ABSTRACT

Marxism, Weberism, Parsonism, operationalism, empiricism, "integrationism", "conflictism", all are words capable of inflicting wounds, leaving scar tissue, and serving as ideologies in the debates over what social science is, what it should be and what might constitute its terms of relevance. That there are general principles to which proponents of all these points of view might subscribe means that there is a common arena of discourse no matter how diverse the approaches. Few scholars would take serious issue with Duverger's dictum that "to seek facts and record observations without any systematization is not scientific". 1 They could also agree with alacrity to the opposite proposition that any systematization which does not seek facts or record observations is unscientific. But between these two propositions, both of which have that improving piety which a common discourse requires, lie all the real questions.