Intervention as a scientific concept

Abstract

The deeper one delves into the literature on intervention, the more incredulous one becomes. The discrepancy between the importance attached to the problem of intervention and the bases on which solutions to it are founded is so striking that at first one wonders whether an adequate sample of the literature has been examined. Enlargement of the sample, however, only makes the discrepancy more glaring, and after pursuing every footnote that suggests a different approach and ruminating in a wide variety of documents, one is compelled to conclude that the literature is indeed incredible. The spirit of scientific explanation appears to have had no impact on it whatsoever. In an age when it is second nature to assume that the solution of problems requires comprehension of their sources, scholarly writings on the problem of intervention are singularly devoid of efforts to develop systematic knowledge on the conditions under which interventionary