Empiricism and the Social Sciences

Abstract

different moral purposes, for changing or maintaining the status quo.20 An s-f analysis consists of statements about the relationships between or among two or more structural components of a social system. Any such statement can be viewed in at least two regards. First, it can be viewed as a valid or invalid scientific statement, in the measure that it describes parts and connections of the social system as they objectively exist. Secondly, such a statement can be viewed as having ideological consequences, in the measure that someone with a certain set of goals or values may use it to justify maintaining or changing the objectively existing parts and connections. These two aspects of any statement should not be confused. An s-f analysis which consists of scientific statements should not be taken gratuitously to imply any ideological commitment, either to maintain or change the existing system. Because a statement may have ideological as well as scientific reference does not necessarily mean that there is actually any ideological intent whatsoever on the part of its author. problem of the ideological uses of knowledge is a generic one and applies to all social science, to any method of analysis or system of theory in social science. problem is not peculiar to s-f analysis. Of course, s-f analysis is no more free than any other system of social scientific theory from the responsibility for keeping alert to the possible ideological uses to which its statements may be put. At the least, perhaps, s-f analysis, as well as other kinds of sociological analysis, might forestall the charge of being ideologically biased by pointing out the several alternative practical and ideological uses to which a piece of knowledge can be put.21 20 For an excellently stated but misguided charge that practically all of contemporary social science is interested simply in discovering techniques of social control by which men can be adjusted to the status quo, see Wayne Hield, The Study of Change in Social Science, British Journal of Sociology, 5 (March, 1954), pp. 1-11. Hield devotes most of his criticism to Parsons, Merton, and s-f analysis, but he also includes such various people and areas as Elton Mayo, Lewin, Moreno, interracial housing studies, content analysis, Warner, Homans, Tolman, Murray, and Kretch and Crutchfield. 21 However, this may not always be possible. For further discussion of this and other problems of the social responsibilities of science, see Bernard Barber, Science and Social Order, Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1952, pp. 225-232.