>>> mmcintyr at wppost.depaul.edu 07/18/01 12:03PM >>>
I've heard that analytic philosophers are all post-positivists now, but I'm not sure the word has reached the social sciences.
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CB: The social sciences have long had anti-positivist schools of thought.
Marxist social science has always been critical of positivism.
Anthropological social science has had main anti-positivist currents for a long time before analytical philosophers became post-positivists. For Boasians, the objective facts about cultures do not speak for themselves.
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Lots of folks I studied with were still willing to call themselves positivists. John Mearsheimer calls himself a "logical positivist". David Laitin calls himself a "neo-positivist". On the other hand, Henry Brady, whom most would tar with the brush refuses to call himself a positivist. So maybe we need a quick survey of the territory. My third-hand [and quite likely wrong] understanding is that analytic philosophers of all stripes now reject a distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, and between statements of fact and statements of value. Those distinctions, however, are still at the heart of state-of-the-art books on social science research design. (I have King, Keohane and Verba's _Designing Social Inquiry_ in mind). So perhaps positivism isn't entirely dead . . . or it is dead but those in the lower reaches of the academy have! n't gotten the word yet.
Clarifications Justin?
Michael McIntyre