Probleme der Wissenschaftstheorie in der Methodenlehre empirischer Sozialforschung / Problems of the theory of science in the methodology of social research

Abstract

Abstract Mutual understanding between the theorists of science and social research workersis usually not very good. By showing up some theoretically relevant problems in the methodology of social research, this article tries to bridge the unfortunate gap between the two fields of investigation. Some difficulties of planning and executing social research are described at first (section 3). Then, two central problems of empirical investigations in the social sciences are analyzed: the unavoidable one-sidedness of all empirical measures for the historically changing and always ambigous meaning of social concepts (section 4); and the barriers that obstruct the winning of law-like statements that are both generally valid and substantial. The main strategies for winning such statements seem to have serious disadvantages (section 6). But the deficiency of substantial social laws does not mean that the social sciences are not worth being further developed in a systematic way. Certainly, the explanatory power of all known generalizations in the social sciences is very restricted and cannot at all be compared with the explanatory power of real natural laws. The functions of the social sciences, however, are not the same as those of the natural sciences. The empirical generalizations and theoretical models of social scientists fulfill always very important ideological functions, even where they are supposed to be „value-free“ and „scientific“ (section 7). Acknowledging this often neglected fact could change the self-image of many social research workers as well as the unrealistic goals that the theorists of science are usually setting to a „strictly scientific“ methodology of social research.