Book Review: Modern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science

Like his two previous marketing theory books, Marketing Theory: Conceptual Foundations ofResearch in Marketing (1976) and Marketing Theory: The Philosophy of Marketing Science (1983), Shelby Hunt's latest effort in the marketing theory area, entitled Modern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science, will undoubtedly provide an important benchmark perspective in the discipline. In the sevenyear period since his last theory book, the debate over various philosophical perspectives within the marketing discipline has greatly intensified (in the preface he refers to the "crisis literature"), and Hunt has appropriately incorporated the newer issues into his latest work. Modern Marketing Thought is ostensibly two books. Part I, "Philosophy of Marketing Science," comprises the main body of the chapters from his 1983 book without the after-the-chapter readings. Part II, "Philosophy of Science: Historical Perspectives and Current Status," is a chronicling of various philosophical orientations in science, with the stated purpose of showing readers the origin, development, and at times demise of several important philosophical traditions. Because the first part is mostly redundant with his prior work (reviewed in the Fall 1983 Journal ofMarketing), the comments in this review focus primarily on the second part of the book. In an effort to couch his eventual discussion and analysis of the dominant philosophical perspectives within the discipline, Professor Hunt has, in a very detailed and methodical way, provided a historical analysis of the major philosophical traditions that have influenced various scientific endeavors over time. Early in the second part of the text he provides a useful time chart that tracks (both in time and by authors) the growth of numerous major philosophical traditions such as Platonism, Classical Empiricism, Classical Rationalism, Idealism, Classical Positivism, Classical Realism, Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, Logical Empiricism, Falsification, Historical Relativism, Historical Empiricism, and Scientific Realism. The four chapters of this second part of the book explore each of these philosophical viewpoints. Each of Part II's four chapters represents a logical grouping of these philosophical schools on a unit-of-analysis basis. Hunt initially addresses Platonism, Classical Empiricism, Classical Rationalism, Idealism, and Classical Positivism in an effort to show the early connectedness between science and philosophy, pointing out that some of the same issues now being debated by marketers were being argued more than 2500 years ago. In the next chapter, beginning with the advent of Realism, Hunt goes on to show the growing "estrangement" between philosophy and science, which ultimately led to widespread criticism of Classical Realism and the growth and proliferation of the Logical Empiricist and Logical Positivist perspectives that over time brought about a reunification of science and philosophy. The third chapter in this section addresses the rise and fall of Historical Relativism. The chapter is well-written and presents an even further embellishment of the marketing discipline's understanding and knowledge of the relativistic perspective, somewhat similar in approach to Muncy and Fisk's (1987) article. At this point the reader becomes increasingly aware of an overall logic behind Hunt's presentation, that being to demonstrate to the reader how and why the various forms of relativism emerged (and in some cases perished) and where they are headed.