It is not customary for abstract empiricism as a social science style to formulate any meaningful theories and conclusions. Empiricism is not based on any new concepts of nature, society, and man, nor is it based on specific facts. One thing is certain: this style is easily recognizable by the range of problems that its adherents choose to study and the ways in which these problems are studied. However, it is undeniable that such research does not deserve to be recognized as such a style of social study.
However, the quality of the most significant results obtained by this school does not provide a firm basis for judging it as a whole. As a school, it is new; its method needs to be refined, and its style of work is only now beginning to spread widely in problem areas of the social sciences.
A distinctive, though perhaps not the most important, feature of the school is its administrative apparatus, which recruits and trains certain types of mental health workers. This apparatus is now becoming increasingly widespread and there is ample evidence that it will become even more popular and influential. An intellectual lecturer and researcher, a completely new type of free profession, is now competing with more traditional types of professor and humanities scientist.
Again, these changes, while essential to the future of the university, to the liberal art tradition, and to the qualities of the mind that may prevail in American university life, are not sufficient grounds to judge the research style under consideration. In fact, these changes are far more serious than what many abstract empiricists would agree to accept as an explanation for the attractiveness and popularity of their direction. At a minimum, it provides work for semi-skilled technical performers on a scale and manner previously unseen. They are given a career that is characterized by the traditional stability of the academic field, but at the same time does not require the old-fashioned academic achievements of the employee. In short, this style of research paves the way for an administrative demure, which can have a significant impact on the future of social science and its possible bureaucratization.
The intellectual characteristics of abstract empiricism are most important in understanding what the philosophy of science is and how it is applied in practice.
It is this philosophy that determines the essential features of their research, as well as the functioning of the administrative apparatus. In this particular philosophy of science, there is a higher intellectual justification for both the apparent superficiality of current research and the perceived need for apparatus.
It is necessary to be clear on this point, because some may think that philosophical postulates do not play a major role in the establishment of an enterprise so insistently claiming to be a "Science". It is also important because abstract empiricists do not seem to usually realize that they adhere to a certain philosophy. Many of them are concerned about their own status in science and most often present their profession as a natural science profession. With a wide variety of approaches to social science issues, one of the constant points is that they are "naturalists", or at least "natural scientists". In a more sophisticated discourse or in the presence of a mockingly exalted physicist, the image of the self is most likely to narrow down to "just a scientist". From a practical point of view, abstract empiricists seem to be more concerned with the philosophy of science than with social research itself. What they have essentially done is to spread a consistent philosophical view of science, which they consider to be the only scientific method. Their model of scientific research is essentially an epistemological construction, the most obvious consequence of which in the social sciences has been methodological self-limitation. I would like to say that the range of problems that can be considered and the way they are posed are very strictly limited to the "Scientific Method". In short, the methodology defines research problems. But this, after all, does not lead to anything. The Scientific Method they have developed is not a generalization or development of classical trends in social science. Most of this method has been extracted, with some modifications, from the philosophy of natural science.
