The U.S. welfare system would be an unlikely model for anyone designing a welfare system from scratch. The dozens of programs that make up the âsystemâ have different (sometimes competing) goals, inconsistent rules, and over-lapping groups of beneficiaries.
Definition of skepticism. 1  1 : an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object. 2  2a : the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertainb : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics.
Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that certain (positive) knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge.