| dc.description.abstract | At the beginning of the 20th century, social sciences were institutionalized for the first time. While initially being a part of philosophical thinking, the promise of a scientific, objective interpretation of social phenomena granted social scientists a distinguished place within universities in Germany as well as in the USA. A larger focus on empirical research should guarantee that social science was indeed an independent endeavor, instead of a new form of social philosophy under another name. However, when analyzing the research of social scientists in the early 20th century, it is clear that ideological biases still prevailed and heavily influenced the interpretation of the collected empirical data. In this thesis, the problem of objectivity in social science and its relation to both theory and empirical research is addressed. As a case study, I have used the development of the social research of the members of the Frankfurt School in the period 1923-1950. Starting with a clear call for objectivity, over years it became clear that ideological bias was not easily removed from social science, especially at the background of the emergence and fall of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the Nazi Regime. In my thesis, I argue that ideologically biased social science is not less empirically or more theoretically orientated than attempts to conduct objective social research, but have different interpretations of what it means to be empirical. | |
