A Philosophical Critique and Defense
Habermas (1985) maintained that societies depend on criticisms of their own tradition. It appears that positivists, despite post-modernists’ claims to the contrary, have a long tradition of self-criticism: Popper (1963) stated that deductive reasoning has an important place in science but by itself cannot say anything, and Hume (C.18th) identified the “problem of induction” – its inability to declare certain foreknowledge of future events. Probabilities replace certainties. Hume recommended observation of the regularities of nature, as these give an indication of some systematic patterning that could be applied to scientific research, whose findings could be expected to reveal reflectively systematic patterns. Feyeraband (1978) challenged the notion of the scientific method itself. Aristotle, Smith, and Rand argued that reality exists as an objective absolute perceivable through reason alone. This is positivism writ large over the social canvas, with profound implications for altruistic and ethical traditions.
Fundamental questions of epistemology were proposed by the rationalists Descartes Leibniz, and Kant et al (Coplestone, 1994), who believed in a priori innate knowledge, a tendency that prevails in modernist phenomenology (despite its social constructionist dimension), but is decisively rejected by primitive positivists such as Aristotle and perhaps reaches its most extreme manifestation in Rand’s objectivism. In the positivist tradition, only experience bestows pure knowledge (Locke, Berkeley, Hume et al), but since all experience cannot be shared by all people, communication of experience becomes critical. If communication is by language however, complexities arise (cf. Wittgenstein et al). Third-person learning necessitates the subjectivity rejected by the positivist method. Since my research entailed observation through case studies (qualitative, but quantitative methods were also utilised) and data gathering through interviews (highly qualitative), the crucible of the subjective was unavoidable: observations were first-person subjective and triple-processed (the researcher perceived, recorded, and interpreted); interviews were third- and first-person subjective – the researcher borrowed the interviewee’s subjective experience and then applied methods to make sense of (interpret) that experience. Despite these shortcomings, the qualitative/phenomenological approach is still suited to the study of guanxi as SC risk mitigator, since it is an undertheorised social-cultural phenomenon active in a social-(trans)cultural, multi-variable environment (i.e. business).
Duhem (1969), although usually classified as a positivist (see Honderich, 1995), made a comment that is pertinent to this research : underlying structures yield greater epistemological insight than the study of the overt, the visible movement of parts. The “pulleys and strings” are less meaningful than the understanding of the forces those components express and manipulate. In social studies, positivist/quantitative methods can reveal only what people do, what they believe, or how they collectively perceive or rate a given issue. The subjective is converted (by Likert scale or tick-box) to a numerical value for statistical processing and the generation of a coefficient-reporting associability. The structures and forms of influence remain occulted. “How” and “why” questions require less prescriptive, open-ended collection instruments; interpretation of the data they gather requires a philosophical approach not provided by positivism.