Some Remarks on the Logic of Explanation in the Social Sciences

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 64-81
Author(s):  
Albrecht Wellmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Practical Consequence ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

If one were to write a history of the philosophy of science in the spirit of T. S. Kuhn, one would have to consider the model of scientific explanation which Popper proposed and Hempel and Oppenheim developed to be one of the great paradigms of contemporary analytical philosophy of science. This analogue to the historically important paradigms of the individual sciences seems to me to be justifiable for the following reasons: first, the Hempel—Oppenheim model (or HO-model, as I shall call it) claims universal methodological validity; second, discussions on the problem of explanation have centred on this model for some time; third, the recent cognitive progress in this field has been largely the result of the interrelation between criticism of this model on the one hand and its improvement and explication on the other hand; and lastly, this model stands for a particular comprehension of the problems and possibilities of science, a concept of quite important practical consequence.

Some Remarks on the Logic of Explanation in the Social Sciences

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 64-81
Author(s):  
Albrecht Wellmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Practical Consequence ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

If one were to write a history of the philosophy of science in the spirit of T. S. Kuhn, one would have to consider the model of scientific explanation which Popper proposed and Hempel and Oppenheim developed to be one of the great paradigms of contemporary analytical philosophy of science. This analogue to the historically important paradigms of the individual sciences seems to me to be justifiable for the following reasons: first, the Hempel—Oppenheim model (or HO-model, as I shall call it) claims universal methodological validity; second, discussions on the problem of explanation have centred on this model for some time; third, the recent cognitive progress in this field has been largely the result of the interrelation between criticism of this model on the one hand and its improvement and explication on the other hand; and lastly, this model stands for a particular comprehension of the problems and possibilities of science, a concept of quite important practical consequence.

scholarly journals Disciplining Media Studies: An Expanding Field and its (Self-) Definition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Schröter
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Anglophone World

This chapter is a modified translation of the foreword to the Handbuch Medienwissenschaft(Handbook of Media Studies, Schröter ed.) published in Germany in 2014. The purpose ofthis handbook is to provide an overview of the vibrant and heterogeneous field ofkulturwissenschaftliche Medienwissenschaft – media studies as oriented toward humanitiesand cultural studies interests and approaches rather than those of communication studiesand the social sciences, subsequently referred to simply as “media studies.” Some of thecategories used to structure the handbook have been generated from the historicaldiscussions in the field; and inevitably, these same historical discussions have shown thedifficulties of defining the external boundaries of the field of media studies, its internaldifferentiations and the way they re-connect to traditional disciplines. It gives an overview ofthe history of the disciplinary constitution of ‘media studies’ with a special focus on differentapproaches to disciplinary self-reflection that have accompanied the field from the verybeginning.2 In this way, it introduces the reader to a variety of sources not very well known inthe Anglophone world. Therefore, the penultimate section of this chapter, originally titled “The structure of this handbook” might on the one hand appear to some to be too specific for the current volume. On the other hand, however, it serves as a concrete example of how the field may be configured.

Gender Regimes in Western Societies from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century

2012 ◽  
Vol 67 (03) ◽  
pp. 391-399
Author(s):  
Didier Lett
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Regimes ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has become such an important subject in international historiography over the last two decades that it might appear odd to devote an entire dossier of the Annales to the topic. However, the relative success of this field of research may also conceal ambiguities in both the intellectual project underlying the term as well as its reception in the social sciences. For certain authors, undertaking a history of gender has meant writing a history of women. Though this form of history now enjoys proper recognition, it is still depreciated in two ways: on the one hand, it is qualified as a militant—and therefore unscholarly—history; and, on the other, it is criticized according to some vague argument claiming that no matter how it is labeled—“gender” or “women”—the inquiry is already dated. Without a doubt, the now canonical expression “history of women and gender” has generated real confusion among those scholars who are not particularly engaged with the field.1

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

Emerson's Atom and the Matter of Suffering

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-47
Author(s):  
Mark Noble
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Classical Field Theory ◽  
Classical Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Solid Bodies ◽  
Lines Of Force

