ABSTRACT
The sciences rest their claims to superiority over other methods of re vealing truth (e.g., philosophy, theology, literature) on two related bases — superior methods for accepting or rejecting truth claims (e.g., controlled observation, experimentation) and methods for cumulating and organizing truth claims (e.g., classification systems, theories, propositional invento ries). The sciences are (were) thought to be progressive, systematically eliminating error or falsehood and cumulating knowledge. For much of this century, the social sciences, especially in the United States, attempted to emulate the physical and natural sciences. Positivistic methods in the social sciences were thought to be superior to interpretivistic, phenomeno logical, and text analytic approaches to arriving at the truth. Even when a discipline eschewed the generalizing (nomothetic) aims of theoretically driven science, practitioners thought they could progress by adhering to rigorous modes of data collection and data analysis.
