Freedom from Value Judgments: Value-Free Social Science and

Every person is a philosopher by nature; however, we are quickly dissuaded from this delightful activity by those who call philosophy impractical. But there is nothing more practical than knowing who you are and what you think. Try it sometime.

Freedom from Value Judgments: Value-Free Social Science and

Postby admin » Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:16 am

Freedom from Value Judgments: Value-Free Social Science and Objectivity in Germany, 1880-1914
by Andrew Jeffrey Spadafora
© 2013 Andrew Jeffrey Spadafora

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Contents: [PDF HERE]

• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Introduction: Value Freedom and Objectivity in Max Weber’s Germany
• Part I. Economics and Sociology
• Chapter 2: “Ethical” Political Economy and “Value-Free” Economics in the Era of the of the Methodenstreit: The German Historical School and Carl Menger
• Chapter 3: Ferdinand Tönnies on the Subjectivity of Values and “Value-Free” Science
• Part II. Law
• Chapter 4: Law as “Value-Free” Social Science: Georg Jellinek and Hermann Kantorowicz
• Chapter 5: Gustav Radbruch and Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Law
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Bibliography

Abstract

This dissertation addresses a central issue in the methodological debates that raged in the German academy around the turn of the twentieth century. The idea of “value-free” social science, or “value-freedom,” was passed down to subsequent decades as a way of thinking about the objectivity of knowledge, but because of its name it has been widely misunderstood. Moreover, it has been seen either as a clever invention of the polymath scholar Max Weber, or as some form of ideology masquerading as neutrality (or both). Instead, a contextually sensitive historical analysis of the work of five German and Austrian scholars—Carl Menger, Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Jellinek, Hermann Kantorowicz, and Gustav Radbruch—demonstrates that value-freedom was a complex doctrine with widely ramified sources in the intellectual history of economics, sociology, and law. It was accepted on a variety of grounds and by individuals of differing personalities, politics, philosophical training, and academic disciplines. “Value-free” social science in the work of these men meant anything but the removal of values from scholarly consideration. Instead, its advocates promoted a focus on the subjectivity and the will of the individual, goal-directed agent. Value-freedom took the form of several interrelated distinctions, between theory and practice, fact and value, “is” and “ought,” means and ends; but each of these scholars coupled his preferred formulation with the shared view that human values are incapable of rational justification. They insisted on the importance of the analytical separation of the positive and normative but recognized a legitimate role for the social sciences in the positive discussion of values. However, the attempt to bridge the subjective world of human values and the objective world of social scientific fact foundered for most of them on the inherently subjective choices made by the individual scholar, leading them to face the possibility that value-freedom could not provide a successful theory of objectivity without reformulation. The dissertation spans three decades and several disciplines, including the work of important jurists whose social scientific credentials have been neglected owing to their disciplinary backgrounds.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Return to Philosophy

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests