An article in a recent issue of this journal suggested that marketers adopt the tools of formal deductive logic to evaluate “argument-centered” works in marketing. In this comment, the authors argue that the criterion of deductive validity is inappropriate for evaluating such works and would require rejecting almost all principles central to advancing knowledge in general and marketing knowledge in particular.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonPaul F. (1986), “On Method in Consumer Research: A Critical Relativist Perspective,”Journal of Consumer Research, 13 (September), 155–73.
2.
AndersonPaul F. (1988), “Relative to What—That Is the Question: A Reply to Siegel,”Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (June), 133–7.
3.
BarwiseJ. (1985), “Model-Theoretic Logics: Background and Aims,” in Model-Theoretic Logics, BarwiseJ., and FefermanS., eds. New York: Springer-Verlag.
4.
BelnapN., and AndersonA. (1975), The Logic of Entailment.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
DilmanIlham (1973), Induction of Deduction: A Study in Wittgenstein.Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
6.
HirschmanElizabeth (1985), “Scientific Style and the Conduct of Consumer Research,”Journal of Consumer Research, 12 (September), 225–39.
7.
SalmonWesley C. (1979), The Foundations of Scientific Inference.Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
8.
SalmonWesley C. (1984), Logic, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
9.
SkipperRobert, and HymanMichael R. (1987), “Evaluating and Improving Argument-Centered Works in Marketing,”Journal of Marketing, 51 (October), 60–75.