The Philosophy of the Social Sciences
This article is about exploration. The exploring of the inner workings and foundations of social science being a philosophical job. Usually, the first question such a job brings to many people’s minds is: “Why should we even be philosophizing about social science?” After all, these are established research disciplines. They are exploring and mapping the natural world, at least on the dominant view of these matters. What is there to say other than that social scientists use the methods of science to construct theories for purposes of explanation, prediction and control for the betterment of the human condition.
These theories and findings of social science turns out to be significantly coloured by assumptions about fundamental matters such as the nature of the world, knowledge and the good life philosophical assumptions that are rarely acknowledged and largely unexamined. And we cannot accurately or honestly appraise social science inquiry until we have teased out these assumptions, detected what we can of their influence, and begun the process of critically sifting them.? On the other hand, thinking through these issues and assumptions does not lead to despair about social science either. Instead, more clearly about what the social science ought to be about and how they might contribute to improving the human condition.
Logical positivist or received view
One conception of theories, most popular in the first half of the 21st century, is known as the positivist or received view.? The core idea is that theories are bodies of statements anchored by universal, context-free laws (universal-laws conception). The meaning of a theory is contained in the sentences constituting the theory similar to way the meaning of a book is contained in the sentences constituting it.? However, logical positivists emphasize the form such sentences should take that laws and other scientific statements should be formulated in a precise language (eg., some form of logic).? The laws can be thought of as axioms.
An?axiom,?postulate, or?assumption?is a?statement?that is taken to be?true, to serve as a?premise?or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the?Ancient Greek?word??ξ?ωμα?(axíōma), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'.
The precise?definition?varies across fields of study. In?classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so?evident?or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question. ?In modern?logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning.
For an axiomatic system that could then be connected to other statements through logical relationships (usually deductive, but some times inductive).? So a theory, on this view, is really some kind of axiomatic, logically coherent system of statement (sometimes called propositions.)
Additionally, there are bridging statements, or coordinating definitions connecting the formal statement of the theory with empirical consequences.? This would allow experimental tests of the theoretical statements.? Under this positivist conception, theories are viewed as having a logical structure with empirical implications.?
Hence, theories were taken to be formal descriptions of facts, observable relationships among facts, and generalizations about facts and their relations.? Explanations of observed phenomena were to be framed in terms of laws and in turn, laws were thought to be subsumed under more general laws.? The most fundamental level of theory ideally would consist of a small number of general laws from which all other laws and phenomena could be derived.
Logical positivism, the influential philosophical movement behind this conception of theories, is more an epistemology than anything else and its view of theories reflects that emphasis.
In these debates and others, epistemology aims to answer questions such as "What do people know?", "What does it mean to say that people know something?", "What makes justified beliefs justified?", and "How do people know that they know?” Specialties in epistemology ask questions such as "How can people create formal models about issues related to knowledge?" (in?formal epistemology), "What are the historical conditions of changes in different kinds of knowledge?" (in?historical epistemology), "What are the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemological inquiry?" (in?meta-epistemology), and "How do people know together?" (in?social epistemology).
The basic underlying ‘scientific epistemology’ is very similar to what Francis Bacon (1561-1626) advocated: science starts by making particular observations, moves to empirical generalizations of these observations uncovering enduring patterns. These observations and generalizations are all formulated using a vocabulary of observational terms describing the behaviour of the phenomena under investigation.?
Later a theoretical vocabulary is introduced by definition and universal laws of generalization are formulated in some formal language.? The laws are supposed to ultimately provide an explanation for the observed phenomena and are linked to the observational statements through bridging statements.? This epistemology is taken to parallel the more fundamental process of language learning humans are viewed as first acquiring an observational vocabulary, which they extend by pointing to similar things and naming them, then later acquire a theoretical vocabulary.? This is very much a ‘bottom up’ approach to knowledge.
As formalistic as it sounds, logical positivism had enormous appeal in that it seed to offer pristine, ahistorical standards for knowledge, a kind of Archimedean point for discriminating truth from error or illusion. ??
The birth of the Archimedean point, which latter-day interpretations craft into a figure of thought that works according to the mechanical principle it describes: effortlessly, it turns a simple law into an image of unlimited strength, absolute stability, and world mastery.? Both literally and figuratively, it aligns minimal with infinite force, immobility with movement, eccentricity – the point’s location outside the world it purports to dislodge – with centrality, the idea of a single location central to the actions of the world.?
But it is not merely the promise of sheer omnipotence that explains the exte4nsive reception of Archimedes’ point in the history of Western thought.? Equally important is the complexity and ambivalence of its pragmatic structure.? Applied to the world as a whole, a straightforward mechanical device turns into a figure that is both easy to visualize and abstract enough to make it transferable to almost any context.? The ambiguous, if not paradoxical structure of the Archimedean point also extends to its foundational gesture: even as it asserts firm ground – it simultaneously questions the possibility of its very existence. ?
