VICISSITUDES OF SUBJECTIVISM AND THE DILEMMA OF THE THEORY OF CHOICE [1978]

The social world consists of facts and the perspectives in which we see them. The number of possible perspectives is always very large; the number actually in use in the models presented by social sciences at any time is bound to be relatively small. All the social sciences have passed through periods of consensus during which one ‘paradigm’ seemed paramount, and subsequent periods of controversy characterized by a multitude of paradigms espoused by rival schools. Nevertheless the number of paradigms in actual use is always an exiguous proportion of those possible.