Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Do the social sciences require any special treatment or can the results of general epistemology, which have in modern times usually been formulated with an eye to the natural sciences, be applied directly to them? This question has exercised philosophers and social scientists more or less from the beginnings of self-consciously ‘scientific’ investigations of social phenomena. Among the founders of modern social science, M ill , Weber and Durkheim, to name a few, all commented on it. In the contemporary context, this issue is often addressed under the heading naturalism , i.e. the doctrine that the methods of the natural sciences can be used in the study of society. Self-proclaimed anti-naturalists nowadays abound, but, ironically, frequently situate themselves with respect to characterisations of the natural scientific enterprise that are themselves now dated. For, after Kuhn (1970) , it will certainly no longer suffice to place oneself in opposition to naturalism, to rail against the restrictive tenets of verificationism , a position which no longer commands great respect even in relation to epistemology of the natural sciences. There are at least three prima facie reasons for wondering whether naturalism can be sustained or whether it is necessary, instead, to articulate for the social sciences an epistemology which doesn't simply ape the preoccupations and conclusions of ... log in or subscribe to read full text