Despite the many prominent appearances of the Archimedean point throughout the history of Western thought, the figure itself has rarely been the object of concrete analysis and historical contextualization.? Its explanatory force seems to have prevented the closer examination of it as a conceptual device.
However, the Archimedean appeared to offer certainty and the kind of bias-free knowledge we have come to expect from the scientific enterprise.?
Taking Stock
One observation from this quick historical survey is the diversity of approaches to social science inquiry practised by some of these seminal figures in its history.? This diversity has been the source of several different approaches to social science that are still with us today.
Moreover, buried within this diversity is a tension that has been a tendency on the part of many social scientists to give explanations of human action in natural-science terms, to seek for empirical generalizations and universal laws as the basis for behaviour (correlators).? On the other hand, others have argued that such approaches to mapping human behaviour leave everyday realities of living out of the picture at best, or distort these realities at worst (interpreters). ?
Weber struggles with this tension more deeply than almost any social scientists before or since.? He saw the distinction between empirical theory and the normative perspectives of people as the expression of an unbridgeable gap between fact and value.? He wanted social inquiry to be both truthful (or accurate) and morally relevant.?
Weber maintained that a scientist has a moral task, a responsibility. He must use the findings of his empirical research in a confrontational way. Politicians, students and others should be stimulated to reflect on and reconsider their value positions.
But the divide between facts and values seemed to stand in the way of bringing these aims together.? These two typical responses to this potentially troubling entanglement of science and values.? One is to make a sharp distinction between the ‘context of discovery’ and the ‘context of justification’. First proposed by Hans Reichenback (1938).?
In the context of discovery, intuitive, speculative or value-laden guesses as to possible explanatory hypotheses are allowed.? However, claims to knowledge can only be confirmed in the context of justification.? Values might enter into the first context, but not the second.
The second response is more sophisticated and increasingly influential.? This approach admits the indelibly value-imbued character of our accounts of human activity or the ‘social determination of truth’ (Luke 1987) and goes on to embrace the thoroughgoing relativism such a view implies.
And the philosopher, Richard Rorty, recommends this approach as offering an upbeat kind of ‘ungrounded hope’ that gives mankind an opportunity to grow up, to be free to make itself, rather than seeking direction from some imagined outside source (1987:pp253-54).
One might argue that even though Rorty asserts that all our constructions of social reality and our own identities are thoroughly ‘ungrounded’ and revisable, his thoughts seems to still presuppose some version of the ‘classical liberal belief’ that a society designed “as a neutral matrix to promote freedom…will naturally lead to the public good.” (Guignon 1990: p.357).
In other words, even the kind of thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism may turn out to be inseparable from substantial ethical commitments.?
Closely related is a second problem emerging from these early pioneers is the degree to which social science inquiry must be committed to value-neutrality. The core idea of value-neutrality is that the theories and methods or research and data collection must all be value-free or objective in the sense that they presuppose no moral or religious commitments, are not informed by feelings or sentiments and so forth.
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"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance, and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope." (Holy Bible, Romans 15:4)
In contrast, Dilthey explicitly maintains that focusing on values and meanings is crucial for arriving at genuine understanding of social phenomena.? Weber also believed there was an important role for such an approach, but ultimately was unable to square an honest, forthright treatment of values with a value-free commitment to objectivity.?
Another problem is typically referred to as methodological individualism versus methodological holism. Weber introduced the concept of methodological individualism as an assumption crucial to the social sciences, but it can already be found in Hobbes’ analysis of human action and interactions and of the political system.
The key idea is that social phenomena are only explainable in terms of how they result from individual actions, which, in turn, are to be explained in terms of the motivations of the individual actors (recall Weber’s four sources of motivation for action, see below).
In contrast, Durkheim maintained methodological holism, the thesis that individual actions are primarily explained by large-scale social events and forces that are not reducible to the motivations and actions of individual actors. Here, we clearly see a tension between individualism, on the one hand, and social bonds, on the other.? Which one is more important in understanding human actions? Does this question harbour a false dilemma forcing us to choose between only two somewhat limited options?
A much less discussed problem by contemporary social scientists and philosophers is the rise of means-end reasoning/action often called instrumental reasoning/action. Durkheim and Weber both discuss the trend away from what might be called traditional forms of action, where reasons, means and goals? are evaluated in terms of values and sentiments deriving from larger moral, religious or cultural perspectives, and towards zweckrational.
