DO THE HUMAN SCIENCE HAVE A SINGLE METHODOLOGY?

Abstract

Despite all serious critiques regarding the appropriateness and sufficiency
of empirical methodology in the human sciences, it has secured
its place in such researches. Critiques of empiricism in the human
sciences take advantage of a variety of strategies to disqualify it and
to establish their alternatives. It seems that one key issue which is
forgotten or overlooked by these critiques is looking into the nature of
the subject matters of the human sciences and their methodological
requisites, which can shed some light on the deficiency of empirical
methodology in the realm of the human sciences. This article will
start with the methodological principle that the appropriate method
for studying any subject depends on the nature of its subject matter,
which in turn, determines the appropriate research method. On this
basis, I will try to analyze the nature of the themes in the human
sciences to show the incongruity of empirical method with such
concepts. Analyzing such concepts, shows that they represent a
variety of conceptual categories such as first intelligibles, secondary
philosophical intelligibles, and purely conventional concepts, and to
study each one of them, one needs to employ a different methodology.
Therefore, the article concludes that empirical method has its limited
privileges in studying some of the issues in the human sciences;
however, we need to take a multidimensional approach regarding the
methodology of the human sciences.