Sociology’s fixation on methodology has displaced theory and overstates the reliability of empiric research.

Evidence

Within the US and the UK the one unifying factor which allows those working from different presuppositions and within different fields of interest all to claim that what they are doing is ‘sociological’ has been that of empirical research methods. In addition to providing a common body of knowledge which unites all or almost all social scientists, sound methodology has been elevated to the status of a gold standard by which the validity of any piece of research should be measured. While the intention is clearly to align the social sciences with the natural sciences and avoid the kind of subjective, value-laden studies that have dogged sociology’s reputation in the past, some would argue that this preoccupation with methods has gone too far. Peter Berger, for example, labels it ‘methodological fetishism – the dominance of method over content’. We would argue that it has also led to the dominance of method over theory and to unsustainable beliefs concerning the ability of methodologically sound research to capture reliable facts. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 41

Categorization

• XREF: Luhmann’s relativizing of scientific truth here mirrors how Giddens’s ‘expert systems’ present knowledge as reliable without offering individuals the grounds to evaluate it — the same asymmetry Stevens trusts blindly in Ishiguro.
• DEFINE: Introduces Berger’s phrase ‘methodological fetishism - the dominance of method over content’ as a working concept.