Thanks to those people who have been bringing up these philosophy of science questions, I think they are very important for the grounding of Internet Research. Charles Ess in my view has given a great overview of how positivistic knowledge that focuses on reductionism and the natural sciences has been challenged during the 20th century. In my view another important influence on the challenge of reductionism and positivism has been self-organization theory and systems thinking, because they stress emergent properties and are transdisciplinary in character, which can overall help advance the role of philosophy, social sciences, etc. I think the important outcome is that philosophy, social sciences, ethics, etc. are taken more seriously today than in former times. The main concern that I have about contemporary positivistic approaches is that they only focuses on how reality is, not as it could be, not on the inherent potentials that could be developed by agency, it is missing societal goals, question about totality, normativity, etc. - and through tsuch a focus on positivism academic thinking becomes uncritical. For Internet Research, I think this means whether one wants to strictly focus on empirical analyses of Internet usage, or furthermore considers critical theory, ethics, philosophy, etc. in addition as important groundworks. This then means if we should only ask the question "How does technology change society?", or also normative questions like "In which society do we want to live?", "How can sustainability be brought about?", "What are dimensions of "good ICT-society" (Gunilla Bradley)? "What is the role of critical theory in informational capitalism"? "Are there alternatives to the capitalist information society?" "Which ones?" Etc. My personal opinion is that the second type of questions are very fundamental for Internet Research. There is also one development brought about by the post-positivistic science that troubles me: This broadening of knowledge has also resulted in an increasing importance of esoteric, religious, spiritual, mystic thinking in science. Whereas I would argue, that metaphysics are needed in the form of an immanent transcendental view on society and in the form of dialectical thinking, I think that focusing on discussions of the role of God in the world, on mystic forces - as is frequently done today - is really a dangerous development because it brings about irrationality, "false consciousness", and manipulation, and that hence such esoterical forms of metaphysics are dispensable. I wouldn't define religion as a focus on world-views, it is more than that, always involves a belief in God or another invisible force located outside of the material world and outside of society. I think the troubling aspect of religious studies and esoterical knowledge is that the existence of their object of study is already questionable. Hence I think it would be better to argue that generally speaking not religion, but a discussion of world views and philosophical issues is important for philosophy of science discussions, generally speaking and for Internet Research in particular. Christian -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assistant Professor for Internet and Society ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/ Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at New Book: Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. 408 Pages. http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/i&s.html http://www.routledge.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=&isbn... PETITION: http://www.austria4arigona.at