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson's interest in the cutting-edge science of his generation helps to shape his understanding of persons as fluid expressions of power rather than solid bodies. In his 1872 "Natural History of Intellect," Emerson correlates the constitution of the individual mind with the tenets of Michael Faraday's classical field theory. For Faraday, experimenting with electromagnetism reveals that the atom is a node or point on a network, and that all matter is really the arrangement of energetic lines of force. This atomic model offers Emerson a technology for envisioning a materialized subjectivity that both unravels personal identity and grants access to impersonal power. On the one hand, adopting Faraday's field theory resonates with many of the affirmative philosophical and ethical claims central to Emerson's early essays. On the other hand, however, distributing the properties of Faraday's atoms onto the properties of the person also entails moments in which materialized subjects encounter their own partiality, limitation, and suffering. I suggest that Emerson represents these aspects of experience in terms that are deliberately discrepant from his conception of universal power. He presumes that if every experience boils down to the same lines of force, then the particular can be trivialized with respect to the general. As a consequence, Emerson must insulate his philosophical assertions from contamination by our most poignant experiences of limitation. The essay concludes by distinguishing Emersonian "Necessity" from Friedrich Nietzsche's similar conception of amor fati, which routes the affirmation of fate directly through suffering.

scholarly journals Content and stylistic peculiarities of non-canonical Orthodox Internet Sermon in modern Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Konstantin S. Sharov
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Goals And Objectives ◽  
Technical Professions

The paper is concerned with a study of the changing content and style of non-canonical Christian religious preaching in the digital age. Special attention is paid to the analysis of modern rhetoric Christian preachers practice in their Internet channels, forums and blogs. It is shown that the content of the Internet sermon is largely determined by the Internet users themselves and the topics of their appeals. The fundamental characteristics of the content of the Internet sermon are: 1) focus on the individual, their private goals and objectives, not just on theological problems; 2) rethinking the phenomenon of the neighbour; 3) a shift from the Hesychast tradition of preaching the importance of inner spiritual concentration to the preaching of religious interactivity. The observed stylistic features of the digital preaching can be summarised as follows: 1) moving away from simple answers to the rhetoric of new questions addressed to the audience; 2) empathy, co-participation with a person in his/her life conflicts and experiences; 3) desire to share religious information, not to impose it; 4) resorting to various rhetorical techniques to reach different audiences; 5) a tendency to use slang, sometimes even irrespective of the audience’s language preferences and expectations. It should be pointed out that the Orthodox Internet sermon in the Russian Internet space has a dual and contradictory nature. On the one hand, this phenomenon can be regarded as positive for the Orthodox preaching in general, since it is a means of spreading Christian ideas in the social groups that do not constitute a core of parishioners of Orthodox churches, for example, schoolchildren, students, representatives of technical professions, etc. On the other hand, the effectiveness of such preaching is still unclear. Lack of reliable statistics as well as the results of the survey related to the Orthodox Internet preaching gives us no opportunity to judge about effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the phenomenon at this stage of its development.

scholarly journals Pragmatisme og "practice turn"

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Antje Gimmler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The Other ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Practices are of central relevance both to philosophical pragmatism and to the recent ‘Practice Turn’ in social sciences and philosophy. However, what counts as practices and how practices and knowledge are combined or intertwine varies in the different approaches of pragmatism and those theories that are covered by the umbrella term ‘Practice Turn’. The paper tries to show that the pragmatism of John Dewey is able to offer both a more precise and a more radical understanding of practices than the recent ‘Practice Turn’ allows for. The paper on the one hand highlights what pragmatism has to offer to the practice turn in order to clarify the notion of practice. On the other hand the paper claims that a pragmatism inspired by Dewey actually interprets ‘practices’ more radically than most of the other approaches and furthermore promotes an understanding of science that combines nonrepresentationalism and anti-foundationalism with an involvement of the philosopher or the social scientist in the production of knowledge, things and technologies.

Does Popper Explain Historical Explanation?

