ABSTRACT
The broad, Weberian definition of science I have sketched in the previous chapter is designed to accomplish two tasks. First, it effectively makes science equivalent to systematic inquiry designed to produce factual knowledge. Second, it differentiates science from politics and from normative evaluation. As such, this broad definition of science makes it virtually impossible for the charge of being “unscientific” to be used as a way to discredit a piece of scholarship that intends to contribute to our factual knowledge of the world. The only kinds of works against which such a charge could be legitimately deployed-works of normative analysis and works of political advocacy or commentary, and probably works of art-would, almost certainly, not be particularly interested in classifying themselves as “scientific.” Even critical-theoretical scholarship in the Frankfurt School (Linklater 2007) or neo-Gramscian (Cox 1996b) traditions, which routinely emphasizes the evaluative aspects of scholarship, relies on factual claims about the empirical world in order to give its critical interventions sufficient force (Geuss 1981, 109). The critical-theoretical argument about scholarship and values is, in the language I have introduced here, an argument that the scientific parts of scholarship ought to be supplemented by normative or even partisan-political parts. As long as Weber’s admonition about making it clear “where the analytical researcher becomes silent and the advocating person begins to speak” (Weber 1999a, 167) is adhered to, this poses no special problems for a broad definition of science.
