Comments on: Isms

By: rubberbloodfactory

rubberbloodfactory — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:20:36 +0000

Well, this article seems to give a pretty good description, despite the lack of sources. Positivism has a lot of problems in sociology, the big one being that it's sort of aspiring to make social research conform to a model of physical science which is no longer really followed today (Newtonian physics and simple cause and effect relations). Agreed on the political incorrectness thing. I find that the only people who use it are either a. trying to sell you something, or b. as you said.

By: Tlönista

Tlönista — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:02:44 +0000

Having done my time in philosophy of science, the unequivocal answer is yes, empiricism and positivism are “isms” — though apparently positivism means something different in the social sciences, as I thought it meant these guys. And, since Quine’s milkshake brought all the epistemologists to the yard, it has been quite unfashionable to be a positivist.

All these -isms are simply different ways of looking at the world. And it seems to me that you can’t interact with the world in any way without looking through an -ism, no more than I could read without my glasses. Even if you don’t know you’re using -isms, you’ve still got ‘em, and you’d be supremely ignorant to say otherwise.

PS. “I’m politically incorrect” usually translates to “I’m a snide asshole” in my book. YMMV.

By: ryan anderson

ryan anderson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:47:27 +0000

“I was struck by the way that he seemed to believe that feminists and Marxists were “warping” the data, or discarding it when it did not fit with their world view. This may be true in some cases, but positivistic science is a theory base like any other, and personal subjective views still come into it.”

I totally agree. Funny how certain positivist folks see BIAS everywhere but in their own theoretical constructions.