Obstacles to the accumulation of knowledge in the social sciences

Abstract

The accumulation of knowledge may be thought of as one of the criteria which must be satisfied before a discipline may call itself scientific. Al though there is an 'information explosion' in social science, at least if measured by the increase in the running feet of bookshelves devoted to social science literature, there is yet to be observed a substantial accumu lation of scientific knowledge. Further, with few exceptions, an examina tion of the type of training given to the future generation of researchers in social science gives little hope for any improvement in the near future. These factors the present substantial lack of accumulated knowledge coupled with the grossly inadequate training programs for the next gener ation of social scientists suggest that consideration should be given to the question: "What are the obstacles to the accumulation of knowledge in social science?" Consequently, this question is taken as a starting point for this essay. The theme to be developed is that the lack of accumulation of scientific knowledge in social sciences is a direct result of the lack of an appropriate view of social reality. The main purpose of the essay is to sketch one set of reality assumptions which could fill the conjectured void. If these proposed assumptions are to be utilized as a basis for social science research, a number of problems have to be solved. A few of these problems will be indicated. Before some basic assumptions about the nature of social science are stated, a few references related to the claim that social science is in an unsatisfactory state should be presented. Optimism for the future of scientific social science has been voiced by a few writers (Deutsch et al., 1971), but the significance of the optimism seems lessened when argu ments are presented by others (Filstead, 1970) disclaiming the appropri ateness of quantification. The basis for optimism for the development of scientific sociology also seems to be in question when sociologists review the status of some theories in their field. A general review of the work of several theorists has been presented (Robson, 1968) as well as a detailed review (Berger et al., 1968) of the work of Talcott Parsons, regarded by