postpositivism

In philosophy, postpositivism, also known as postempiricism is, as the prefix indicates, a metatheoretical stance following positivism. One of the main supporters of postpositivism was Sir Karl Popper. Others mentioned in connection with postpositivism are John Dewey and Nicholas Rescher. It is a stance that recognizes most of the criticisms that have been raised against traditional logical positivism and similar foundational epistemologies, but also a stance that is critical about what is seen as misconceptions about positivism itself.
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is a philosophy that rejects the project of positivism (to clean up language to make it more logically tight).  Postpositivism remains powerfully influenced by positivism, however, in that it sees langauge as highly important.  Neverthless, it studies language as it is and does not engage in the project of making it more logically tight.