A critical examination of Habermas' and Marcuse's attacks on positivism, with special reference to the implications of the attacks for sociology

The debate between positivists on the one hand, and anti-positivists such as Habermas and Marcuse on the other, about the possibility of an objective value-free social science seems to have reached an impasse: Positivists continue to assert that the facts and laws of social life are objective givens which can be apprehended by a social science modelling itself on the natural science methodology. (There is disagreement among positivists about whether the natural science methodology is based on inductive or deductive logic, and thus about exactly what would be implied by a transference of this methodology to social science). Positivists justify their quest for objective knowledge of the laws and facts of social life, by claiming that such knowledge is empirically grounded and ipso facto capable of validation.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Sociology

Year dc:date.issued

1982

Author dc:creator

• Romm, Norma R A

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Von Broembsen, Marlese
• Glass, H G L

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9932

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9932