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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaontological dimension of research in the social sciences must, as is the case inthe other dimensions, be regarded as variable.The teleological dimensionAristotle remarked that man is naturally inclined to desire the acquisition ofknowledge. According to him this desire stems from a fascination with both theobvious and the more obscure. This early fascination gradually led to anincreasing awareness of man’s ignorance, and the concomitant necessity forsystematic investigation. Two thousand years later, Francis Bacon stated thatknowledge is power. Through knowledge reality can and must be changed.According to him, this reality had been plagued by sickness, deterioration, anddepravity ever since the fall of man. While the Greek ideal of sciences wasprimarily one of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the modern ideal,which dates from approximately 1600, is far more pragmatic. Nevertheless,these two ideals of science cannot be regarded as mutually exclusive. If onewere to regard the former (knowledge for the sake of knowledge) as thetheoretical ideal, and the latter (knowledge for the sake of power) as thepractical ideal, then it would be acceptable to postulate that the attainment ofthe theoretical, and the attainment of the practical are merely two poles of thesame dimension. A juxtaposition of, or dichotomy between, the theoretical andpractical aims of the practice of science would therefore be unacceptable. Thedistinction ought rather to be regarded as representing a broad indication ofinterests than as indicative of the existence of fundamental differences.When the distinction is understood in this manner, it becomes interesting topay attention to the existence of various interpretations of the theoretical andpractical ideals of science. Depending upon one’s philosophical allegiance, itmay be possible to regard the theoretical aim of the social sciences as being adescription of the rule-governed aspects of human behaviour, the explanationof behaviour in terms of causal laws, the prediction of future behaviour, and soon. Similarly, it would be possible to regard a number of practical aims asimportant. Such a list might include controlling human behaviour, reformingsociety by solving social problems, psychotherapy, emancipation of theoppressed, supplying reliable information for public policy, and so on.Irrespective of which ideal of the social sciences one may support, or which ofthe major distinctions one chooses to emphasize, the practice of science isinvariably goal-directed. This characteristic of the practice of science isreferred to as the ideological (telos is the Greek word for goal or aim)dimension. Thus far we have merely touched upon the different types of idealsof science which may be encountered in the social sciences. Strictly speaking,however, these problems form part of the domain of the philosophy of the13