Methodology

METHODOLOGY. - The word method (μέθοδος, from μετὰ, through, and ὁδός, way), sometimes used by the ancients in the sense of "inquiry," later comes to signify ever more distinctly the procedure of inquiry, the direction followed by thought, or the ordered set of operations that must be performed to attain a goal. Methodology (which is a generic concept for designating the doctrine and the study of method) can therefore be defined as the systematic study of the means that are employed to realize a determinate goal. It therefore has an essentially theoretical value, as an examination of the means and of their correspondence to the goal: but it assumes at the same time a practical character, insofar as the scientific knowledge of the means becomes the norm for their practical application. Methodology thus becomes a normative discipline, which prescribes the paths to be followed (and at the same time indicates the errors to be avoided) with a view to attaining the proposed ends. These distinctions are essential for understanding the various linguistic uses of the word "method" and their intimate connection with the problem of the relations between theory and practice. The term is sometimes used to characterize the whole of Aristotelian logic (as a theoretical study of the methods of reasoning); but more often by methodology is meant applied logic, and (in treatises of scholastic philosophy) that part of logic which has as its object the application of logic in general and in the individual sciences; at other times methodology, dissociated from traditional logic, presents itself directly (as, for example, in Descartes's Discours de la méthode) as a set of rules or counsels "for rightly conducting the reason and seeking the truth in the sciences." It must further be observed that - although methodology can generically be defined as the study of the means to be used to attain a determinate goal - it is not possible to define this goal univocally. In a very broad sense anything can become a goal, and methodology tends to be confused with the study of technique; but even remaining within the field of science and philosophy it is possible to propose different goals: thus the formal discipline of reasoning, the construction of experimental science, the construction of philosophy, the conquest of operative awareness, or the clarification of ideas represent ends that are logically and historically distinct, which require different methods. This explains how the word "method" can receive various qualifications (analytic, synthetic, intuitive, experimental, a priori, a posteriori, regressive, critical, transcendental, dialectical, phenomenological, pragmatist, semantic...), in accordance both with the various ends and with the means or procedures responding to the nature of the respective goals and fields of inquiry. It is therefore necessary to distinguish a general methodology from the particular methodologies that undertake the study of the methods in use in the various disciplines.

Classical methodology is conditioned above all by the ideal of a demonstrative science (in the Aristotelian sense): Aristotle's logic (set forth essentially in the Prior and Posterior Analytics) is to a great extent an inquiry into the conditions of scientific knowledge; this inquiry brings to light the great importance of the syllogism (v.) as the organ of demonstration (v.), and the central function of induction (in the classical sense, as universalizing abstraction, intuition of the universal implicit as form in the particular) for the determination of the premises of demonstration. The syllogistic formalization of reasonings is important for deciding the degree of groundedness and certainty of individual propositions, and for discovering errors or sophists; it also serves to provide a rigorous discipline of discussion (developed above all in scholasticism). The transformation of the cognitive ideal at the dawn of the modern age nevertheless determined a series of new tasks for methodology: classical logic appeared sterile for the purposes of invention, and the method of scholastic abstraction inadequate for the construction of a modern science of nature tending to build itself ever more on the solid basis of experience. The problem of method in Bacon (Novum Organum, 1620) can be formulated thus: "how should one interrogate nature, use experience to construct science?" One must first of all avoid the idols (that is, prejudices of every kind), then gather the greatest possible number of particular cases that refer to a given question, in order to institute a systematic comparison and thence derive (by induction [v.]) the general. The problem of method presents itself differently in Descartes (Regulae ad directionem ingenii, 1628?; Discours, cit., 1637): according to his conception of knowledge and science, Descartes always keeps before him the model of mathematical evidence; and he therefore recommends a procedure of analysis (analogous to the one that led him himself to the discovery of analytic geometry) by virtue of which it is possible to arrive at the first intuitive elements, at simple natures, which ensure the rationality of the whole.

But empiricism and rationalism, as distinct methodological orientations, are one-sided, and through their contrast they generate antinomies: this Kant (v.) saw clearly. The Kantian critical method implies a kind of regress to the transcendental conditions that make knowledge possible: the analysis of the cognitive function thus undertaken aims to discipline the use of reason, and therefore to establish the limits and the scope of scientific knowledge. Post-Kantian idealism transforms the critical method into a progressive dialectic (v.), which permits an organic deduction of the various cognitive determinations: the dialectical method was also employed for the construction of a philosophy of nature, which was supposed to replace Newtonian science. But after Hegel idealism (v.) underwent a profound revision; and it is interesting to note how at the end of this process Croce (Teoria e storia della storiografia, 3rd ed., Bari 1927, p. 138), renouncing the definition of philosophy in terms of metaphysics, instead defined it "as methodology of judgment, that is, of historical knowledge" (that is, as the theoretical awareness of the only critically possible knowledge).

But contemporary methodology still presents a variety of other currents, to which especially today allusion is made when methodology is spoken of: these have in common a predominantly analytical purpose, not prescriptive or normative; that is, they do not intend to provide a priori norms for attaining truth, or to trace the path that must be followed: but rather to study the path actually traveled in order to conquer a greater awareness of both scientific and philosophical activity. Scientific methodology, promoted by the great contemporary scientific progress, devotes itself to the study of scientific methods, of the various procedures of investigation, of the relations between theory and experience. It has increasingly clarified the importance of the analysis of language (v.) and of the precise determination of the conditions for the use of concepts; the logical positivists, or neopositivists (belonging at first to the so-called Vienna Circle, and today widespread in America), have furthermore shown the usefulness of symbolic logic (v.) for carrying this study through to the end. In this way it seeks to satisfy some of the most vital demands of contemporary thought: namely, to clarify the meaning of concepts, to distinguish between problems and pseudoproblems, to determine the logical form of theories, and to analyze logically the relations between different theories. Operative methodology (developed above all in Italy by S. Ceccato) poses, with regard to every question, the query: "by what operations does one speak of...?"; and abandoning every theoretical-cognitive concern, it aims essentially at analyzing the activity of the scientist or the philosopher, that is, at making explicit the cycle of operations that they perform when they employ a language or construct a theory. Contemporary methodology thus provides various criteria of analysis, with which to satisfy its fundamental demand for greater awareness, at the same time as it lays the foundations for a more rigorous discipline of linguistic communication. See also NEOPOSITIVISM; SCIENCE.

Paolo Filissi Carcano