Critical social research uses empirical methods to expose objective social conditions beyond consciousness.

Evidence

This remnant of German humanistic sociology urgently requires the use of empirical methods as a corrective measure. The true significance of empirical methods lies in the critical motivation they contain. Empirical social research must not allow this motivation to wither away, nor can it deceive itself in its investigation of social relations. Instead of starting by embellishing for itself a conciliatory picture of social reality with the help of ideological concepts and then contentedly accepting existing conditions, science must produce an awareness of the harshness of what exists … Sociology is not a humanities subject. The questions it must concern itself with are not essentially and primarily those of the consciousness, or even the subconscious, of the human beings of whom society consists. These questions relate primarily to the conflict between human beings and nature and to the objective forms of socialization, which cannot in any way originate in the mind, seen as a kind of inward state within human beings. Empirical research in Germany must rigorously, and without ornamentation, bring to light the objectivity of what is socially the case, far beyond the individual or even collective consciousness. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1929

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Frankfurt School’s distinct conception of empirical research as critical rather than merely descriptive or opinion-oriented.
• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s split from positivist empirical sociology (Lazarsfeld-style opinion research) and to Adorno’s later methodological debates. — connects to: Empirical research can expose ideology by confronting subjective motives with objective economic facts — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1931

Broader Connections

• Empirical research can expose ideology by confronting subjective motives with objective economic facts #expands (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1931