Models and Realities 2

from Asad Zaman

Foundations for modern social sciences were laid in the early twentieth century, and were strongly influenced by logical positivism. The central idea of positivism is that science is true and valid because it deals (principally) with observables, while religion is false and invalid because it deals (principally) with unobservables. For a detailed discussion, see “Logical Positivism and Islamic Economics“.   Later, logical positivism had a spectacular collapse. It became clear to philosophers of science that the idea that we can base science purely on observables was seriously mistaken. Even those who were very strong proponents of positivism admitted that the philosophy was wrong. Strangely, this did not lead to rebuilding of the foundations for the social sciences. Especially in economics, the wrong philosophies about nature of human knowledge, which translate into bad theoretical models, continue to be used.  read more