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The positivism dispute (german: Positivismusstreit, links=no) was a political-philosophical dispute between the
critical rationalists Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine *Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. *Critical Software, a company specializing in ...
(
Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...
,
Hans Albert Hans Albert (born 8 February 1921) is a German philosopher. Born in Cologne, he lives in Heidelberg. His fields of research are Social Sciences and General Studies of Methods. He is a critical rationalist, paying special attention to rational h ...
) and the
Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), dur ...
(
Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blueger, ...
,
Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
) in 1961, about the methodology of the
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
. It grew into a broad discussion within German
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
from 1961 to 1969. The naming itself is controversial, since it was the Frankfurt School proponents who accused the critical rationalists of being positivists—while the latter considered themselves to be opponents of
positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
.


Overview

The debate began in 1961 in
Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
,
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, at the Conference of the German Society of Sociology. The speakers at the conference were invited to discuss the differences between social and natural sciences and the status of
values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
in the social sciences. In 1963, the debate was heated by Jürgen Habermas in the ''Festschrift für Adorno'' (writings in honour of Adorno). The debate became more intensely critical at the Sociology Day in
Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
when
Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...
joined the discussion. A spirited literary debate between Habermas and Hans Albert sprung up and positivism became the centre of the debate. The participants also discussed the question of whether Popper's and Albert's critical rationalism had exacerbated ethical problems. The Frankfurt School believed this should be impossible, because as a theory of science critical rationalism is seen to be restricted to the field of knowledge. The famous dispute inspired a collection of essays which were published in 1969. This book was translated into several languages, including English in 1976 (see below). This collection revived the debate and introduced these ideas to a broader audience.


Elements of the dispute

The dispute has its foundation in the value judgment dispute (''
Werturteilsstreit The value judgment controversy (German:''Werturteilsstreit'') is a ''Methodenstreit'', a quarrel in German sociology and economics, around the question whether the social sciences are a normative obligatory statement in politics and its measures a ...
'') in German sociology and economics around the question of whether or not the statements from various social sciences are normative and obligatory in politics, and whether or not their measures can be justified scientifically and be applied in political actions. Consequently, the positivism dispute is also called the Second ''Werturteilsstreit''. The precursor of the debate about positivism can be traced back to
Max Horkheimer Max Horkheimer (; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the Frankfurt School of social research. Horkheimer addressed authoritarianism, militari ...
's essay "''Der neueste Angriff auf die Metaphysik''" ("The Latest Attack on Metaphysics") published in 1937 that criticizes the
logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...
of the
Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, cha ...
. The prolonged criticism of positivismCritical theorists used the term "positivism" as an encompassing term to refer to various philosophical schools that they thought had been founded on the same methodological basis; these schools included the Vienna Circle, logical positivism,
realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...
, and
logical atomism Logical atomism is a philosophical view that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. Its principal exponent was the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is also widely held that the early works of his ...
(see
Andrew Arato Andrew Arato ( hu, Arató András ; born 22 August 1944) is a professor of Political and Social Theory in the Department of Sociology at The New School, best known for his influential book ''Civil Society and Political Theory'', coauthored with ...
and Eike Gebhardt (eds)
''The Essential Frankfurt School Reader''
Continuum, 1978, p. 373).
led to the formation of two camps: on one side we find critical rationalism advanced by Karl Popper and on the other side there is the critical theory advanced in the Frankfurt School. This view was strengthened by the fact that Popper's main work, ''
Logic of Scientific Discovery ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' is a 1959 book about the philosophy of science by the philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rewrote his book in English from the 1934 (imprint '1935') German original, titled ''Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnisthe ...
'', was published in the main book series of the Vienna Circle. Popper, however, considered himself an opponent of positivism, and his main work was a sharp attack on it. Both camps accept that sociology cannot avoid a value judgement that inevitably influences subsequent conclusions. In critical rationalism the scientific approach should be maintained in sociology, and wherever the use of an induction method is not possible, it should be avoided. This leads to a sociology having a firm ground in observations and assured deductions that cannot be ignored in politics. For critical rationalism, sociology is best conceived as a set of empirical questions subject to scientific investigation. Frankfurt School critical theory, by contrast, denies that sociology can be severed from its metaphysical heritage; empirical questions are necessarily rooted in substantive philosophical issues. Drawing on concepts from Hegelian and Marxian traditions, critical theory conceives society as a concrete totality, a social environment, e.g. family, authorities, peers or mass media shape individual consciousness. According to the Frankfurt school, it is important to discover the society's fabrics to allow for individuals to overcome being cornered. Critical rationalism considers this goal to be impossible and any attempts (changing society out of possibly non-scientific deductions) to be dangerous. The Frankfurt school counters critical rationalism as being itself cornered, disallowing itself from asking scientific questions when just some methods are not available. Looking back in history "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but their social existence that determines their consciousness" (
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
). The social existence determines the mindset of scientists as well. All the hypotheses generated by scientists (which would need to be falsified) are limited to this society's thinkable. While critical rationalism provides methods that are supposed to have an influence on society it is this totality that makes the reforms advocated by Popper ineffective for noticeable changes. Popper, in contrast, held that the Frankfurt school view was
historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely u ...
ideology failing to see that any attempt to cause a total change of society (i.e., revolution) leads to violence, and that society should better be changed step by step (by reforms) to solve specific problems and abolish specific evils. According to Popper, individuals, including scientists, are free to decide, and are perhaps restricted by their social existence, but not totally determined by it. Changes may then look ineffective and very slow, but will accumulate over time. Popper thinks it is the lesser evil compared to violent revolutions, since such reforms can be undone if they turn out to only make things worse, while revolutions usually lead to lengthy periods of tyranny. Thus, for Popper, the method of reforms should be preferred.


