Simulating Machines: Modelling, Metaphysics and the Mechanosphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-374
Author(s):  
F. LeRon Shults
Keyword(s):  
Computer Modelling ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Major Section

This article explores some of the ways in which the conceptual apparatus of A Thousand Plateaus, and especially its machinic metaphysics, can be connected to recent developments in computer modelling and social simulation, which provide new tools for thinking that are becoming increasingly popular among philosophers and social scientists. Conversely, the successful deployment of these tools provides warrant for the flat ontology articulated in A Thousand Plateaus and therefore contributes to the ‘reversal of Platonism’ for which Deleuze had called in his earlier works, such as Logic of Sense. The first major section offers a brief exposition of some key concepts in A Thousand Plateaus in order to set the stage for the second and third major sections, which argue that the fabrication of a metaphysics of immanence can be accelerated by connecting its conceptual apparatus more explicitly to insights derived from philosophical analyses of computational modelling and simulation and the social scientific use of ‘assemblage theory’. The article concludes with a summary of the argument and a brief consideration of some of the potential ethical and political implications of this interdisciplinary engagement.

scholarly journals Conceptual frameworks for social and cultural Big Data analytics: Answering the epistemological challenge

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171882381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Resnyansky
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Epistemological Challenge ◽  
Social Scientific

This paper aims to contribute to the development of tools to support an analysis of Big Data as manifestations of social processes and human behaviour. Such a task demands both an understanding of the epistemological challenge posed by the Big Data phenomenon and a critical assessment of the offers and promises coming from the area of Big Data analytics. This paper draws upon the critical social and data scientists’ view on Big Data as an epistemological challenge that stems not only from the sheer volume of digital data but, predominantly, from the proliferation of the narrow-technological and the positivist views on data. Adoption of the social-scientific epistemological stance presupposes that digital data was conceptualised as manifestations of the social. In order to answer the epistemological challenge, social scientists need to extend the repertoire of social scientific theories and conceptual frameworks that may inform the analysis of the social in the age of Big Data. However, an ‘epistemological revolution’ discourse on Big Data may hinder the integration of the social scientific knowledge into the Big Data analytics.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE: REFLECTIONS ON THE ANALYSIS OF PIETY POLITICS

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-415
Author(s):  
Dunya D. Cakir
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Women Intellectuals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Discourses ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Intellectual Activism

AbstractExamining the writings of prominent Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey, including Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, and Nazife Şişman, this article explores the repercussions of their intellectual activism for how scholars understand and study piety politics. These Islamist women intellectuals, whose discourse and subjectivities have been translated into analytical categories by scholars of piety politics, contest the terms of their encounters with academics and, more broadly, the conversion of Muslim women into objects of research. Their writings shed light on the complex interpretative interplay between academic and lay discourse when the objects of scholarly study speak back to social scientists. I argue that these kinds of critical engagements between Islamist women intellectuals and social scientific discourses attest to the mobility and circularity of social scientific categories, which have infused and reconstituted Islamist debates in Turkey. Rather than uncritically endorse or dispute these intellectuals’ interpretations of social scientific accounts, I leverage their claims to underscore the social life of academic discourse and to promote an enriched vision of piety politics and reflexive methodology.

Feminism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Contextual Values ◽  
Second Wave

Feminists have two sorts of interest in the social sciences. With the advent of the second-wave women’s movement, they developed wide-ranging critiques of gender bias in the conceptual framework and methodology, as well as in the goals, institutions and practice of virtually all the social sciences; they argue that the social sciences both reflect and contribute to the sexism of the larger societies in which they are embedded. Alongside these critiques feminist practitioners have established constructive programmes of research that are intended to rectify the inadequacies of existing traditions of research and to address questions of concern to women. In this they are committed both to improving the disciplines in which they participate and to establishing a sound empirical and theoretical basis for feminist activism. This engagement of feminists with social science, as commentators and practitioners, raises a number of philosophical issues that have been addressed by feminist social scientists and philosophers. These include questions about ideals of objectivity and the role of contextual values in social scientific inquiry, the goals of feminist research, the forms of practice appropriate to these goals, and the responsibilities of feminist researchers to the subjects of inquiry and to those who may otherwise be affected by its conduct or results.

