Theory

Positivism and Its Impact on Theory

The traditions of research in the social sciences have consistently argued for a theory-driven approach to the design of investigations, particularly in its more experimental formulations. This tradition became established in the 20th century through the adoption of logical-positivist premises and a hypothetico-deductive framework in research that focused on observable features of the world as the final arbiter of research outcomes. Late 19th-century positivism, originally articulated by Auguste Comte, was influential in guiding the new social sciences, particularly psychology, in adopting research methods that would allow observed features of the world to determine the outcome of research questions. This was done to remove the influence of metaphysics and theology in science and originally had a salutary effect. However, this naïve version of positivism suffered from shortcomings that would make themselves felt in the 20th century. In particular, it ruled out the possibility of allowing entities such as atoms the status of real objects in science because they were unobservable. Ernst Mach, the Austrian physicist and philosopher whose philosophical views were important in the early social sciences, championed this version of positivism.

Positivism reduced the problem of theory to one of sensations, namely, the experience of an experimental outcome would in fact be the basis for a scientific theory. This was useful in removing the effects of metaphysics from science but hindered the progress of science as it came to rely ever more on unobservables. Logical positivism (in the version promulgated by the Vienna Circle) sought to ameliorate this. The principle of verification advanced by the movement claimed that the meaning of a statement is determined by sense-experience. However, this sense-experience can be direct or indirect allowing for the introduction of concepts (theory) that are linked to observations while not directly observable themselves. Instead, protocol sentences (direct observation terms) were linked to axioms (theoretical terms) with logico-mathematical terms. One consequence of this view is the rigid separation of theory from observation or data. Although it was dominant until after World War II, this position created an important sense that theory was to be understood as [Page 1499]a rigorous feature of experimental science. This was especially the case for theory that was formulated in mathematical terms or in terms of so-called laws. An additional concern that sprung out of the work of the logical positivists was a preoccupation with the unity of science. Dominant for much of the 20th century, the unity of science view was that all sciences are related through a thoroughgoing reductionism that would ultimately base all scientific theory on the laws of physics (although Otto Neurath, a logical positivist, was generally opposed to a crude reductionism of this sort).

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