File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/bhaskar.9707, message 60


Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 09:49:19 -0400
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: Marshall Feldman <marsh-AT-URIACC.URI.EDU>
Subject: Re: BHA: Non-experimental science (was "What must the ...")


I think we're starting to repeat ourselves and go around in circles.  So
here I'll try to get some closure.

At 10:44 AM 7/23/97 +0100, Colin wrote:

[snip]
>necessarily scientific. Scientific knowledge of such activities is probably
>possible but what would make it scientific as opposed to these other forms
>of knowledge, would not be a particular method through which it was
>acquired, but if it was explanatory of these actvities, that is, give us a
>deeper understanding of the processes necessary for such activities.

Yes, but I'm asking you to defend that position. I.e., how do you know
science is explanatory, and what does "explanatory" mean -- what counts as
explanation?  RB answers this, but his answer depends on his analysis of
experiments.  I'm questioning anwers in non-experimental realms (i.e.,
realms that are immune to experiment) that rely on analogy.  I'd accept
analogy as a form of argument, but we must be clear that's how we arrive at
the conclusion.


>
>>
>>So are you saying this is an argument AGAINST other philosophies and the
>>argument FOR science-as-explanation is independent of the analysis of
>>experiments?
>
>I am certainly saying that RB's work is an argument against other
>philosophies, on this he is very clear, and yes, as a gut reaction the
>argument for science-as-explanation is probably independent of the analysis
>of experiments.

But he doesn't do this in RTS.

[snip]

>Yes I agree, and I suppose here we are somewhere close to the problem of
>induction here. But causally we do have grounds for extrapolating from one
>domain to another, I have never actually put my hand in a fire but I have
>good grounds for supposing that it is not a good idea as a result of my
>touching a cooker hob when I was younger. And as you say.

I wouldn't call these two different domains.  What would be an
extrapolation across domains would be using Harvey's hypothesis that
capillaries exist and their subsequent observation to argue good
meteorology would must also proceed by postulating that things exist and
subsequently discovering them.  The part of the world we label "biological"
may be deep and layered, but the part we label "meteorological" may be flat.
[snip]

[snip]

>You see, here, and of course you can cry foul, but RB is adamant that his
>analysis is not bound to any specific science. 

Yes, but claiming this does not necessarily make it so.

[snip]

>However, I'm a little unclear
>what you mean when you say transient objects. Do you mean unchanging?
>Bhaskar would argue that much of reality is constantly changing.

I'm talking about the intrasient and transient dimensions RB discusses
early on in RTS.  Gravity is intransient; the law of gravity as we know it
and formulate it is transient.

>I don't see that this follows. We do certainly draw analogies from biology
>and other sciences. But I don't think anyone really looks for blood flows,
>for example, in the social body. Or for social viruses (although I accept
>that Dawkins memes might be a (wrong) step in this direction).

Don't take me too literally.  See the analogy re. Harvey above.  BTW, there
is a school of social science, human ecology, that argued precisely this
way.  Transportation, for instance, was akin to blood flow.

>
>Your work sounds really interesting BTW. As a rejoinder to your possible
>critics who might you say argue:
>
>"We'll grant you that we were wrong to equate science with
>>positivism.  Science is explanatory, not a method.  But planning theory
>>must not be science then because it's neither."  Of course, I'm trying to
>>argue that planning theory must become science: the science whose object is
>>human intentionality aimed at the built environment.  So for me the issue
>>of moving across domains is paramont.
>
>This to me seems a wrong headed argument from your critics. I mean, after
>all if positivism does not equal science what are they doing now they know
>this? I also doubt whether they would be so keen to give up on the label
>science, since research money seems to follow it. Also, remember, even
>Dilthey, although dead set against importing the prevailing notion of
>science into the study of the social world still argued that what he was
>after was a "science of socety".

They're doing discourse, telling stories, etc.  Typically, they define
"science" as positivism would and then argue that planning theory can't be
science (according to this model but never recognizing it is indeed a
model).  I suspect a sharp interpretive planning theorist would make the
same claim about CR, only here the anti-naturalistic argument would be more
along the lines we've been debating.  My response, BTW, is that their
stories distort the world and gain their power by relying on tacitly
accepted explanatory knowledge that no longer can be upheld because of
their rejection of science.


>
>Also it seems to me that using RB it would be possible to attempt to explain
>why those normative assumtions inherent to any social science, yours
>included, are necessary. Planning theory, or practice, for that matter,
>after all is not neutral and exists in a field of social relations which
>require explicating in order to understand approaches to planning.

Yes, to be sure.

[snip]

>I take RB's treatment of actual and real domains to deal
>>with mechanisms such as natural selection.  Ecologists and biologists may
>>experiment with natural selection, but paleontologists (except in Jurasic
>>Park)?
>
>But you see, I would ague that paleontologists are crucially concerned with
>mechanisms, most notably the ones that killed them off or allowed them to
>evolve. Once again I see no problem in applying the real, actual, empirical
>distinction to this science.

Yes, they just don't experiment with them.  So how are we to believe such
that such mechanisms actually exist rather than that our knowledge of such
mechanisms simply is the best story we decide to accept?

>
>
>>Yes, but this does not question the status of (natural) science as science.
>> Part of social science's problem would be solved if it just stopped trying
>>to ape natural science.  What can we know about the human world?
>
>But isn't part of the fascination with the natural sciences derived from
>their ability to deal with the question of what it means to "know"?

Good point.  I still think a die-hard interpretivist would claim they
"know" too.

>Anyway, best of luck with your sceptical colleagues.

Thanks.  Thanks for letting me play Devil's advocate.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
Marshall Feldman, Associate Professor		                marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
Graduate Curriculum in Community Planning and Area Development	401/874-5953
The University of Rhode Island					401/874-5511 (FAX)
94 West Alumni Avenue, Suite 1; Kingston, RI 02881-0806


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