The accepted main distinction is between the Physical Sciences(1) and Social Sciences(2).
In(1) the positivist and post positivist positions assume the research can attain "value free" knowledge about an objective world and the relationships within it. This can then be used for prediction and control. This is achieved via Reductionism, Replication and Refutation, filtering out any "observer bias / world views. A more detailed description of this process can be found in Checkland and Smith.
In(2) the positions of critical theory, post structuralism, and post modernism. take a contrasting epistemological position. They do not usually claim to attain objective truth, offering an inevitably partial interpretation. They acknowledge a level of complexity and dynamism that cannot be easily, in practice modelled and predicted. Consequently the focus is on meaning and significance.
It is also assumed there is no single truth as people all have their own views (Said 1978). A more complex ontological assumption made by some is that there are multiple realities and therefore multiple truths.
Knowledge attained from (2) is partial, situated and relative.
(From Wetherall, Taylor Yeats)
This leads to a number of potentially conflicting positions, For example in the Social sciences, those who believe a negotiated agreed optimal perspective is possible (eg Habermas (a)) and efforts made to achieve such communicative discourse are essential, and those who believe that inevitably there will be disagreement and joint understanding cannot be reached (strong constructivism) (Foucault?), or that the current capitalist system inevitably blocks this process via for example reducing social problems to "personal issues" (eg via therapy, Freudian analysis) (Deleuze).
(a) Habermas was one of the founders of the Frankfurt School argued that positivism rules out of bounds the rational discussion of meaning, values, and experience, leaving those areas open to the kind of irrationality that the Nazi movement exploited. At the same time, positivism misun derstands the role of psychological and social structures in constrain ing our modes of thought, and often sees “disinterest” where a more acute analysis, one informed by Marx or Freud, would reveal the force of the unconscious or the domination of ideology. For the Frankfurt School—to simplify radically—human society was a web of intersub jectivity, created through the actions and interactions of subjects who could become the conscious creators of values.
In(1) the positivist and post positivist positions assume the research can attain "value free" knowledge about an objective world and the relationships within it. This can then be used for prediction and control. This is achieved via Reductionism, Replication and Refutation, filtering out any "observer bias / world views. A more detailed description of this process can be found in Checkland and Smith.
In(2) the positions of critical theory, post structuralism, and post modernism. take a contrasting epistemological position. They do not usually claim to attain objective truth, offering an inevitably partial interpretation. They acknowledge a level of complexity and dynamism that cannot be easily, in practice modelled and predicted. Consequently the focus is on meaning and significance.
It is also assumed there is no single truth as people all have their own views (Said 1978). A more complex ontological assumption made by some is that there are multiple realities and therefore multiple truths.
Knowledge attained from (2) is partial, situated and relative.
(From Wetherall, Taylor Yeats)
This leads to a number of potentially conflicting positions, For example in the Social sciences, those who believe a negotiated agreed optimal perspective is possible (eg Habermas (a)) and efforts made to achieve such communicative discourse are essential, and those who believe that inevitably there will be disagreement and joint understanding cannot be reached (strong constructivism) (Foucault?), or that the current capitalist system inevitably blocks this process via for example reducing social problems to "personal issues" (eg via therapy, Freudian analysis) (Deleuze).
(a) Habermas was one of the founders of the Frankfurt School argued that positivism rules out of bounds the rational discussion of meaning, values, and experience, leaving those areas open to the kind of irrationality that the Nazi movement exploited. At the same time, positivism misun derstands the role of psychological and social structures in constrain ing our modes of thought, and often sees “disinterest” where a more acute analysis, one informed by Marx or Freud, would reveal the force of the unconscious or the domination of ideology. For the Frankfurt School—to simplify radically—human society was a web of intersub jectivity, created through the actions and interactions of subjects who could become the conscious creators of values.
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