Power without Knowledge

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Survey Research ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Know How ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Policy Solutions

Technocrats claim to know how to solve the social and economic problems of complex modern societies. But this would require predicting how people will act once technocrats impose their policy solutions. Power Without Knowledge argues that people’s ideas, w hich govern their deliberate actions, are too heterogeneous for their behavior to be reliably predicted. Thus, a technocracy of social-scientific experts cannot be expected to accomplish its objectives. The author also shows that a large part of contemporary mass politics, even populist mass politics, is technocratic, as members of the general public often assume that they are competent to decide which policies or politicians will be able to solve social and economic problems. How, then, do “citizen-technocrats” make these decisions? Drawing on political psychology and survey research, the author contends that people often assume that the solutions to social problems are self-evident, such that politics becomes a matter of vetting public officials for their good intentions and strong wills, not their knowledge. Turning to the more conventional meaning of technocracy, the author argues that social scientists, too, drastically oversimplify technocratic realities, but in an entirely different manner. Neoclassical economists, for example, theorize that people respond rationally to the incentives they face. This theory is simplistic, but it creates the appearance that people’s behavior is predictable. Without such oversimplifications, the author argues, technocracy would be seen by technocrats themselves to be chimerical.

scholarly journals Why resilience is unappealing to social science: Theoretical and empirical investigations of the scientific use of resilience

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. e1400217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart Olsson ◽  
Anne Jerneck ◽  
Henrik Thoren ◽  
Johannes Persson ◽  
David O’Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Resilience Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
Sustainability Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
And Function ◽  
Integrated Sustainability

Resilience is often promoted as a boundary concept to integrate the social and natural dimensions of sustainability. However, it is a troubled dialogue from which social scientists may feel detached. To explain this, we first scrutinize the meanings, attributes, and uses of resilience in ecology and elsewhere to construct a typology of definitions. Second, we analyze core concepts and principles in resilience theory that cause disciplinary tensions between the social and natural sciences (system ontology, system boundary, equilibria and thresholds, feedback mechanisms, self-organization, and function). Third, we provide empirical evidence of the asymmetry in the use of resilience theory in ecology and environmental sciences compared to five relevant social science disciplines. Fourth, we contrast the unification ambition in resilience theory with methodological pluralism. Throughout, we develop the argument that incommensurability and unification constrain the interdisciplinary dialogue, whereas pluralism drawing on core social scientific concepts would better facilitate integrated sustainability research.

4. Historical Materialism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Herring
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sectoral Approach ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
And Gender

This chapter examines historical materialism and its approach to understanding what constitutes security. It begins with an overview of of the social scientific, philosophical, and political dimensions of historical materialism and what it involves, including its diversity, value, and potential but avoidable pitfalls. It then describes key concepts of historical materialism and uses them to show how capitalism generally and in its recent neoliberal form aim to generate insecurity for labour and security for capital. It also discusses the relationships between historical materialism and approaches to security in a wider context (realism, liberalism, social constructivism, and gender) and to various perspectives on security (securitization and the sectoral approach, peace studies, Critical Security Studies, and human security). The chapter concludes with an overall assessment of the contribution of historical materialism to the scholarship and politics of security and insecurity.

Social science as apologia

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102199096
Author(s):  
Federico Brandmayr
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

The social sciences are predominantly seen by their practitioners as critical endeavours, which should inform criticism of harmful institutions, beliefs and practices. Accordingly, political attacks on the social sciences are often interpreted as revealing an unwillingness to accept criticism and an acquiescence with the status quo. But this dominant view of the political implications of social scientific knowledge misses the fact that people can also be outraged by what they see as its apologetic potential, namely that it provides excuses or justifications for people doing bad things, preventing them from being rightfully blamed and punished. This introduction to the special issue sketches the long history of debates about the exculpatory and justificatory consequences of social science and lays the foundations for a theory of social scientific apologia by examining three main aspects: what social and cognitive processes motivate this type of accusation, how social theorists respond to it and whether different contexts of circulation of ideas affect how these controversies unfold.

scholarly journals Iran

1985 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-61
Author(s):  
Tahir Amin
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Major Objective ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Type ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
Political Scene

