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Week 1:
HC 1: Introduction to the course: content and organizational aspects
Chapter 1 Risjord - Introduction
Human nature is a social nature.
Central question philosophy concern what it means to be human
The questions distinctive of the philosophy of the social sciences are encompassed within
three broad themes:
1. Normativity
2. Naturalism
3. Reductionism
Democratic Peace
- People are not perfectly rational
- Question: Are democracies less likely to go to war?
o The very rarely go to war → “Democratic peace”
- Kant’s argument: Supposes that the free choices of citizens determine whether a
nation goes to war
- Philosophical assumption: Causes of war are found at the social level
- Different answers appeal to distinct philosophical commitments
Azande Witchcraft
- A famous study of the Azande → ethnic group of central Africa
- “Witches” power to cause misfortune
- On basis of “the oracles”, they would perform “vengeance magic” to kill witches
- This makes the practice self-contradictory in principle
- Some anthropologist: Azande earlier stage of psychological evolution, no logic yet
- Others: All humans have the same intellectual abilities, witchcraft looks puzzling to us
only because we have not yet understood it
Freedom Riders and Free Riders
- Social movements and revolutions all face the same problem: From the point of view
of each individual, there are substantial costs to participating. At the same time,
everybody benefits if the system changes.
- Rational choice each individual: sit on the side and let others pay costs of
participation → “free rider”
- Solve free rider problem
o Classical liberal view treats humans as autonomous choosers, each seeking his
or her best interest. Community is possible only when the incentives make
actions that are beneficial to the group and individual
o Communitarians see humans as fundamentally social and oriented toward
each other. Identity with a group and its norms is integral to human life.
,The philosophical task is to link the social scientific commitments to the larger literature in
philosophy.
While studying philosophy → one question leads to another, sometimes in unexpected
ways.
Normativity
Issues about norms, values and rules enter social sciences in 2 ways:
- One hand, the norms values and rules of specific societies are part of the social
sciences study
- Other hand, there are norms, values and rules that social scientist recognize and are
part of their own society
o Presupposes that social science and social policy are independent
Must social scientific research be conducted without commitment to ethical of political
values? → No, some kind of commitment is always present, even necessary
- Selecting data to fit preconceived agenda sets bias and undermines objectivity
- Understand the variety of ways in which science can be value-laden
- Can they be objective?
The ways in which we conceptualize “fact” and “value”
- These issues arise when theorists try to develop account of the values, norms and
rules operative in human societies
Naturalism
Whether and how the social sciences differ from the natural sciences
- Naturalism: variety of views holding that the social sciences should be like the
natural sciences in some important ways
- Anti-naturalists: Think that the social sciences need a distinctive method, form of
theorizing
Epistemological naturalism and Metaphysical naturalism
- Epistemological: concerns issues about theory, explanation and method.
o Epistemological anti-naturalism: says qualitive research is deeply different
form quantitative research
- Metaphysical: humans are part of the natural world and therefore they must be
understood in terms of the same causes and mechanisms that animate all other
creatures
o Oppose: humans or human societies are distinctive in some deep ways
Broad issue that invokes the theme of naturalism is the role of rationality and rules in social
scientific understanding
- Social scientists often appeal to rules, but one wonders whether rules explain
anything
Reductionism
Philosophers have often envisioned the sciences as arranged in a hierarchy
Physics > Biology > Psychology > and then Social Sciences
→ Can everything ultimately be reduced to physics? = Reductionism (flatten hierarchy)
- Epistemological reductionism
Holds that theories at one level can be replaced by theories at a lower level
, - Metaphysical reductionism
Claims contend that entities, properties, processes or events at one level are nothing
but objects at another
(Themes of reductionism and naturalism over, but are not coextensive)
Anti-reductionist or holists: can point to at least two social phenomena that seem to be
impossible to explain or analyze in individualistic terms: normativity and joint action
- “Ought” cannot be reduced to “is”
- A norm or rule cannot be identified with a pattern of behavior
Digital reader
Scientific fraud (1)
Medicine and the social sciences are particularly prone to bias, because the observer
(presumably a white-coated scientist) cannot so easily be completely removed from his or
her subject.
Why do scientist cheat?
• Deliberate or unintended bias in experimental design and cherry-picking of data..
• Academic promotion pressure. Sadly, “public of purish” has led many scientists to
prematurely rush results into print, without careful analysis and double-checking.
• Overcommitment. Busy senior scientists can end up as co-authors of flawed papers
that they had little to do with details of.
• Ignorance. Many scientists know too little mathematics and statistics to challenge or
even notice inappropriate use of numerical data.
• Self-delusion. Clearly many scientists want to believe they have uncovered new
truths, or at least notable results on a long-standing problem.
• Confirmation bias. It sometimes happens that a result turns out to be true, but the
data originally presented to support the result were enhanced by confirmation bias.
• Deadline pressure
• Pressure for dramatic outcomes
• Quest for research funding. Scientists worldwide complain of the huge amounts of
time and effort necessary to secure continuing research funding
Solution = open science
Geurts (2) – “Is what we do pointless?”
With us, laws, especially when it comes to human behavior, are more difficult (or not) to
draft. And statistical probabilities are complicated if you are looking for valid knowledge.
Confirming or invalidating hypotheses is not 100 percent solid either
- Science may be fallible, but it is also the best thing we have to gain knowledge about
ourselves and the world
- Thus: science is fallible. It is a model, a method; we do our best, but we learn about
new problems all the time and we discover errors in argumentationsthat need to be
addressed. Science is a man-made activity.
➔ Identifying ‘causes’ and ‘laws’ in psychology and neuroscience isn’t always feasible.
➔ Objectivity can still be problematic even if science isn’t sloppy.
, Smirth I: The perspective of the stranger (3)
Schütz argues: in both social science and in everyday life we use types or mental construct,
which allow us generally to predict how others around us are likely to behave.
- By stereotyping the behaviours and motivations of others: we identity predictable
patterns arounds us > which enable us to think though a situation.
A scientific statement is considered to be adequate when it accounts for everyday
experience and is understandable to those who live in the relations being studies (Schütz)
3 viewpoints of the city life:
- The person on the street: someone who is at home, getting by without the need for
deep reflection.
- The cartographer: someone with the expertise to map urban environments,
maintains a degree of detachment from the object and is unable to comprehend
what it’s like to live in such a place
- The stranger: someone who is passing through, needs establish an adequate graps of
existing social relationship in order to get by (brings together the insider and
outsider perspective)
Just as there are difficulties if you become too detached, if you become too involved in the
lives of the people and relationship you are studying, you can lose sight of the aims and
objectives of your research.
➔ Attitude you will have towards finding out about people’s lives, will be just as
important as your choice of research method.
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
religion’.
Theorem 1: “To be a good scientist –and to be able to describe the deepest levels of
religious experiences –you have to be a member of the religious community under scrutiny.”
Theorem 2: “It is obvious that a scholar of the study of religion is allowed to be a member of
a religious community or to have all kinds of beliefs, but this membership and these beliefs
are irrelevant to the results of her scientific research
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
Putnam: Our kids: The American dream in crisis (4)
American dream according to Putnam no longer possible.
Society that consists of two parallel, closed worlds
- In one group: low wages that make families fall below the poverty line, education
that is far below par, fragmented families, crime in the home environment, poor
medical facilities, no social network.
