| In this essay, I analyze Shelby D. Hunt's
article, "Positivism and Paradigm Dominance in Consumer Research: Toward
Critical Pluralism and Rapproachement." Hunt argues that consumer researchers
and contemporary social scientists have inaccurately characterized positivism.
I then show that similar inaccuracies occur in technical communication literature.
More specifically, the inaccuracies occur in Carolyn Miller's influential
article, "A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing," and proliferate
into the works of other technical communicators who have taken her "windowpane
theory" as gospel. These authors erroneously describe positivists as rationalists,
mechanistic determinists, materialists, and philosophical realists. I base
my argument upon Hunt's historical analysis of positivism and my own research
of primary positivist literature. Finally, I explain that Miller's article
has merit on the basis that she reveals the rhetorical nature of technical
communication, according to which language is neither overtly transparent
nor precisely and objectively related to facts. It may come as a surprise
to some readers that the positivists rejected the same doctrines that she
criticizes for dehumanizing technical writing. |
