Epistemology of Agroecology: Dialectics versus Positivism

Abstract

This article discusses two epistemological perspectives situated in opposite sides: the positivism and the Marxist dialectics, having as its horizon the desired dialogue between the social sciences and the natural sciences that constitute the core of agroecology (agronomy and ecology). It deals first with the fundamental ideas of the positivism and analyses its main lines: Condorcet’s utopian-revolutionary one, Saint-Simon’s utopian-socialist one, Comte’s conservative one, Stuart Mill and Spencer’s utilitarian one, the Durkheim’s sociological one, and finally, that of Popper, who rejects being described as positivist. The text deals then with the Marxist dialectics as an epistemological alternative, which represented the most radical critique of positivism, opposing the notion of movement to that of order; the notion of historicity of the economic and social laws to the supposition of natural laws of production; the notion of the peculiarity of the social sciences to the conception of natural laws of society, which is considered of great importance for a productive dialogue between social and natural sciences, between society and nature, as it is desired in the agroecology.