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The "Science" of Social Science - Deduction, Induction and Beyond

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The patch.com The "science" of Social Science - deduction, induction and beyond Mick Chisnall Joanna Richards Graduate Research Forum - 21 May 2019 IGPA / BGL Today ● Positivism ● How positivists explain why things happen ● Firing a cannon ● Finding the “God” Particle ● Where do hypotheses come from? ● A post-positive position ● Questions and Discussions Positivism A philosophical term referring to the dominant / hegemonic position operating in social and natural science research ● modern formulation due to Auguste Comte in early C19 ● based on empiricism - knowledge based only on sensory experience - no “a priori metaphysics” or theology ● sensory experience interpreted through reason and logic ● the world operates through general “covering laws” which a scientific approach aims to discover I argue for a “post” i.e. after positivist approach for social science How positivists explain why things happen “True” explanations through a deductive-nomological process: ● explanations and predictions deduced from premises or initial conditions and a general or universal covering law applied ● maths used as a truth-functional system of logic and through its theories of statistical probability, therefore quantitative (numeric) ● drives a hypothetical-deductive scientific methodology where “theories are corroborated or falsified by deducing empirical statements or predictions, and then testing these against observational evidence” (Glynos and Howarth 2007 after Karl Popper). A deductive - nomological example from physics. Firing a cannon. How long will the cannon ball fly? Here are the starting conditions Here is the covering law of gravity in action Here is the prediction Here is the deductive which can be verified logic through observation CERN finds the “God” particle In 2012, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) provided experimental evidence for the theoretically predicted HIggs-Boson particle: Mathematical Statistical Model The Standard Model Higgs boson is excluded at 95% CL [confidence level] in the mass range 111–559 GeV, except for the narrow region 122–131 GeV. ... These results provide conclusive evidence for the discovery of a new particle with mass 126.0 ± 0.4 (stat) ± 0.4 (sys) GeV (CERN 2012). Observation Prediction Critiques of positivism in the Social Sciences - the “epistemic fallacy” Roy Bhaskar (1998) - social data comes from “open systems” ● that is, in systems where invariant empirical regularities do not obtain. For social systems are not spontaneously, and cannot be experimentally, closed. ... practically all the theories of orthodox philosophy of science, and the methodological directives they secrete, presuppose closed systems. Because of this, they are totally inapplicable in the social sciences ... Humean theories of causality and law, deductive-nomological and statistical models of explanation, inductivist theories of scientific development and criteria of confirmation, Popperian theories of scientific rationality and criteria of falsification, together with the hermeneutical contrasts parasitic upon them, must all be totally discarded ... Where do hypothetical explanations come from? Charles Sanders Pierce (1934) described three types of reasoning: ● Abduction [Retroduction], Induction, and Deduction. ● Deduction is the only necessary reasoning [i.e. formal logic]. It is the reasoning of mathematics. It starts from a hypothesis, the truth or falsity of which has nothing to do with the reasoning; and of course its conclusions are equally ideal. … although it is reasoning concerning probabilities. ● Induction is the experimental testing of a theory. ... It sets out with a theory and it measures the degree of concordance of that theory with fact. It never can originate any idea whatever. No more can deduction. ● All the ideas of science come to it by the way of Abduction. Abduction consists in studying facts and devising a theory to explain them. Its only justification is that if we are ever to understand things at all, it must be in that way. A post-positive approach The natural science methodology is split into two phases: 1. creation of an hypothesis through retroductive and inductive reasoning; then 2. a deductive-nomological approach within a closed and controlled experiment predicting outcomes that can be verified Glynos and Howarth (2007) maintain that the first “discovery” phase is shared between the natural and social sciences. However: 1. in the social sciences the “retroductive circle” iterates around both phases. 2. A “Justification” phase replaces the verification of experimental predictions in an “open system” which requires standards of evidence, credibility, exhaustiveness and consistency. (Glynos and Howarth 2007) Questions & Discussion [email protected] [email protected] References Bhaskar, R 1998, The possibility of naturalism: a philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences, 3rd edn, London, New York, Routledge. CERN 2012, Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, Atlas Collaboration, CERN-PH-EP-2012-218, accessed 24 May 2018, available at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.7214.pdf. Glynos, J & Howarth, DR 2007, Logics of critical explanation in social and political theory, London, Routledge. Peirce, CS, Hartshorne, C and Weiss, P 1934, Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: Vol. 5: Pragmatism and pragmaticism, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Popper, KR 2002, Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge, London, Routledge. ..
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