Positivism and humanism in MDV culture and education

This tension within MDV culture has its roots in two contrasting ideologies (sets of cultural values), which emerged strongly in the 19th century. These have been labelled erklarung, or scientific explanation, and verstehen, the search for personal meaning and understanding (Ricoeur, 1981; Brown and Atkins, 1988). Table 2.3 shows the contrasting poles of these ideologies.