Summary of the book and seminars Philosophy of Science | RSM premaster
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Course
Wetenschapsfilosofie (BPN1102)
Institution
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR)
Book
Introduction to the philosophy of the management sciences
This document contains a summary of all the theories in the book Introduction to the Management Sciences by T. van Willigenburg (2012). Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 are summarized. In addition, this document also contains important notes from the seminars in the Philosophy of Science course. This course ...
introduction to the philosophy of the management sciences
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Introduction to the Philosophy of the Management
Sciences
CHAPTER 1: WHY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE?
Introduction
- Why is scientific knowledge more trustworthy than mundane (everyday knowledge)
- Why do we trust scientific theories
- Management science = social science: examine social phenomena and study people
- Scientific knowledge: aims at knowledge of patterns, structures, regularities, and laws
o Not one specific company or example but about types of businesses
o Goal = to explain and understand phenomena generalisability
- Everyday knowledge: not interested in why
- Scientific research can be tested: trustworthiness requires controllability and therefore
repeatability
Five features of scientific knowledge
1) Generalisability: to explain and understand phenomena
2) Controllability: research needs to be transparent and repeatable
3) Objectivity: independence of external pressure and influence
4) Valid methods: use methods of research which are accepted as valid among scholars
5) Parsimony: clear and simple models of explanation, the simplest explanation is preferred
Scientific research has all five features: validity of scientific claims and results can be trusted
o Trust is not an all or nothing
Misconceptions with regard to the methods in the management sciences (I): only empirical
research counts as scientific
- Misconception: only empirical research counts as scientific
- Empirical social scientific research = research of phenomena using surveys, interviews etc
- Misconception: social scientific research should describe facts and calculate data
o Instead: in social scientific research statistical analysis should be at the core
o Conceptual analysis is always needed: e.g. organisation is a theoretical concept
- Theoretical concepts require philosophical thought to understand their meaning
- Science = also a way of thinking about the world, a way of forming conceptions
- Concepts make it possible to observe phenomena
- Scientific research is more than the gathering and analysis of empirical data
o Careful reasoning is as important as adequate observation
- Gravity is also a theoretical concept: cannot be observed, felt or measured
- Social science and natural sciences: framework of studying reality is built of theoretical concepts
Misconceptions with regard to the nature of management sciences (II): scientific research is only
descriptive, never prescriptive or normative
- Misconception: scientific research is only descriptive, never prescriptive or normative
o About how things are not how they should be, therefore limited to facts
- Normative disagreements are not disagreements of taste but normative issues
- Possible to have a scientific debate about normative questions
- Scientists want to know the truth in both factual sense and normative sense
, The good reason model of truth
- Good reason model of truth: a claim is true if it is supported by the balance of reasons
o This is when the reasons in favour decisively outweigh the reasons against the claim
- Argumentum ad ignorentiam: claim to be true because there is no proof for the opposite
o Fallacious reasoning
- Petitio principii = hidden cicularity: a claim is secretly taken for granted in one of the premises
- False dilemma fallacy: argument offers a false range or choices and requires you to pick one
- Fallacies = defects in arguments which cause an argument to be invalid or weak
- What is reasonable? – understood in three ways
1) Correct methods of research and argumentations – methodological question
2) The status of acquired scientific knowledge – epistemological question
3) The nature of (social) reality – ontological question
“What is reasonable?” as a methodological question
- What are the best methods of research? Quantitative methodology vs. qualitative approach
- Quantitative: statistical analysis and data about the behaviour and opinions of people
o Aimed at finding statistical relations
o Discussions about how to argue with numbers and probabilities
o Reasoning shortcuts: use intuition
“What is reasonable?” as an epistemological question (knowledge)
- What is the status of the ‘knowledge’ we have acquired?
- Reasonable reliably predict the future because of solid statistical relations but the why is unclear
- Question about the reasonableness of one’s theoretical assumptions
o Question about the rationality of the arguments which are based on theoretical assumptions
“What is reasonable?” as an ontological question (that what is)
- Ontological assumptions: assumptions about the nature of the reality which is studied
- Different explanations of social phenomena result in different conclusions
- Reality founded on mutual agreements: €50 bill is worth 10 cents, but we agree to a value of €50
o Value is no part of natural reality of natural science
- Object and phenomena in natural reality exist independently of humans: rocks, trees, planets
- Phenomena dependent of the existence of humans: money, art, fame
- Natural phenomena for their existence also existence of humans: colours
Idealism versus realism
- Idealism: all natural phenomena are nothing more than mental representations
o Trees, rocks and planets are ideas of us and not phenomena that exist in reality
o We only experience different sense-data
o Things only exists when observed: when no one is around things would disappear?
Berkeley’s solution: God is always present
- Realism: acknowledges that reality is always observed by us in a pre-shaped way
o We have learned to individualise objects and phenomena in a particular way
o The Dutch can distinguish eight types of rain: it is real for the Dutch
o Kant says: the capacity to order phenomena in time and in space
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