Assignments 1-3
Philosophy of Science
Isa Luiten – 2660705
22-02-2022
Lecturer: James Grayot
, Assignment 1
1. What does Risjord mean when he refers to normativity in the philosophy of social science? Give a
brief example of this. (1pt)
Normativity refers to issues about norms, rules and values. This can be approached from two different
perspectives, namely on the one hand as the object of study: what are important values within this
culture? And on the other hand, norms, values and rules about the scientific process itself: science
should be independent of political values.
An example for the first perspective is the anthropological study of Baseball magic by Gmelch
(Gmelch, G. (1971). Baseball magic. Trans-action, 8(8), 39-41.). In this research Gmelch compares
the role of magic in Western Baseball culture and magic amongst the Trobiand Islanders in Papoa new
Guinea. For both cultures, magic is of important value in their daily life, only in different ways.
Regarding normativity about the scientific community, we can look at the reading about scientific
fraud. This is a clear example of someone, Stapel, who did not value scientific ethics in his research,
committed fraud and got rejected by the scientific community because of his norms and values, which
were reflected in his research.
2. What are naturalism and reductionism, according to Risjord? Explain how are they related? (2pts)
Naturalism is that aspect of philosophy of science that deals with the relationship between the natural
sciences and the social sciences: should they adopt similar methods? Are they equal? Are they even
different? Reductionism is the question if social sciences – or any science for that matter - can be
reduced to another science? Can every science ultimately be reduced to physics?
Both aspects can be divided into two varieties: epistemological and metaphysical. The epistemological
variety deals with knowledge, in particular methods, validity and scope. An epistemological naturalist
question could be: are the social sciences to be dealt with the same way as the natural sciences? An
epistemological reductionist question could be: can every science be reduced to physics?
The metaphysical variety deals with the object of research rather than the research itself. A
metaphysical naturalist question could be: are humans equal to nature, or are they more? A
metaphysical reductionist question could be: can a mind be reduced to a brain? These two question
seem familiar, the difference is that reductionism concerns itself with entities, properties, processes
and events and how they are all the same among their respectful variety of levels. Naturalism rather
concerns itself with that what makes us human – or social – in particular.
These last two questions show how they are connected: if entities, for example: minds, are just
‘boring’ objects out there with no more meaning to it than their physical, ‘naturalist’ appearance, such
as the biological brain, than that means that there is no such thing as sociality, which would mean that
the social sciences are no mare than natural sciences. This is also explained by Risjord (2014): ‘Many
who argue for reductionism […] are motivated by naturalistic commitments’ (pp. 11).
3. What is the perspective of ‘the stranger’ discussed in Smith? How does it relate to social scientific
research? (1pt)
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