Methodology
Channel: Asad Zaman
Date: 01/03/2023

{writeup: bit.ly/naie1D } This is part D of Lecture 1: Gratitude, Contentment, and Trust - the first lecture on A New Approach to Islamic Economics. (Register for free online course at: http://bit.ly/AZIEML). Discussion of normative ideals flies in the face of dominant methodological ideas, which suggest that science must be purely a positive and objective description of reality. We argue that this holds for physical sciences, but does not apply to the study of human societies. Since we are free to choose between good and evil, and these choices shape our future, deterministic approaches and scientific laws cannot be used for social science. Instead, appropriate methodology for the study of social change requires a mixture of description, prescription, and struggles to achieve ideals.