ABSTRACT
The creation of rational, humane, and participatory societies remains the most important human project for a critical, truth-telling social science. Dramaturgical analysis—a simple description of how people stage reality, a clear presentation of the backstage mechanics, an inventory of how scripts, costumes, props, actors, audiences, and performances are made—provides positive knowledge about how social reality is constructed. Inspiration for a critical view of the relationship between knowledge and social reality can be found in Karl Marx’s critique of F. W. G. Hegel’s political philosophy. Marx understood that the ruling ideas were the ideas of the ruling class which means, in part, that the dominant ideas about social relations benefit those who rule by legitimizing their power. The emancipatory interest of science is advanced by examining the ruling ideas of a historical epoch. Positivism is concerned with the production of general laws of society: economic, political, social, psychological laws together with knowledge of the sweep and patterns of history.
