Recent developments in the philosophy of science: its relevance for the social sciences

Abstract

SUMMARY This article reviews developments in the philosophy of science which occurred during the past two decades. It begins with a discussion of the orthodox positivist view of science, concentrating on its logicist conception of theory assessment. This is followed by an exposition of the historicist critique of positivism as primarily worked out in Thomas Kuhn's The structure of scientific revolutions. It is well known that Kuhn's book led to a resurgence of interest in relativist and subjectivist positions in the philosophy of science. The main opponent to historicism, scientific realism, is discussed in some detail in the third section of the article. In the final section, the relevance of these debates to the social sciences is examined. The section begins with a brief outline of the Marxist version of realism which have recently been defended by people such as Bhaskar, Keat and Urry and Sayer. In the final pages of the article, it is argued that a realist theory of the social sciences is possible. I...