INTRODUCTIONPolitical and economic developments in the post revolutionary Iranpresent a special dilemma to outside observers in general and to socialscientists in particular as many developments do not seem to fit theusualpolitical and economic categories with which the social scientists arenormally familiar. As a result, most analysts of contemporary Iran,approaching the reality from the rigidly preconceived conceptual lenses,tend to grossly distort the actual picture. The contemporary situation inIran is usually portrayed as one of utter chaos and turmoil with little orno hope for any progress in the future. It is seen as ruled by “emptyheadkid”,“conservative”, “brutal,” and “incompetent” mullahs who arebent upon destroying any signs of progress and civilization. Eventhe moderate analysts who seem to be less preoccupied with their biasesand more cognizant of the new realities, appear to dismiss any long-termconsequences of the current changes taking place in contemporary Iran.My major objective in the following pages is to develop an alternativeimage of the same reality. I argue here that slowly and gradually, a newpolitical and economic order is emerging in Iran, whose broad objectivesand outlines are clear. A major distinguishing characteristic of thisorder is its public welfarist orientation with special attention to thelower-middle and lower classes. And this order has the potential of sofundamentally transforming the political scene in Iran in the long runwhere the old issues and the old actors are most likely to be irrelevant tothe new type of politics. Once successful, the political implications of thisorder will have a much wider effect on the Muslim world than commonlyassumed.This paper has four sections. The first section deals with the ideology ofthe Islamic republic. Examining the ideas of the leading revolutionarythinkers, we shall try to establish a criteria against which the regime’spolitical and economic performance is to be assessed. The second sectionof the paper describes the nature of key political and economicinstitutions established in the aftermath of the revolution and their modeof functioning. The third part of the paper is concerned with theeconomic performance of the regime over the past five years. We shallassess its performance in two ways: (a) in light of the criteria establishedin the first part of the paper and (b) a brief comparison of the IslamicRepublic’s five year performance with the prerevolutionary Iran’s lastfive-year plan (1973-1978). The final section of the paper summarizes themajor conclusions of this study and also attempts to project a likelyfuture scenario ...

Social Science Data Analysis

2013 ◽  
pp. 131-147
Author(s):  
Anthony Scime ◽  
Gregg R. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Behavioral Predictions

Social scientists address some of the most pressing issues of society such as health and wellness, government processes and citizen reactions, individual and collective knowledge, working conditions and socio-economic processes, and societal peace and violence. In an effort to understand these and many other consequential issues, social scientists invest substantial resources to collect large quantities of data, much of which are not fully explored. This chapter proffers the argument that privacy protection and responsible use are not the only ethical considerations related to data mining social data. Given (1) the substantial resources allocated and (2) the leverage these “big data” give on such weighty issues, this chapter suggests social scientists are ethically obligated to conduct comprehensive analysis of their data. Data mining techniques provide pertinent tools that are valuable for identifying attributes in large data sets that may be useful for addressing important issues in the social sciences. By using these comprehensive analytical processes, a researcher may discover a set of attributes that is useful for making behavioral predictions, validating social science theories, and creating rules for understanding behavior in social domains. Taken together, these attributes and values often present previously unknown knowledge that may have important applied and theoretical consequences for a domain, social scientific or otherwise. This chapter concludes with examples of important social problems studied using various data mining methodologies including ethical concerns.

scholarly journals De-Signing the Object of Sociology: Toward an ‘Idiotic’ Methodology

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 166-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Michael
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Everyday Objects ◽  
Demand Reduction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific Research ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Isabelle Stengers ◽  
Speculative Design

This paper outlines a version of ‘live sociology’ that enacts and engages with the openness and processuality of events. This is initially explored through a focus on everyday objects that, in their relationality, ‘misbehave’, potentially challenging standard sociological framings. Drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers, it is suggested that such objects can be understood as ‘idiotic’ – possessed of an incommensurability that enables social scientists to ‘slow down’ and reflect upon ‘what is busily being done’ (not least by the social scientists themselves). This responsiveness to the idiot object is then contrasted to the proactive idiocy of Speculative Design. Here, artefacts – probes and prototypes – are designed to have oblique and ambiguous functions that allow both their users and designers to open up what is at stake in particular events. Examples taken from past and current research are used to illustrate how speculative designs can open up what ‘the neighbourhood’ and ‘energy demand reduction’ can be. The paper ends with a discussion of a possible ‘idiotic methodology’ and its implications for the conceptual and practical doings of social scientific research.

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