methodologicaladj.

1849 E. Lankester tr. M. J. Schleiden Princ. Sci. Bot. Pref. A Methodological Introduction.

1897 F. C. S. Schiller in Contemp. Rev. June 872 As a methodological device this was quite justifiable; every inquiry must begin somewhere, and Darwin chose to begin here.

1914 B. Russell Our Knowl. External World viii. 238 It is necessary to practise methodological doubt, like Descartes, in order to loosen the hold of mental habits.

1937 T. Parsons Struct. Social Action i. i. 23 These [assumptions] may lie in a number of different directions. But the ones to which special attention should now be called are the ‘methodological’.

1942 Economica 9 286 That he [sc. the social scientist] systematically starts from the concepts which guide individuals in their actions, is the characteristic feature of that methodological individualism which is closely connected with the subjectivism of the social sciences.

1952 K. R. Popper Open Society (ed. 2) I. iii. 31 I use the name methodological essentialism to characterize the view..that it is the task of pure knowledge or ‘science’ to discover and to describe the true nature of things, i.e. their hidden reality or essence.

1969 R. Blackburn in A. Cockburn & R. Blackburn Student Power 203 What is sometimes called ‘methodological individualism’ (the bourgeois doctrine that all statements about society can be reduced to statements about individuals) is a device for evading such facts as these.

1979 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 25 Oct. 46/4 Beyond its methodological weakness, the open-door interpretation is logically vulnerable as well.

1990 Times Educ. Suppl. 15 June b35/1 Those bones of methodological contention—interpretation, empathy, analysis.