The Positivism Dispute in German Sociology, 1954–1970

Bibliographic Data

ID7104827
AuthorsMarius Strubenhoff (0000-0002-9484-9763, Faculty of History, Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume44
Issue2
Pages260-276
Publication date2017-10-18
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01916599.2017.1387802
OpenAlexW2766751054
LanguageEN
Citations received17

This article offers a re-contextualization of the Positivism Dispute between the Frankfurt School and advocates of empirical sociology in the German sociological profession between 1954 and 1970. Investigating the reasons why the German Sociological Association convened in Tübingen in October 1961, it assigns a more peripheral role to Karl Popper and this now famous seminar. Focusing instead on the debate among German sociologists from the mid-1950s which prompted the convention of the seminar and the invitation for Popper to speak, the article maintains that philosophy of history was the central concern of the Positivism Dispute. In this debate, members of the Frankfurt School emphasized contingency in history and society, while sociologists such as René König, Helmut Schelsky, Ralf Dahrendorf, and Arnold Gehlen advocated sociology as the empirical study of 'given' social facts. By doing so the article questions the narrative of the Positivism Dispute advanced by Karl Popper and some of his followers, as well as interpretations which have focused on debates during the aftermath of the Tübingen seminar in the 1960s

Contextualization · Contingency · Epistemology · German · Interpretation (philosophy · Political science · Positivism · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · German Social Sciences and History · Law · Philosophy · Sociology and Norbert Elias

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