Dimensions of Value and the Aims of Social Inquiry

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5118543
AutoresRobert Kane (0000-0003-2000-3826, The University of Texas at Austin, autor de correspondencia)
Año1998
Volumen41
Número4
Páginas578-597
Fecha de publicación1998-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764298041004008
OpenAlexW2087523300
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas8

The articles in this issue of the American Behavioral Scientist present a critique of mainstream social science and outline an alternative hermeneutic or interpretive approach to human science inquiry. This hermeneutic view (a) stresses that the cultural embeddedness of all human endeavors, including social science, prevents us from ever obtaining a strictly objective or value-neutral account of human behavior. It also (b) claims that social inquiry can lead to a better understanding of the good life or what ends are worth striving for by humans. But why does rejecting objectivity not undermine any claim to a better understanding of what is truly good or worthwhile? This article explores how both cultural or historical embeddedness and claims to understanding the good might be harmonized within a conception of four broad dimensions of human values or valuing: elementary value experiences, purposive human activity, pursuit of the excellence of various forms of life, and the human sense of what is worthy from every point of view. A number of implications of this framework for human science inquiry are discussed

Embeddedness · Epistemology · Excellence · Human science · Human values · Mainstream · Objectivity (philosophy) · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Cultural Differences and Values · Law · Social Representations and Identity