Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Foresight

There is a long-lasting and controversial discourse on the role of quantitative and qualitative data and methods in science, at least since the “Newtonian turn” in physics in the seventeenth century. After this successful step in the mathematical formalization of a large branch of physics, nowadays called “classical mechanics”, it was used as a kind of paradigmatic case by many theorists of science. Thereby, standards for scientific processes and theory structures were imposed on realms of science dealing with dramatically different subjects and having different purposes than classical mechanics. This was controversially discussed within the debate on positivism, but it still has a strong influence on our understanding of science.

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