy which we seek here to remedy.