Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Science Wars: a way out
- Part one Why social science has failed as science
- Part two How social science can matter again
- 5 Values in social and political inquiry
- 6 The power of example
- 7 The significance of conflict and power to social science
- 8 Empowering Aristotle
- 9 Methodological guidelines for a reformed social science
- 10 Examples and illustrations: narratives of value and power
- 11 Social science that matters
- Notes
- Index
5 - Values in social and political inquiry
from Part two - How social science can matter again
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Science Wars: a way out
- Part one Why social science has failed as science
- Part two How social science can matter again
- 5 Values in social and political inquiry
- 6 The power of example
- 7 The significance of conflict and power to social science
- 8 Empowering Aristotle
- 9 Methodological guidelines for a reformed social science
- 10 Examples and illustrations: narratives of value and power
- 11 Social science that matters
- Notes
- Index
Summary
[I]f you want a description of our age, here is one: the civilization of means without ends.
Richard LivingstoneValue-rationality and instrumental rationality
Just as social science has not been able to contribute with Kuhnian normal science and predictive theory to scientific development, so natural science has had little to offer to the reflexive analysis of goals, values, and interests that is a precondition for an enlightened development in any society. However, where natural science is weak, social science is strong, and vice versa. For Aristotle, the most important task of social and political studies was to develop society's value-rationality vis-à-vis its scientific and technical rationality. Aristotle did not doubt that the first type of rationality was the most important and ought to influence the second. Since Aristotle's time, however, this view has receded into the background, especially after the Enlightenment and modernity installed instrumental rationality in a dominant position in both science and society. Social thinkers as diverse as Max Weber, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas have pointed out that for more than two centuries value-rationality (Wertrationalitä) has increasingly given way to instrumental rationality (Zweckrationalitä). In the words of Richard Living-stone: “if you want a description of our age, here is one: the civilization of means without ends.” Today the Aristotelian question of balancing instrumental rationality with value-rationality is forcing its way back to the foreground.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Making Social Science MatterWhy Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again, pp. 53 - 65Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
- 2
- Cited by