A Phenomenological Critique of the Idea of Social Science
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A Phenomenological Critique of the Idea of Social Science Jonathan D. F. Tuckett 17/11/2014 Submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. in Religious Studies School of Literature and Languages Religion University of Stirling Abstract Social science is in crisis. The task of social science is to study “man in situation”: to understand the world as it is for “man”. This thesis charges that this crisis consists in a failure to properly address the philosophical anthropological question “What is man?”. The various social scientific methodologies who have as their object “man” suffer rampant disagreements because they presuppose, rather than consider, what is meant by “man”. It is our intention to show that the root of the crisis is that social science can provide no formal definition of “man”. In order to understand this we propose a phenomenological analysis into the essence of social science. This phenomenological approach will give us reason to abandon the (sexist) word “man” and instead we will speak of wer: the beings which we are. That we have not used the more usual “human being” (or some equivalent) is due to the human prejudice which is one of the major constituents of this crisis we seek to analyse. This thesis is divided into two Parts: normative and evaluative. In the normative Part we will seek a clarification of both “phenomenology” and “social science”. Due to the various ways in which “phenomenology” has been invented we must secure a simipliciter definition of phenomenology as an approach to philosophical anthropology (Chapter 2). Importantly, we will show how the key instigators of the branches of phenomenology, Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, and Sartre, were all engaged in this task. To clarify our phenomenology we will define the Phenomenological Movement according to various strictures by drawing on the work of Schutz and his notion of provinces of meaning (Chapter 3). This will then be carried forward to show how Schutz’s postulates of social science (with certain clarifications) constitute the eidetic structure of social science (Chapter 4). The eidetic structures of social science identified will prompt several challenges that will be addressed in the evaluative Part. Here we engage in an imperial argument to sort proper science from pseudo-science. The first challenge is the mistaken assumption that universities and democratic states make science possible (Chapter 5). Contra this, we argue that science is predicated on “spare time” and that much institutional “science” is not in fact science. The second challenge is the “humanist challenge”: there is no such thing as nonpractical knowledge (Chapter 6). Dealing with this will require a reconsideration of the epistemic status that science has and lead to the claim of epistemic inferiority. Having cut away pseudo-science we will be able to focus on the “social” of social science through a consideration of intersubjectivity (Chapter 7). Drawing on the above phenomenologists we will focus on how an Other is recognised as Other. Emphasising Sartre’s radical re-conception of “subject” and “object” we will argue that there can be no formal criteria for how this recognition occurs. By consequence we must begin to move away from the assumption of one life-world to various life-worlds, each constituted by different conceptions of wer. 1 Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the supervision of Dr. Timothy Fitzgerald. Without him, I would not have been pushed to develop a stronger argument than I ever conceived when I first started this PhD. My thanks also to Dr. Andrew Hass, his advice was invaluable when the thesis was at a crossroads. To my mother and sisters I owe a lot of emotional support. Finally, my gratitude to Dr. Tanja Staehler and Dr. William Marshall for their comments during the viva. 2 Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4 i. Seeing the crisis ............................................................................................................................... 6 ii. Philosophy of social science ......................................................................................................... 15 iii. Proper phenomenology ................................................................................................................ 19 iv. The phenomenological analysis of social science ........................................................................ 21 Part I .......................................................................................................................................................... 25 2. Phenomenology Simpliciter .............................................................................................................. 27 i. Phenomenology and phenomenology-of-religion .......................................................................... 27 ii. The Phenomenological Movement ............................................................................................... 33 iii. The early branches of the Movement ........................................................................................... 41 iv. The fourth branch of the Movement ............................................................................................ 60 3. Phenomenology Proper ..................................................................................................................... 68 i. Alfred Schutz as Husserl’s successor ............................................................................................. 68 ii. Constituents of a province of meaning.......................................................................................... 75 iii. Proper phenomenology ................................................................................................................ 83 4. The Essence of social science ............................................................................................................ 97 i. Social Science as an ideal type....................................................................................................... 97 ii. The postulates of social science .................................................................................................. 101 iii. Proper phenomenology as social science ................................................................................... 116 Part II ....................................................................................................................................................... 122 5. The Possibility of science ................................................................................................................ 124 i. The practical possibility of science .............................................................................................. 124 ii. Science and institutions............................................................................................................... 132 iii. The essential possibility of science ............................................................................................ 139 6. The Epistemic Status of science ...................................................................................................... 147 i. The humanist challenge ............................................................................................................... 148 ii. The epistemic superiority of naturalism ...................................................................................... 151 iii. From “is” to “ought” .................................................................................................................. 158 iv. Objectivity and neutrality ........................................................................................................... 166 7. The Crisis of social science ............................................................................................................. 174 i. “Knowledge about” and “knowledge of” ..................................................................................... 174 ii. “Knowledge that” and “knowledge how” ................................................................................... 183 iii. Wer without end ......................................................................................................................... 191 iv. Ferhđcund science ..................................................................................................................... 198 Glossary ............................................................................................................................................... 208 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 208 3 1. Introduction Social science is in crisis. As understood by Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) a crisis involves ‘an event or situation that cannot be met by applying the traditional and habitual pattern of behaviour and interpretation’ (Schutz, 1964i:231). To speak of a crisis of social science is to declare as Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) did in the opening of The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Philosophy (Crisis) (1936[1970c]) that ‘the crisis of science indicates nothing less than that its genuine scientific character, the whole manner in which it has set its task and developed a methodology for it, has become questionable’