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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 2. A Methodological Note on Facts and Valuations in Social Science - 4. The Points of View Adopted in This Book
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1064 An American Dilemma
‘Ve have no interest, no sense of relevance or of significance, and, consequently, no
object.”
•
The value-loaded terms have a meaning and represent a theoretical approach, because
the theoretical approach itself is determined by the valuations inherent in the govern-
ing ethos of a society. When this is seen clearly, and when those valuations are made
explicit and, consequently, the terms ere defined in relation to the valuations^ then, and
only then, are we in the position to use the terms freely without constantly endangering
the theoretical analysis by permitting biases to slip in. There is thus no sense in
inventing new scientific terms for the purpose. New terms for old things can only give
a false security to ourselves and bewilder the general public. In the degree that the new
terms would actually cover the facts we discussed in the old familiar terms—^the facts
which we want to discuss, because we are interested in them—^they would soon become
equally value-loaded in a society permeated by the same ideals and interests. Scientific
terms become value-loaded because society is made up of human beings following pur-
poses. A “disinterested social science” is, from this viewpoint, pure nonsense. It never
existed, and it never will exist. We can make our thinking strictly rational in spite of
this, but only by facing the valuations, not by evading them.
* In a letter to the author, September 29, 1939.
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