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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2005

Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information science

Birger Hjørland

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance and influence of the epistemologies: “empiricism”, “rationalism” and “positivism” in library and information science (LIS).

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance and influence of the epistemologies: “empiricism”, “rationalism” and “positivism” in library and information science (LIS).

Design/methodology/approach

First, outlines the historical development of these epistemologies, by discussing and identifying basic characteristics in them and by introducing the criticism that has been raised against these views. Second, their importance for and influence in LIS have been examined.

Findings

The findings of this paper are that it is not a trivial matter to define those epistemologies and to characterise their influence. Many different interpretations exist and there is no consensus regarding current influence of positivism in LIS. Arguments are put forward that empiricism and positivism are still dominant within LIS and specific examples of the influence on positivism in LIS are provided. A specific analysis is made of the empiricist view of information seeking and it is shown that empiricism may be regarded as a normative theory of information seeking and knowledge organisation.

Originality/value

The paper discusses basic theoretical issues that are important for the further development of LIS as a scholarly field.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 61 no. 1
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510578050
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

  • Epistemology
  • Libraries
  • Information science
  • Philosophy

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Article
Publication date: 18 August 2014

Understanding marketing’s philosophy debates: A retrospective on seven key publication events

Shelby Hunt

The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are known as the “philosophy debates”.

Design/methodology/approach

The article uses a participant’s retrospective approach.

Findings

The article finds that seven publication events are key to understanding marketing’s philosophy debates. The seven are the publication of the “little green book” by Grid, Inc. in 1976; the philosophy of science panel discussion held at the Winter American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference in 1982; the special issue of the Journal of Marketing on marketing theory in 1983; three articles on the “critical relativist perspective” by the Journal of Consumer Research in 1986 and 1988; the “blue book” by South-Western in 1991; a trilogy of articles on truth, positivism and objectivity in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Research in 1990-1993; and an article on “rethinking marketing” in the European Journal of Marketing in 1994.

Originality/value

Chronicling the key publication events enables readers to understand what the debates were about and provides readers a starting point for further investigating the issues in the debates.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-04-2013-0020
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

  • Relativism
  • Marketing theory
  • Logical empiricism
  • Logical positivism
  • Marketing’s philosophy debates
  • Truth
  • Objectivity

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 1995

Science and interpretation in consumer research: a radical behaviourist perspective

Gordon R. Foxall

Methodological pluralism in consumer research is usually confinedto post‐positivist interpretive approaches. Argues, however, that apositivistic stance, radical…

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Abstract

Methodological pluralism in consumer research is usually confined to post‐positivist interpretive approaches. Argues, however, that a positivistic stance, radical behaviourism, can enrich epistemological debate among researchers with the recognition of radical behaviourism′s ultimate reliance on interpretation as well as science. Although radical behaviourist explanation was initially founded on Machian positivism, its account of complex social behaviours such as purchase and consumption is necessarily interpretive, inviting comparison with the hermeneutical approaches currently emerging in consumer research. Radical behaviourist interpretation attributes meaning to behaviour by identifying its environmental determinants, especially the learning history of the individual in relation to the consequences similar prior behaviour has effected. The nature of such interpretation is demonstrated for purchase and consumption responses by means of a critique of radical behaviourism as applied to complex human activity. In the process, develops and applies a framework for radical behaviourist interpretation of purchase and consumption to four operant equifinality classes of consumer behaviour: accomplishment, pleasure, accumulation and maintenance. Some epistemological implications of this framework, the behavioural perspective model (BPM) of purchase and consumption, are discussed in the context of the relativity and incommensurability of research paradigms. Finally, evaluates the interpretive approach, particularly in terms of its relevance to the nature and understanding of managerial marketing.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 29 no. 9
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/03090569510092010
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

  • Behavioural sciences
  • Consumer behaviour
  • Philosophy
  • Science

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Article
Publication date: 1 December 1997

Are proverbs really so bad? Herbert Simon and the logical positivist perspective in American public administration

Peter L. Cruise

Since the 1950s, the unifying epistemological perspective in American public administration has been logical positivism, most notably as defined and promoted by Herbert…

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Since the 1950s, the unifying epistemological perspective in American public administration has been logical positivism, most notably as defined and promoted by Herbert Simon. In recent years, logical positivism has been under attack for limiting inappropriately the scope of inquiry within the field, forcing it to ignore important, value‐laden issues critical to government and the public sector. The willingness to address value‐laden issues was at the core of what was to become the field of public administration in the early twentieth‐century. This article examines the philosophical roots of logical positivist movement, its dramatic effects upon public administration, and the subsequent counter attacks on the movement. The article concludes that although logical positivism’s attack on public administration initially weakened the field, as a result practitioners and scholars were eventually to demand increased rigor and higher standards of inquiry for research in the field.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 3 no. 4
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/13552529710191171
ISSN: 1355-252X

Keywords

  • Epistemology
  • Herbert Simon
  • Logical postivism
  • Public administration

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2003

Positively no proverbs need apply: revisiting the legacy of Herbert A. Simon

Peter L. Cruise

Beginning in the late 1940s, classical Public Administration was challenged by the works of Herbert Simon and the movement he started, logical positivism. Although only…

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Abstract

Beginning in the late 1940s, classical Public Administration was challenged by the works of Herbert Simon and the movement he started, logical positivism. Although only writing in the field for a few years, Simon shifted the locus and focus of the field so dramatically, for a time it almost disappeared from view. This article examines Simonʼns legacy, first by exploring its philosophical antecedents and its later epistemological progeny. The article concludes with an assessment of how the field of Public Administration responded to Simonʼns challenge in the late twentieth century and now, early in the twenty first century.

