"society as an object of inquiry, is necessarily 'theoretical' in the sense that, like a magnetic field, it is necessarily unperceivable; so that it cannot be empirically identified independently of its effects, that is it can only be known, not shown to exist. However in this respect it is not differentiated from many objects of natural scientific inquiry. What does differentiate it is that society not only cannot be identified independently of its effects, but it does not *exist* independently of them either. But, however strange this is from an ontological point of view, it raises no special epistemological difficulties"
which, of course, hempel admitted in his apologia for positivism.
kelley
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>Put me down for Foucault. Or Derrida. It's somebody the Sokal &
>Bricmont make fun of, right?
>
>Miles
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