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Publication details

Publisher: Springer

Place: Berlin

Year: 1978

Pages: 74-106

ISBN (Hardback): 9789024720408

Full citation:

Fred Dallmayr, "Genesis and validation of social knowledge", in: Phenomenology and the social science, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Genesis and validation of social knowledge

lessons from Merleau-Ponty

Fred Dallmayr

pp. 74-106

in: Joseph Bien (ed), Phenomenology and the social science, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

The social sciences today are again in a period of self-scrutiny. The trust in the self-sustaining virtues of scientific methodology — so prevalent in the postwar era — is a matter of the past; evicted from the position of undisputed sovereign, positive science finds itself in the more modest role of a partisan perspective competing for attention and credibility in the professional community. Among alternative views, phenomenology in recent years had gained particular prominence in debates on the premises and functions of social inquiry. As Maurice Natanson has observed: phenomenology — broadly "in the ascendancy" in English-speaking countries — represents today "a distinctive voice in the conversation of social scientists."1 The argument advanced by phenomenologists in this conversation is by no means one-dimensional or univocal; yet (as it seems to me), it is not impossible to discern a major thrust or common inflection. Broadly speaking, this thrust involves a stress on, and special attentiveness to, the peculiar features or distinctive traits of social phenomena as compared to purely natural phenomena; as a corollary of such attentiveness, the social scientist is commonly assumed to be less rigidly detached from his subject matter than the natural scientist and to be able to grasp not only the external sequence but also the intrinsic significance of social events.

Cited authors

Publication details

Publisher: Springer

Place: Berlin

Year: 1978

Pages: 74-106

ISBN (Hardback): 9789024720408

Full citation:

Fred Dallmayr, "Genesis and validation of social knowledge", in: Phenomenology and the social science, Berlin, Springer, 1978