ABSTRACT
Probably the most frequently cited source of arguments against the principle of value neutrality is Gouldner's article, ‘Anti-minotaur: The myth of a value-free sociology’ (Gouldner 1962). As its title indicates—complementing that of a subsequent and equally widely cited paper, ‘The sociologist as partisan’ (Gouldner 1968)—Gouldner rejects the principle of value neutrality in favour of partisanship, or of what he eventually came to label ‘committed sociology’. In the book where these articles were reprinted, entitled For Sociology, Gouldner spells out his position in considerable detail, and responds to criticisms that had been made of it (Gouldner 1973a). His approach is a complex and distinctive one; and in this chapter I want to examine the critique of value neutrality he puts forward, and the case he presents for ‘objective partisanship’. 1
