[beckett]

Schlick? What about Comte?

[general_re]

I think you have to differentiate between the positivism of Comte and the logical positivism of Schlick, Carnap, and a whole gang of others. Comte's positivism was certainly empirical, but logical positivism is a much more rigorous and formal system of logic and language than Comte's (and Ernst Mach's) positivism. It's probably fair to think of logical positivism as an offshoot of Comte, but it also relies heavily on the development of formal logic in the late 19'th and early 20'th centuries, particularly the work of Frege, Russell, Peano, and Wittgenstein - which, of course, Comte wasn't around to see ;)