Details

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-07-03-2004-B004
ISSN: 1093-4537

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Book part
Publication date: 14 June 2018

Beyond Deductivism

Tony Lawson

The versions of positivism that are critically assessed in Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism bear two dominant sets of implications. One is that knowledge growth is…

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Abstract

The versions of positivism that are critically assessed in Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism bear two dominant sets of implications. One is that knowledge growth is monistic in nature; the other is that science has a specific deductivist structure. Caldwell focuses mainly on the former and its critics. I argue here that the second set of implications always did, and still does, perhaps more than ever, warrant critical attention.

Details

Including a Symposium on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism After 35 Years
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542018000036A003
ISBN: 978-1-78756-126-7

Keywords

  • Positivism
  • deductivism
  • ontology
  • prediction
  • mathematical modelling
  • pluralism

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Book part
Publication date: 14 June 2018

Why Methodology Matters: Reflections on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism

Peter Boettke, Solomon Stein and Virgil Henry Storr

When Beyond Positivism was published 35 years ago, it presented a compelling case for methodological change in the economics profession. That case remains equally…

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Abstract

When Beyond Positivism was published 35 years ago, it presented a compelling case for methodological change in the economics profession. That case remains equally compelling in the present day as, tragically, economics remains largely without the methodological pluralism at the heart of Beyond Positivism’s message. Among the costs of an environment of methodological myopia are widespread misinterpretations and the diversion of scholars from efforts at economic understanding to methodological wrangling, which we illustrate using the experience of Austrian economics in the 20th century. Beyond Positivism, we suggest, continues to provide the intellectual case for a pluralist discipline of economics, but one that requires complementary institutional reforms to come to fruition.

Details

Including a Symposium on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism After 35 Years
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542018000036A005
ISBN: 978-1-78756-126-7

Keywords

  • Economic methodology
  • methodological pluralism
  • theory choice
  • Ludwig von Mises
  • socialist calculation debate
  • Austrian economics

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Book part
Publication date: 26 August 2010

Chapter 9 Metatheories in research: positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism

Filipe J. Sousa

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management…

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Abstract

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management studies in general, and industrial marketing and purchasing research in particular. This paper is a contribution to the indispensable discussion of metatheoretical alternatives in research, and most importantly, the strengths and shortcomings thereof, and respective implications on research questions, objectives, and findings.

Details

Organizational Culture, Business-to-Business Relationships, and Interfirm Networks
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1069-0964(2010)0000016012
ISBN: 978-0-85724-306-5

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Article
Publication date: 22 October 2020

Taking an eventful historic turn down the cultural memory lane

Nicholous M. Deal, Milorad M. Novicevic, Albert J. Mills, Caleb W. Lugar and Foster Roberts

This paper aims to find common ground between the supposed incompatible meta-historical positioning of positivism and post-positivism through a turn to mnemohistory in…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to find common ground between the supposed incompatible meta-historical positioning of positivism and post-positivism through a turn to mnemohistory in management and organizational history.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the idea of creative synthesis and positioning theory, the authors interject concepts from cultural memory studies in historical research on business and organizations to encourage management historians and organization theorists interested in joining the dialogue around how the past is known in the present. Using notions of “aftermath” and “events,” the idea of apositivism is written into historical organization studies to focus on understanding the complex ways of how past events translate into history. The critical historic turn event is raised as an exemplar of these ideas.

Findings

The overview of the emergence of the controversial historic turn in management and organization studies and the positioning of its adherents and antagonists revealed that there may be some commonality between the fragmented sense of the field. It was revealed that effective history vis-à-vis mnemohistory may hold the potential of a shared scholarly ethic.

Originality/value

The research builds on recent work that has sought to bring together the boundaries of management and organizational history. This paper explains how mnemohistory can offer a common position that is instrumental for theorizing the relationships among the past-infused constructs such as organizational heritage, legacy and identity.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JMH-05-2020-0034
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

  • Cultural memory
  • Positioning theory
  • Amodernism
  • Management and organizational history
  • Historic turn

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Book part
Publication date: 14 June 2018

A Countercultural Methodology: Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism at Thirty-Five ☆

Kevin D. Hoover

Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism was a key publication that helped precipitate the consolidation of the methodology of economics into a distinct subfield within economics…

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Abstract

Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism was a key publication that helped precipitate the consolidation of the methodology of economics into a distinct subfield within economics. Reconsidering it after 35 years, it is striking for its antinaturalism (i.e., its lack of deference to the actual practices of economics) or, perhaps, for its meta-naturalism (displayed in its excessive deference to the philosophy of science) and for its defense of pluralism. It offers pluralism as an unsuccessful defense against dogmatism. Against Caldwell’s pluralism, dogmatism is better opposed by a commitment of fallibilism and scientific humility. Caldwell’s defense of Austrian methodology is taken as a case study to illustrate and investigate his key themes and the issues that they raise.

Details

Including a Symposium on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism After 35 Years
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542018000036A002
ISBN: 978-1-78756-126-7

Keywords

  • Bruce Caldwell
  • economic methodology
  • positivism
  • naturalism
  • Austrian economics

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