Abstract

The term "naturalism" has been used in many senses. Here, that term refers to the theory that the methods used in the natural sciences can appropriately be used also in the social sciences. The expression "the possibility of naturalism" raises the question whether the methods of the natural sciences can indeed be fruitfully applied in the social sciences. The author outlines the competing answers to the question of the possibility of naturalism as including positivism, which is a blatantly affirmative answer; hermeneuticalism, which is a hesitantly negative answer; and the author's mediating position, which, he asserts, avoids the mistake made by both of the other answers. Their mistake, he says, is their assumption that natural science is essentially positivistic, while social science is essentially subjective.