positivism

[filipe ceppas]

Dear Ralph,

about your statement:
> 
> Someone in the room mentioned some ridiculous thing Marcuse once wrote
> about formal logic.  The Frankfurters knew the German idealist tradition,
> but they knew nothing of natural science, and they inherited all the old
> elitist prejudices.  It is not true that science was or is
> positivistic.  Positivism is an ideology of science, one among many
> competing conceptions.  Yes, the social sciences adopted a scientism
> justified by a conception of the natural sciences (quantitative,
> predictive, etc.).  Just ask real mathematicians and physicists what they
> think of this fetishism of quantification in the social sciences.  Adorno
> shows a much more nuanced understanding in CRITICAL MODELS, but I am not
> impressed by the recently adduced quotes from DIALECTIC OF
> ENLIGHTENMENT.  I understand these statements as metaphor, but when taken
> literally they obstruct a deeper understanding of the issues.

I think that it is not fair, because you can find some very interesting
ideas about [natural] science in A & H's work. Of course they are not very
familiar with "analytical" tradition, but they are far from being totally
ignorant about it. And I think that we cannot totaly segregate the
discussion about science and its ideologies... In "Traditional and Critical
Theory", we find very intereting insights about scientific method. If I'm
not wrong, youcan find one about the revising nature of scientific
hypotheses that could be easily atributed to Quine of "Two Dogmas of
Empiriscism"! Some Adorno's remarks about Wittgenstein are interesting
enough. When you say that Adorno became more nuanced around the 60's, I
would ask you what do you think about the debate with Popper, from 1961. At
that time, he insists on the same critic of positivism you are criticizing.
Well, I think that if you change the term "positivism" and use "cientism" on
Adorno's texts at that time, the criticism is very fine for Popper and are
sadly still valid for a large number of analytical philosophers today! If
you read the excellent Laudan's "Science and Values, the aims of science and
their role in scientific debate"; Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. 1984,
you will find some links between Laudan's critics of Popper and Adorno's. I
wrote a full text about this debate, but it is in Portuguese. I would not
have time (and probably neither the ability) to translate it.

http://orbita.starmedia.com/~outraspalavras/art09fc.htm

I agree that some A & H's ideas about science and logic seems totaly out of
place. But in my point of view those ideas are one of the best things they
ever wrote! It is ironic, it reveals the dark side of the "positivist"
tradition (i.e, scientism) in epistemology from Frege to Quine by
overstating it, by exageration. If A&H's didn't get close to the nature of
scientific issues, neither did the scientism perspectives of analytical
philosophers...

Best wishes,

Filipe.