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

It is one of Karl Popper's great distinctions that he has an intense—some would say too intense—awareness of the history of philosophy within which he works. He knows not only its patterns, but also its comedies, and sometimes he plays rhetorically against their grain. He knows, for example, that the drive to consistency tends to turn philosophy into compositions of related doctrines, each seeming to involve the others. Religious belief, for example, tends to go with idealism and free will, religious scepticism with materialism and determinism. Popper does not believe in a religion, was for long some kind of a socialist, and takes his bearings from the philosophy of science. Aha! it seems we have located him. Here is a positivist, a materialist, probably a determinist. But of course he denies he is any of these things. Again, like many modern thinkers, he wants to extend scientific method not only to the social sciences but also to history. So far so familiar, until we discover that he regards nature as no less ‘cloudy’ than human societies.

Scientific Explanation

Philosophy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Pitt ◽  
Steven Mischler
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Carl Hempel ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Individual

The modern search for an adequate general theory of explanation is an outgrowth of the logical positivist’s agenda: to lay the groundwork for a general unified theory of science. Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim’s “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” (Hempel and Oppenheim 1948, cited under the Deductive-Nomological Model of Explanation) was the first major attempt to put forth an account that met the positivist’s criteria. It initiated a lively debate that has continued up to the present. But as the attention of the philosophers of science became increasingly focused on the individual sciences, it quickly became clear that one general theory of explanation would not do since the particulars of the various sciences called for different accounts of what constituted an adequate explanation in physics and biology as well as chemistry, etc. This article attempts to capture the flavor of the debates and the nature of the shifting targets over the years. It does not profess to be complete, being largely restricted to work published in English, but it is a start. While the modern debates surrounding explanation can be said to begin with Hempel and Oppenheim, the history of philosophical accounts of explanation can be traced at least to Aristotle, whose metaphysics set the logical framework for explanations until Galileo urged that appeals to metaphysical categories be replaced by mathematics and measurement. For the most part, Galileo was not interested in appealing to causes or occult forces. The account of how things behaved was to be expressed in the language of mathematics. Descartes tried to capitalize on that insight with his resurrection of medieval discussions of causation relying on Aristotle’s framework framed in a mathematical physics, only to be countered by Newton, who introduced non-Aristotelian causal explanation grounded in mathematical physics. Finally John Stuart Mill begins the long march to contemporary accounts of causal explanation in both the physical and the social sciences, again relying on certain key assumptions about human nature. So the history of explanation is long and intertwined with a variety of metaphysical frameworks. The Positivists of the 20th century unsuccessfully eschewed metaphysics and sought to create an account of causal explanation that somehow aimed to stick strictly to the dictates of science, only to be thwarted by the metaphysical assumptions in the sciences themselves.

Critical Realism for Ethnography

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Banfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Sociological Practice ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Developments ◽  
British Philosopher

While specific applications of critical realism to ethnography are few, theoretical developments are promising and await more widespread development. This is especially the case for progressive and critical forms of ethnography that strive to be, in critical realist terms, an “emancipatory science.” However, the history of ethnography reveals that both the field and its emancipatory potential are limited by methodological tendencies toward “naïve realism” and “relativism.” This is the antimony of ethnography. The conceptual and methodological origins of ethnography are grounded in the historical tensions between anti-naturalist Kantian idealism and hyper-naturalist Humean realism. The resolution of these tensions can be found in the conceptual resources of critical realism. Working from, and building upon, the work of British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, critical realism is a movement in the philosophy of science that transcends the limits of Kantian idealism and Humean realism via an emancipatory anti-positivist naturalism. Critical realism emerged as part of the post-positivist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From its Marxian origins, critical realism insists that all science, including the social sciences, must be emancipatory. At its essence, this requires taking ontology seriously. The call of critical realism to ethnographers, like all social scientists, is that while they must hold to epistemological caution this does not warrant ontological shyness. Furthermore, critical realism’s return to ontology implies that ethnographers must be ethically serious. Ethnography, if it is to hold to its progressive inclinations, must be about something. Critical realism for ethnography pushes the field to see itself as more than a sociological practice. Rather, it is to be understood as a social practice for something: the universalizing of human freedom.

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