Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: In Making Social Science Matter (2001), Bent Flyvbjerg proposed a radical challenge to positivistic versions of social inquiry and rational choice.Social inquiry according to Flyvbjerg is not really a 'science'.The latter, he claimed had roots in the notion of epistemé or what Aristotle viewed as certain and reliable knowledge.Flyvbjerg viewed this type of knowledge as 'theoretical'.As realized in modern nomological views of science, particulars are subsumed and governed by general laws.In contrast to this nomological version of social inquiry, Flyvbjerg claimed that knowledge of the social world was phronetic in Aristotle's sense.It is practical, context bound, and independent of theoretical knowledge.Phronesis required the wisdom, insight and skill of an interested participant in social life.Flyvbjerg's work found a sympathetic ear in the spreading discontent with the rational choice theories and quantitative approaches dominant in major political science journals.Yet such work seemed increasingly irrelevant to their own concerns.For some of us in the Perestroika group, Flyvbjerg's work provided a way to raise the questions we had about the limits of rational choice theory and exclusively quantitative approaches that emphasized theory building to the neglect of practical life of the participants (Green and Shapiro 1996).Such theories considered the theorist as a neutral or detached observer of social life, and severed the links between social inquiry and the perspectives of the participant in social life.Flyvbjerg's theory goes considerably beyond Shapiro and Green's proposal for the priority of problem driven over method driven research.
Source: British Journal of Sociology
Authors: Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, Sanford Schram
Institutions: University of Oxford, University of Essex, Hunter College
Language: English
Subfield: General Social Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2122862098