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The Unique and The General: Toward a Philosophy of Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Kurt H. Wolff
Kurt H. Wolff*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
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Abstract

1. Philosophy of Science. The term “philosophy of science” is used here to refer to the study of the approaches and methodologies of the sciences. By “approach” is understood the totality of the presuppositions of a given science (or body of sciences, or scientific product): more precisely, both philosophical and scientific presuppositions—that is, categories, postulates, and premises as conditions—and “existential” presuppositions (organic, geographic, socio-cultural). By “methodology” is understood the intellectual-emotional structure of a given science—that is, its categories, postulates, and premises as characteristics, as well as its concepts, methods, and techniques. Further, I advocate understanding a given science (or body of sciences, or scientific product) through a study of its approach and of its methodology. Finally, I submit that the best understanding of either of the two is impossible without the study of the other. More specifically, I advocate the consideration of a particular science (or body of sciences, e.g., the “social sciences,” or scientific product) as a given, and the interpretation of its intellectual structure or methodology (“immanent interpretation”); and then the study of its presuppositions or underlying approach (“transcendent interpretation”).

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1948 , pp. 192 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1948

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Footnotes

∗

A first draft of this paper was presented early in 1947 in a Methodology of Science seminar conducted at Ohio State University by Dr. Virgil G. Hinshaw, Jr., to whom I am indebted for many stimulating and clarifying discussions. The revision of this essay (and its incorporation into a forthcoming monograph—cf. n. 41 below) was made possible by a grant from The Viking Fund, Inc., which is herewith gratefully acknowledged.

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