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Summary Philosophy - Making Social Science Matter
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Summary of 10 pages for the course Philosophies of Social Science at RuG
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Philosophies – Making social science matterChapter 1 – The Science Wars: A way out
In May 1996 an issue of ‘Social Text’ appeared it was devoted to the “Science Wars”.
It featured an article by the mathematical physicist Alan Sokal. It turned out to be a
hoax, revealed by himself. The article was an expose of cultural studies and social
science in general.
Good or bad
Aristotle’s word phronesis is roughly translated to ‘ prudence or practical wisdom’.
Aristotle’s words on phronesis were: ‘true state, reasoned, and capable of action
with regard to things that are good or bad for man’. It goes beyond the analytical
and scientific knowledge (episteme) and technical knowledge and knowhow
(Techne).
Phronesis is commonly involved in social practice and that therefore attempts to
reduce social science and theory either to episteme or techne.
Virtue lost
Aristotle never elaborated his conception of phronesis to include explicit
considerations of power. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s conception of phronesis also
overlooks power. But as Richard Bernstein points out – if we are to think about what
can be done to the problems and risks of our time, we must advance from the
original conception of phronesis to one explicitly including power.
There are three intellectual virtues: episteme, techne and phronesis – the latter is
most important because it is that activity by which instrumental rationality is
balanced b value-rationality and such balancing is crucial to the happiness of citizens
in any society – according to Aristotle
Chapter 2 – rationality, body and intuition in human learning
Context is central to understanding what social science is and can be – what role
does context play in human knowledge and skills?
Philosophy and epistemology typically pose questions such as ‘what is knowledge’,
‘what can we know’, under what conditions can we know that we know’.
It is not the intention to outline and analyze the ways in which people acquire
knowledge and skills but deal with a single phenomenology of human learning as
formulated by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus.
It has been chosen because it is useful for understanding the linkage between
knowledge and context and it directly asks the question of whether knowledge
about human activity can be context – independent.
1
, Dreyfus model:
It operates with five levels in the human-learning process
1. Novice
2. Advanced beginner
3. Competent performer
4. Proficient performer
5. Expert
Novice act on the basis of context-independent elements and rules
As a novice, the individual experiences a given problem and a given situation in a
given tasks area for the first time. During instruction the person learns what the
objective facts and characteristics of the situation are.
The novice learns to recognize facts and characteristics when they appear – the
novice then learns the rules for action. These are defined very clear that they can be
recognized without reference to the situation in which they occur. At this level –
facts, characteristics and rules are not dependent on context – they are context
independent.
Advanced beginners also use situational elements, which they have learned to
identify and interpret on the basis of their own experience from similar situations
The beginner advances from the first level by achieving real life experience – in
contrast to the often deliberative and protected learning situations of the first level.
Via these experiences the beginner learns to recognize the relevant elements in
relevant situations. Recognition occurs because the advanced beginner sees
similarities in relation to prior examples of the same situation.
Recognition is concrete and dependent on context and it is precisely context, which
plays the decisive role – context becomes increasingly important as one proceeds up
the levels of the learning process.
Competent performers are characterized by the involved choice of goals and plans
as a basis for their actions – these are used to structure and store masses of both
context-dependent and context-independent information
With more experience, the number of recognizable elements, which an individual
sees in a concrete situation, becomes overwhelming. The individual lacks of what is
important – unable to prioritize. The individuals learn from themselves and other to
apply a hierarchical, prioritizing procedure for decision-making.
First a goal and a plan are made by which to organize the information about the
concrete situation and then processing only those factors relevant to achieving the
goal and plan, individuals can simplify the task to obtain improved results.
Proficient performer: Beyond analytical rationality identify problems, goals and
plans intuitively from their own experience
In the first three levels, the performer of a given skill has made a conscious choice of
both goals and decisions after having reflected thoroughly over various alternatives.
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