3 Quotes Tagged: social-sciences

The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values.

"If facts, logic, and scientific procedures are all just arbitrarily "socially constructed" notions, then all that is left is consensus — more specifically peer consensus, the kind of consensus that matters to adolescents or to many among the intelligentsia."

As indicated by our example, methodological nominalism is nowadays fairly generally accepted in the natural sciences. The problems of the social sciences, on the other hand, are still for the most part treated by essentialist methods. This is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons for their backwardness.