In “Diaz Elects a governor” the mentioning of the caudillos and the cientificos is further elaborated, as well as what might have led to the Mexican Revolution. Womack, the author of this article, makes the following observation: “The Mexican Revolution happened because the high politicians of the country openly failed to agree on who should rule when President Porfirio Diaz died” (page 10).
What do you think of Womack’s remark? Elaborate your response by considering the environment presented in the first readings and with the help of your own logic. Do things make sense? Why? Why not? To provide you with a brief background of the philosophical environment in the early 20th Century in Mexico, which politicians indeed embraced, I am including the following brief note on Positivism as part of that natural law alluded to in the article by Womack.
Positivism: a philosophy of science based on the view that in the social and natural sciences information derived from sensory experience, logical and mathematical treatments represent the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge. Positivism assumes that there is valid knowledge (truth) only in scientific knowledge. Obtaining and verifying data that can be received from the senses is known as empirical evidence. This view holds that society operates according to general laws like the physical world. Introspective and intuitional attempts to gain knowledge are rejected. Auguste Comte argued that society operates according to its own quasi-absolute laws, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws of nature; God does not exist and could not possibly intervene in people’s fate.