See also

*
Antipositivism In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance that proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that ...
*
Cassirer–Heidegger debate The Cassirer–Heidegger debate was an encounter between the philosophers Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer from March 17 to April 6, 1929 during the Second Davos Hochschulkurs ( Davos University Conference) which held its opening session in t ...
*
Foucault–Habermas debate The Foucault–Habermas debate is a dispute concerning whether Michel Foucault's ideas of "power analytics" and "genealogy" or Jürgen Habermas' ideas of "communicative rationality" and " discourse ethics" provide a better critique of the natu ...
*
Gadamer–Derrida debate __NOTOC__ The Gadamer–Derrida debate concerns the issue of the containment of otherness in Gadamer's hermeneutics and it began with an encounter between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida in April 1981 in a Sorbonne conference in Paris on "Te ...
*
Popper legend Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. ...
*
Searle–Derrida debate John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...


Notes and references


Further reading

* Adorno, Albert, Dahrendorf, Habermas, Pilot and Popper, ''The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology'', Heinemann London 1976 and Harper Torchbook 1976. * Habermas, ''
Knowledge and Human Interests ''Knowledge and Human Interests'' (german: Erkenntnis und Interesse) is a 1968 book by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, in which the author discusses the development of the modern natural and human sciences. He criticizes Sigmund Freud, a ...
'' (original: '' Erkenntnis und Interesse'', 1968). * Habermas, ''Technology and Science as Ideology'' (original: '' Technik und Wissenschaft als „Ideologie“'', 1968). * Helmut F. Spinner, ''Popper und die Politik''. Berlin (Dietz), 1978. * Strubenhoff, Marius, 'The Positivism Dispute in German Sociology, 1954-1970', ''History of European Ideas 44'' (2018). * Dahms, H.-J., ''Positivismusstreit. Die Auseinandersetzungen der Frankfurter Schule mit dem logischen Positivismus, dem amerikanischen Pragmatismus und dem kritischen Rationalismus'', Frankfurt a.M. (Suhrkamp), 1994. {{Authority control Social philosophy Positivism History of philosophy History of sociology Philosophical debates