Positivism dispute

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The positivism dispute was a dispute about methods and value judgments in the social sciences, which was fought out in the 1960s, especially in the German-speaking area (West Germany, Austria) .

prehistory

The prehistory goes back to the late 1930s, when Max Horkheimer formulated a criticism of the concept of experience and the conception of the logic of the Vienna Circle in his essay The Latest Attack on Metaphysics (1937) . The positivism dispute follows on from previous controversies in different schools of sociology , such as the value judgment dispute and the method dispute (it is sometimes also called the second method dispute ).

The opponents

On the one hand stood the representatives of critical rationalism such as Karl Popper and Hans Albert , on the other hand representatives of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School such as Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas , who were in the tradition of dialectical social philosophy ( Hegel , Marx ).

Theodor W. Adorno coined the term positivism controversy, where he based his understanding of positivism to denote the opposing side. Popper, on the other hand, rejected the term positivism for his position (he himself spoke of criticalism ) because he did not want to be associated too closely with the neopositivism of the Vienna Circle , from which he always tried to distance himself during his career as a philosopher. In contrast to positivism, Poppers fallibilism assumes that complex statements cannot be empirically proven , but can only be refuted.

course

The controversy began with a presentation by Popper and a co-presentation by Adorno on the opening day of a working conference of the German Society for Sociology , which took place from October 19 to 21, 1961 in Tübingen. The topic of the presentations was: The logic of the social sciences .

The positivism dispute is documented in the book of the same name in its main contributions. Essentially, it contains three strands:

  • The debate between Theodor W. Adorno and Karl Popper about the fundamental approach to social science theories, in which Adorno represents the concept of totality and Popper the approach of critical rationalism . There is consensus between the two that value judgments always play a role in the formation of scientific theories. The demarcation from the postulate of "freedom from values " that Max Weber put forward in the course of the so-called value judgment dispute is based on a shortened reception of Weber's statements. However, there are differences in the assessment of this question.
  • The more specific debate between Hans Albert and Jürgen Habermas about whether a value-free presentation is possible at least on the level of elementary observation data (" protocol records ").
  • The summarizing and mediating contributions by Ralf Dahrendorf and Harald Pilot .

In the main thesis of his paper (sixth thesis), Popper postulates the unity of the method of natural and social sciences: Both consist in “trying out attempts at solving their problems - the problems from which they arise”, but not (seventh thesis ), as asserted in methodological naturalism or scientism , by collecting value-free and assumption-free observation facts and building on them inductive theory formation. Attempts to solve the problem for which it is currently not yet known how they can be objectively criticized should be temporarily excluded from the discussion until a method to criticize them has been found. The criticism consists in an attempt to refute the proposed solution .

Fundamental to the social analysis of the representatives of the Frankfurt School is a doctrine of the essence of society based on the basic concept of totality . The totality is seen as a fundamental structural context that determines the character of the social form; z. For example, the “psychosocial agencies” of society (family, authorities, peers , mass media, etc.) shape the thinking and identity of the individual and thus also the (social) scientist from the outset to a far greater extent than the individual on the other hand on the social agencies can act. Sociology is supposed to uncover and analyze this totality in order to create the conditions for its potential to be overcome. For Popper, on the other hand, all problem-solving attempts are necessarily related to individual aspects. He believes that changing society “as a whole” is not possible and that attempting to do so is dangerous.

While Critical Rationalism suggests that the goal of social science is the attempt to solve social problems and eliminate social grievances, the Frankfurt School is of the opinion that the goal is to identify the totality underlying society, the totality of these problems and grievances caused. This totality consists of contradictions (in the present especially class contradictions), which critical rationalism erroneously attributes to the concept of society in critical theory (totality) instead of society itself (as the object of this concept) because it uses classical logic instead of Hegelian dialectics. Only by eliminating the contradictions (class antagonisms) can the real causes of the grievances be removed, and not just, as Critical Rationalism tries to do, the superficial symptoms of these causes.

See also

literature

  • Theodor W. Adorno et al. a .: The positivism dispute in German sociology . 6th edition, Luchterhand, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1978; and Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3423046201 .
  • Hans-Joachim Dahms: Positivism Controversy. The confrontation of the Frankfurt School with logical positivism, American pragmatism and critical rationalism . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3518286587 .
  • Jürgen W. Falter : The "positivism dispute" in American political science. Origin, process and results of the so-called behavioralism controversy in the United States 1945–1975 (= contributions to social science research. Vol. 37). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1982, ISBN 3-531-11600-2 (complete at the same time: Saarbrücken, University, habilitation thesis ).
  • David Frisby : The Popper-Adorno Controversy. The Methodological Dispute in German Sociology , in: Philosophy of the Social Sciences , 2, 1972, pp. 105-119.
  • Reinhard Neck: What remains of the positivism dispute . Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2008. ISBN 978-3-631-54701-4 (series of publications by the Karl Popper Foundation Klagenfurt, volume 5)
  • Herbert Keuth : Science and value judgment: to discussion of value judgments and positivism dispute. Mohr Siebeck 1989, ISBN 3163454526 .
  • Jürgen Ritsert : Introduction to the logic of the social sciences , pp. 102-140, Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster ²2003, ISBN 3-929586-74-6
  • Jürgen Ritsert : The Positivism Controversy , in: Georg Kneer, Stephan Moebius (ed.): Sociological controversies. Another story from the science of the social , Suhrkamp stw, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-29548-9 , pp. 102-130.
  • Marius Strubenhoff: The Positivism Dispute in German Sociology, 1954–1970 . In: History of European Ideas , 44, 2018, pp. 260–276.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horkheimer, Max: The newest attack on metaphysics. In: Ztschr. Für Sozialforschung, Vol. 6 (1937), p. 4 ff. (Dtv reprint 1980)