Zweckrational is a philosophy of an action. Pursued after evaluating its consequences and consideration of the various means to achieve it. And zweckrationalit?t which is technical rationality; rationality in accordance with organizational demands instead of moral demands.
However, zweckrational is a focus on efficiency and effectiveness of means for achieving given ends. This transition leads to a strong emphasis on instrumental knowledge and control.? The Enlightenment was an intellectual and social movement emphasizing the application of reason through philosophy and science for the betterment of the human condition, materially, intellectually and spiritually.? The notion of mastery and control over nature and ourselves is a dominant theme of Enlightenment thinking. Thus progressively science took on the colour of control and instrumentality originally associated in the ancient world with magic.
Cultural Ideals: instrumental Reason
"Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." (Holy Bible, Romans 6:13)
Given some already established ends or goals, zweckrational emphasizes rational examination and choice of the most effective or efficient means for achieving these goals.? Such means-end reasoning is useful or necessary, like explaining the quickest route to the nearest post office when someone asks, or deciding the most effective and safest way to lift a heavy load.
The worries about zweckrational raised by Weber as well as critical theorists like Horkheimer and Hobermas, is that such means-end thinking comes to dominate society that other equally or more important features of life get squeezed out.? This would leave us a with a picture? of human action that is largely or perhaps exclusively instrumental – all actions are merely means or instruments for achieving our aims with little if any thought for the morality of our actions, the other possible reasons for acting, or the worth of our aims.
Or as Jon Elster (1989), succinctly puts it, “actions are valued and chosen not for themselves but as more or less efficient means to a further end”, where the ends are not evaluated for their worth.
But there is more to this instrumental conception of human agency than just the emphasis on means-end reasoning.? In this picture of agency, while being simultaneously immersed in the efficient causal chain of events – indeed these chains of causal events impinge upon and flow through us as agents are pictured as somehow turning back on this causal flow using the knowledge of such causal chains to intervene in and alter the future course of events to suit their purposes. Imagine the chains of causes and effects, and so forth.
It is this flow of causes and effects in which we, as agents, are supposedly trapped.? But on the instrumental picture, the agent is also somehow able to manipulate this flow by intervening in the causes and bringing about effects suited to our purposes.
Social scientists, for instance, produce knowledge of the cause-effect relations determining self-esteem that they, or social planners or individuals, can then use to manipulate these relations to increase self-esteem.
Such a conception of agency appears to be consonant with the ideals of many Social Scientists.? It is this point that a paradox of abstraction arises. In social and political activity, context is crucial to the actions of self-interpreting being.
In contrast, our everyday experiences include sights, sounds, smells, tastes, context, interruptions, surprises and so forth, integrated in a holistic and dynamic unity.? Furthermore, this experience is tied together by meaning - it makes sense to us.? However, both modes of abstraction seek to cut as many strands of this dynamic relatedness and holism as possible down to some bare, manageable minimum. Engaging in these kinds of abstraction taking a theoretical stance away the richness and unpredictability of everyday experience and objectifies a narrow range of events upon which It chooses to focus.
The theoretical stance assumes (implicitly or explicitly) that humans can know valid and important things in a way at least partly from independent of physical context and embodiment (the two modes of abstraction). It partially attenuates our relationship to this wider relational reality often for worthwhile purposes.
Therefore, Social Scientists imagine applying value-free theory and results - supposedly mapping the efficient causal chains governing human behaviour - to the concerns of individuals and groups, so that they may more effectively change or otherwise enhance their lives according to their purposes, or pursue policies, supportive of their conception of the good life.
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REFERENCES: Bishop C. R., (2007), The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, [book], published by Continuum, ISBN: 978-0-8264-8953-1
Holland, J., & Landgraf, E. (2014). Introduction: The Archimedean Point: From Fixed Positions to the Limits of Theory, [Academic Paper],?SubStance Journal,?43 (3), pp.3–11, Published By: The Johns Hopkins University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24540769 [accessed 02/06/2024]
Sabatucci, Luca & Cossentino, Massimo. (2015). From Means-End Analysis to Proactive Means-End Reasoning,?10.1109/SEAMS.2015.9.,?From Means-End Analysis to Proactive Means-End Reasoning (researchgate.net)?[accessed 03/06/2024]?
Hanson-DeFusco, J., (2023), 'What data counts in policymaking and programming evaluation – Relevant data?sources for triangulation according to main epistemologies and philosophies within social science,?Evaluation and Program Planning,' [Academic Paper], School of Economics, Political, and Policy Science,?University of Texas-Dallas,?Volume 97,?102238,?ISSN 0149-7189,?https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2023.102238.?What data counts in policymaking and programming evaluation – Relevant data sources for? ? triangulation according to main epistemologies and philosophies within social science - ScienceDirect?[accessed 03/06/2024]
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