The ‘philosophical work’ to which Carnap refers was a series of epistemological doctrines produced by a group of thinkers who became known as the Vienna Circle. The title usually attached to their work, Logical Positivism, reflected its close affinity to the basic ‘attitude’ which Carnap and others believed would ‘win the future’. This attitude, this ‘style of thinking’, is now known simply as Positivism. The purpose of next section is to clarify and examine positivism as a ‘style of thinking’ about educational theory and research.