Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry

Abstract

The present controversy between “behavioral” and “postbehavioral” views of political inquiry reflects a larger dispute between two opposing theories of knowledge. Whereas the behavioral movement has its epistemological roots in positivism and, ultimately, in classical British empiricism, the most recent protest against behavioralism draws upon the theory of knowledge that has been the principal foe of empiricism over the past century. This theory of knowledge, which received the name “historicism” shortly after its emergence, had become the dominant epistemological position by the mid-twentieth century. This essay considers the general nature of historicism and its influence on the recent revolt against positivism in the philosophy of science. Finally, it examines the use that political scientists have made of historicist principles in opposing positivistic models of political inquiry. It argues that an epistemological relativism becomes unavoidable once certain premises of historicism are embraced.

Objectivity in the historiography of COVID-19 pandemic

“…The idea that there could be some causal laws in social sciences, just like in natural sciences, led to the adoption of a positivist approach among social scientists living in this paradigm. The concept of the objectivity of the positivist paradigm accepted the existence of true knowledge above time and space, freed from personal and social values [2]. History has been one of the areas among the social sciences first influenced by a positivist epistemology, in terms of its relationship with the lived and with the search for causality between events as in the natural sciences.…”

The LawPresidential Studies, Behavioralism, and Public Law

“…As David Easton once quipped, “The lack of more reliable knowledge flows directly from an immoderate neglect of general theory” (Easton , 31). All three of these elements point to a movement that thought political science could be remade into the image of the natural sciences (Bond ; Kirn , 85; Leonard , 84; Miller , 802; Ricci , 253;). Charles Merriam perhaps most effectively articulated the behavioralist desire to incorporate the methods of the natural sciences into the study of politics: “more and more it appears that the last word in human behavior is to be scientific; more and more clearly it becomes evident that the social and political implications of natural science are of fundamental importance” (1926, 9).…”

Charles Tilly, German Historicism, and the Critical Realist Philosophy of Science

“…According to another recent appraisal, historicism is "antidogmatic, rejecting all deductive and closed systems" (Veit-Brause 1996: 405). It is not surprising, then, that historicism is used by English-speaking social scientists to mean simply the opposite of that other multivalent word, "positivism" (Steinmetz 2005;Szacki 1971;Berlin 1972: xiii;Miller 1972;Turner 2006).…”