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Sociology I I 5
invectives multiplied. Stupid, blind, insensitive, sterile became homeric attrib-
utes whenever the empiricist was mentioned. According to Adorno the research
worker was only interested in verbalized subjective opinions of individuals in
which he had naive confidence. If one examines the paper most frequently
quoted as the first major expression of this new line, one can hardly believe
that it was written by the same author as that previously quoted.94 Thereafter
one paper followed another, each reiterating the new theme. All have two
characteristics in common. First, the empiricist is a generalized other - no
examples of concrete studies are given. (The 1951 paper contained several
interesting examples.) Second, the futility of empirical research is not demon-
strated by its products, but derived from the conviction that specific studies
cannot make a contribution to the great aim of social theory to grasp society in
its totality. Empirical research had become another fetish concealing the true
nature of the contemporary social system.
Adorno’s position gained increasing attention, and in I 961 the German
Sociological Society found it necessary to call a special meeting to debate the
issue. The main topic was ‘logic of the social sciences’. The exponent of what
one might call the official theory of science was the Austro-English philosopher,
Karl R. Popper, and the co-reporter was T. W. Adorn0.95 Since this meeting
the so-called positivist-dialectic discussion has become the central theme of
German sociology.
Neither of the reports offered any surprises. Adorno stressed the continuity
of his position. ‘Critical sociology, for its concepts to be true, is necessarily at
the same time a critique of society, as Horkheimer in his paper on traditional
theory has demonstrated.’ Dahrendorf, in summarizing the discussion, pointed
out that both speakers were so polite that it was difficult to really perceive the
basic differences. According to him, the only clear distinction was that, for
Popper, theory is continually evolving by trial and error, while for Adorno, it
is, at least at its core, an eternal verity. Dahrendorf underscored his disappoint-
ment in the meeting because there was so little reference to specific sociological
problems and to the uses of sociology for concrete social decisions.
Indeed there is a striking contradiction between the continuing excitement
over the debate and the paucity of lessons to be learned from it. One almost
feels that partisanship depends more on how one feels about the Vietnam war
than how one wants to work as a sociologist. In a subsequent article on the
Tiibingen discussion, Habermas gave expression to this dificulty. He is the
first, and as far as I can tell, the only commentator who has tried to specify the
difference between an ‘analytical theory of knowledge and dialectics’. He dis-
cusses the disagreement under four points: I) how the object of sociological
analysis is constituted; 2) the relation between theory and factual evidence; 3) the
relation between theory and history; 4) the relation between science and praxkq6
Habermas’ efforts to break down the issue into specific components are cer-
tainly helpfu1,‘but again the sociologist attracted by the atmosphere of critical
theory could not learn how to proceed if he wanted to study a specific topic in
its spirit.
Each point is highlighted by a quotation from Adorno and additional com-