Three main concerns inform this chapter: first, a survey of the so-called Positivist Debate of the 1960s in sociology and the issues it raised primarily in Germany in relation to Popper's methodology; secondly, a comparison of one version of feminist situated-knowledge approach with Popper's own position as a reference point to methodological individualism; and thirdly, a discussion of Popper's recommendations in relation to generalizing about individual behaviour as a framework and prescription for individual autonomy, creativity and responsibility.

Individualism as method and practice: positivism and sociology

There is a sense in which some controversies never die, like some diseases, but merely mutate over time, and erupt here and there. The Positivist Dispute in German sociology (based on a conference in 1961 in Tubingen) is an example. It is an extension of the Methodenstreit discussed in the previous chapter. It reintroduced methodological concerns in light of some theoretical developments in the social sciences in general and in sociology in particular. In what follows I shall be less concerned with sociology and its claims for autonomous status in relation to other disciples (as not reducible to psychology or any other science), and more concerned with what, in the Introduction to the volume that summarizes the controversy, David Frisby calls “Ghost in the Machine” positivism. Quoting von Wright's version of August Comte's view, Frisby says that one can discern three basic tenets in positivism: