On Wed, 30 Dec 1998 11:48:02 -0800 Sam Pawlett <epawlett at uniserve.com>
writes:
>
>
>d-m-c at worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
>> >such as? i don't know of any self-declared sociologists who don't
>have a
>> commitment
>> >to a positivist or empiricist view - care to name some?
>>
>> There are a few: Norman Denzin, Steven Seidman, and some others
>whose
>> names escape me at the moment.
>>
>> >more importantly, exactly
>> >what is this critique of positivism that logical positivists have
>made?
>>
>> Yes, i've quite forgotten all this stuff, it seemed so utterly
>irrelevant
>> at them time; care to remind Jim?
>
>The classic critiques of positivism were W.V. Quine's attack on the
>analytic/synthetic distinction, N.R. Hanson and Thomas Kuhn's critique
>of
>theory- neutral observation, many attacks on the verificationist
>theory of
>meaning e.g the verification principle is not itself empirically
>verifiable.
>Wilfred Sellars attack on the notion of a "given". Hilary Putnam's
>critique of
>the fact/value distinction.For an overview see _Philosophy and the
>Mirror of
>Nature_ by Rorty. While these writers may have have been influenced by
>positivism they were not positivists at the time they made these
>critiques.
> The classic statement of positivism in social science is Milton
>Friedman's
>mid-fifties paper "A Theory of Positive Economics" or something like
>that.
>Basic point: the content of the assumptions is irrelevant as long as
>the model
>yields predictions. The positivist theory par excellance in the social
>sciences
>is neoclassical microeconomics. Micro theory has crept into all the
>social
>sciences through the work of people like David Gauthier, Richard
>Posner, Jon
>Elster, J.Maynard Smith, Harsanyi and Russell Hardin. There's lots of
>work on
>the positivism in social science question. My favorite is Martin
>Hollis/Ed
>Nell _Rational Economic Man_ and Hollis _the Philosophy of Social
>Science.
>What's the old saying? Neoclassical economics; you have to be smart
>enough to
>understand it and stupid enough to believe it.
>
>Sam Pawlett.
>
It should be noted though that historically not all positivists in the social sciences were methodological individualists. Durkheim for instance was a strong critic of the methodological individualisms of his (i.e. utilitarianism) but he was still a positivist. Likewise, to take a more recent example, the structural sociologist, Bruce Mayhew was certainly a positivist but he was no fan of methodological individualism in sociology. Also, while many Marxists have been critical of positivsm, there is also a long tradition of 'positivist' Marxisms going back to Kautsky. A recent case would be the Marxism of G.A. Cohen. Cohen (who BTW studied under Gilbert Ryle at Oxford) is strongly influenced by logical empiricism. His _Karl Marx's Theory of History_ drew upon Carl Hempel's philosophy of science (although Justin Schwartz has argued that Cohen is not really a Hempelian).
Jim Farmelant
>>
>>
>
>>
>> >> To sociologists 'positivism' means roughly the same thing as
>scientific
>> >> objectivity. Which is automatically suspect.
>>
>> Well, no. There are many different versions of positivism and of
>the
>> positivism that sociologists reject. For instance, I know of one
>fellow
>> who thinks that it's just the idea that we can look and see what's
>out
>> there. For others, positivism is the claim that there must be an
>absolute
>> dissociation between the logic of discovery and the logic of
>justification.
>> Others are simply out to reject the notion that there is a unity
>between
>> natural and social science. Now, I'm hazily recalling Hempel's
>concession
>> speech re that topic, but I do think that he clearly adhered to the
>> ultimate possibility that everything could be reduced to physics.
>Btw,
>> there are a number of sociologists in the US who proudly proclaim
>their
>> positivism, Randall Collins is one who comes readily to mind. Oh
>and
>> Jonathan Turner.
>>
>> >no one has claimed that facts are 'arbitrary verbal constructs'.
>if
>> you're thinking
>> >of saussure, then this is about the relation between the signifier
>and the
>> >signified, nothing to do with facts, unless you somehow - in your
>peculiar
>> >vocabulary -
>>
>> Yeah....and wasn't Saussure trying to create a science out of
>semiotics.
>> And honest to good red blooded Science?
>>
>> >> But lo and behold! Were did we learn such things? Why, from the
>logical
>> >> positivists themselves. It was not Adorno or Horkheimer who
>coined the
>> >> phrase 'anti-essentialism' as a pejorative rejection of
>objectivity, it
>> >> was Karl Popper.
>>
>> Oh and btw I seem to recall that Horkheimer did refer to Popper's
>critique
>> as useful to his own. Horkheimer seems to have been rejecting the
>attempt
>> to reduce justification to the process of empirically testing
>theories.
>> For Horkheimer, "If the truth of the pudding is in the eating, then
>the
>> eating is still in the future" (paraphrased) He was rejecting
>Popper's
>> 'plaints about politics and science, though again it's been a long
>time.
>
>
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