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Notes All Philosophy of Social Science Lectures
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Notes All Philosophy of Social Science Lectures
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WetenschapsfilosofieLecture 1 01/02
Introduction to the course: content and the organizational aspects
1. Thinking about science
Sloppy science and the case of Diederik Stapel
- prominent social psychologist from Tilburg
- Removed from academia for years of fabricated results
- fraud in 55 papers (including 10 PhD dissertations)
Exhibits fraud in four ways
- publication bias (failed experiments not published)
- lack of replication / reproduction of results
- statistical incompetence
- lack of research ethics
universities are operated like businesses
immense pressure
Q; what is interesting about Stapel and other fraudulant cases?
- sloppy science challenges the ‘common-sense’ view of science
- scientists are looking for truth, which means…
- scientific knowledge is objective
- external influences should play no role
- science is all about empirical evidence
- science is based on a unique method
Objectivity presupposes a distinction between objective and subjective claims / points of view
- claim: ‘scientific knowledge is objective’
- prerequisite: clear construction of concepts
- ‘view from nowhere’
→ absence of vagueness and ambiguity
- shift from everyday language to scientific language
- ideal: establishes clarity/avoids equivocality
→ concepts need to be precise, specified, measurable, and free from personal bias
- ideal: personal convictions and values should play no role
The case of phrenology
- involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits
- proposed a modular view of the mind/brain
- perpetuated harmful myths about
- racial and gender differences
- intelligence and learning
- criminal tendencies
- psychiatric disorder
, - and so on…
- kept some groups in power position,
- Not just pseudoscience, but dangerous pseudoscience
What can be concluded from the sloppy science case?
- gives reasons to look critically at scientific research
- first thought
- eliminate sloppy science
- enforce the ideals of objective science
- make publication of negative results more accepted
- require more replication studies
- improve quantitative/qualitative methods
- promote ethical research standards
- if that succeeds, does this mean science is objective after all?
Geurts’ text “ is what we do pointless”?
➢ identifying causes and laws in psychology and neuroscience isn’t always feasible
➢ objectivity can still be problematic even if science isn’t sloppy
when we give up the ideal of science of discovering a result, is it then unrewarding, pointless work?
We need to restructure our expactations - what is it what you think you are doing as a scientiest?
Discussion question
1. Does the claim ‘science is not objective’ entail the claim ‘science is no more than an
opinion’?
it is not - clear how you got to the opinion, replicable
2. if it is true that ‘science is fallible’ is it still possible to speak about ‘reliable scientific
results’?
Intersubjectivity
From natural science to social science
- since the 16th/17th century: successful natural sciences (Galileo/Newton)
- Since the 19th centure: society has become the object of research
- how to study the society?
Q: How/can we make use of the methods of the natural science..?
- is society characterized by causal relations, explanations and theories?
- How is it that models in social sciences bring forward explanations
- rethink relation between theories, models, explanations
- is society (a complex entity) reducible to the individuals (simple entities) that live in it?
- there are no emerging phenomena, everything can be reduced
- are ‘subjects’ (researchers) standing apart from the ‘objects of research’?
Smith on the insider vs outsider perspective in social research:
- Schutz: the I/O problem is ‘the most persistent methodological issue in the study of the
religion’
,Theorem 1: to be a good scientist - and to be able to describe the deepest levels of religious
experiences - you have to b e a member of the religious community under scrutinty
Theorem2: it is obvious that a scholar of the study…
tension between theorems
Opposition to the insider perspective:
- biased descriptions
- apologetic (defensive, protective) descriptions
Opposition to the outsider perspective
- too much emphasis on explanations
- false reduction of insider perspective
Best known solutions
- neutral stance (eg methodological agnosticism)
- reflexive stance (critical towards one’s own assumptions)
- schutz → take the perspective of the stranger (individual perspectives in daily habits, how it
relates to the needs or outsider)
2. philosophy of social science
Review
- ‘sloppy science’ is a threat to the common-sense ideal of science
- ‘sloppy science’ shows: reflecting on science is necessary
- reflection on science makes clear that the common-sense concept of science is problematic
- scientific research is a social activity and therefore not perfect
Q: what are the most important questions/problems for social science research
❖ is research ‘independent’?
➢ eg how to deal with power and interests, views and ideals
❖ is a detached view necessary to do scientific research? is there one right way to do research?
➢ eg what is the role/importance of situatedness and diversity
❖ do group commitments and intentions exist or are they exclusively related to individuals?
➢ eg can and should social research be reductive?
❖ how to describe and present research?
➢ eg what is the proper mode of representation and communication
❖ in which way should science be practiced?
➢ eg what is the ethics of social science research
Three central themes of philosophy of social science
- Naturalism: the problem of understanding and explanation in the social sciences
- eg is it possible to use concepts such as causality and explanation when we speak
about society
- Reductionism: the problem of the relation between holism and individualism in the social
sciences
- eg is it possible to reduce social institutes to their individual members?
- Normativity: the function of norms, values and rules in the social sciences
- eg are subjects (researchers) and objects of research living in different worlds
3. three themes and a table
, Reductionism at y-axis
Issues of normativity play a role in every quadrant
Analyzing the four quadrants:
- Systems: Marx
- the system determines the actions of individuals
- it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the
contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness
- Agents: Mill
- The actions of individuals constitute the system
- social science is grounded in the laws of nature of individual man
- Practices: Wittgenstein
- social reality is determined by the ‘rules of the game’
- games absorb players; the social role is decisive
- Actors: Elster
- players construct the game of social life
- the actor takes on the role; understanding social institutions by looking at
how they are shaped by meaningful actions of individuals
How does this relate to Schutz’ perspective of the stranger
- this perspective is the bridge between the quadrants
Lecture 2 03/02
Standard image and Popper I Objectivity and values in the social sciences
1. Main themes and the empirical analytical method
the empirical-analytical method
- empirical: scientific research based on systematic observation (observation)
- analytical: decomposable into logical, elementary statements (proposition)
- results: hypothesis about empirical regulatires (expressed as a law)
Basic inductive inference
- this bird is a raven (proposition
- this bird is black (observation)
- all ravens are black (hypothesis about regularity (law))
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