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AS A
SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC ORIENTATION
Allan Menzies
CONTENTS
I INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1
the domination of man over man, man over woman, and man over nature;
consumer and owner over worker; the domination of material needs over
I will argue that all of this is, contrary to widespread belief, not an
I shall develop the notion that the societal nature of things need not be
technical know-how, we have advanced beyond the age of scarcity into an age
1
of adequacy. The conclusion follows that, if material well-being may be
guaranteed every man, then the politics of domination as we know them today
rather than collaborate in the domination of man . . . over his fellow men
natural needs of man that such a transformation may be hoped for. In this
dualist).
In this respect, Sorokin, Northrop, and many others have argued from a
this is a natural scientific paradigm that has been almost completely dis-
2
Planck, Cassirer and Nagel, to mention but a few. Of especial importance to
One is logically forced to the conclusion in this regard, then, that not only is
and idealist orientation for example, could be - and I will argue should be -
condition.
Chinese yang-yin circle, and Greek Heraclitan philosophy have dated this
3
and social reality as it is elaborated by Lao Tse and Chuang Tse.
theoretical orientations, I will argue that Carl Jung, Ronald Laing and Wilhelm
nature which parallels the Taoist and twentieth century natural scientific notion
mode that is absolutely essential to the integral realization of vital natural life
processes, and the integral realization of human nature in its totality and unity.
As Reich, Laing, and Jung each would have it, to negate the validity of intuition
human nature.
Yet it may well be countered that intuition has no rightful place within the
scientific inquiry generally, has to date served largely to perpetuate and corroborate
4
the status in quo of conflict dualism. It could not be otherwise: empiricism cannot
penetrate beyond the surface of corporeality towards the apprehension of vital life
which negates the validity of intuition, at least within the confines of scientific
inquiry, appropriates it's directives from the natural sciences . . . and specifically
Following from the above, I shall address the need to develop a social
thinkers, probably more than anyone else in the field, have substantially
to the very latest natural scientific development; two, provides for a rigorous
social scientific orientation that is, nevertheless, sensitive to the subject of man
in his totality.