Beyond Postpositivism: Dialectics, Epistemology, and Critical Sociology with Adorno and Horkheimer

A broad “postpositivism” characterizes the epistemological basis of contemporary sociology. Nevertheless, sociology remains a multiparadigmatic discipline, home to approaches that differ greatly from each other in method. In this article, I examine questions of epistemology in sociological research by revisiting Adorno and Horkheimer’s critiques of positivism in German sociology. I argue that Adorno and Horkheimer’s articulation of an alternative critical theory provides four central features that remain novel in sociology today: (1) the refusal of a priori methodological or data protocol, (2) a strongly interpretive approach to theorization, (3) a necessarily totalizing approach to theorization, and (4) an active and overt political Marxism. I conclude by comparing implications of Adorno and Horkheimer’s critical sociology with Burawoy’s extended case method, with which it shares many features yet remains distinct.