ABSTRACT
Kenneth Westhues Department of Sociology, University of'Waterloo, Waterloo N2L 3Gl, Canada (kwesthue @ watarts. uwaterloo. ca)
Describing the experimental method in Democracy and Educa tion, John Dewey set a higher scholarly standard than social scien tists are normally able to meet. Dewey wrote “that we have no right to call anything knowledge except where our activity has ac tually produced certain physical changes in things, which agree with and confirm the conception entertained” (Dewey, 1944, p. 338). For both practical and ethical reasons, social scientists can seldom produce knowledge in this strict sense. Research on the current culture wars in universities is a case in point. In this as in most areas of study, we must usually be content with interpretation of events unfolding independently of ourselves: books by Sommers (1994) and Gamer (1997) are examples. In a wider sense, of course, as Dewey would agree, such interpretation is also knowledge.
