Logical Positivism II
This week we read Hempel and Ragin. To get the conversation rolling, I will post a few questions and/or comments.
Hempel distinguishes between scientific and pseudo-scientific explanations. Scientific explanations are deduced from universal laws, while pseudo-scientific explanations are based on metaphors. Is it not the case that by appealing to universal 'laws' Hempel is engaged in pseudo-science? Is he, in effect, using metaphors to explain causation?
If events can be deduced from universal laws, then why are you in graduate school? What universal law caused you to be here? Did you have any choice in the matter? Was it inevitable? Or by chance? Or does this seem bogus?
Throughout the book, Ragin warns against unspoken presumptions that then become embedded in empirical generalizations. For instance, he warns against the problem of presuming unit homogeneity, which then becomes embedded in generalizations about the empirical world. It seems to me that Ragin's analysis suffers from unspoken presumptions. For instance, he seems to presume that language has no epistemological status or role in social science. He seems to presume that langauge is transparent; that language purely and unproblematically conveys information from one person to another. Does he make this presumption? Should the presumption be made explicit? Can language be causal? Is language opaque? Problematic?
Are any events inevitable or necessary? Might they not be historically contingent upon a number of forces converging together at a particular time and place?
Hempel distinguishes between scientific and pseudo-scientific explanations. Scientific explanations are deduced from universal laws, while pseudo-scientific explanations are based on metaphors. Is it not the case that by appealing to universal 'laws' Hempel is engaged in pseudo-science? Is he, in effect, using metaphors to explain causation?
If events can be deduced from universal laws, then why are you in graduate school? What universal law caused you to be here? Did you have any choice in the matter? Was it inevitable? Or by chance? Or does this seem bogus?
Throughout the book, Ragin warns against unspoken presumptions that then become embedded in empirical generalizations. For instance, he warns against the problem of presuming unit homogeneity, which then becomes embedded in generalizations about the empirical world. It seems to me that Ragin's analysis suffers from unspoken presumptions. For instance, he seems to presume that language has no epistemological status or role in social science. He seems to presume that langauge is transparent; that language purely and unproblematically conveys information from one person to another. Does he make this presumption? Should the presumption be made explicit? Can language be causal? Is language opaque? Problematic?
Are any events inevitable or necessary? Might they not be historically contingent upon a number of forces converging together at a particular time and place?
posted by Anonymous at 10:46 AM
1 Comments:
Yersss.... it seems that certainty itself is under the spotlight this week, with Hempel drawing attention to the flaws and wrinkles of historical inquiry and Ragin offering a kind of codified uncertainty as an analytic model for the social sciences.
I was so struck by the frequency of weird assumptions about the profession of the historian in Hempel that I am convinced I must have missed his point, and look forward to being brought up to speed on these during class. As far as Ragin goes, though, I found myself carrying his triangular distribution idea forward throughout the text, and this has led me to suggest a dimensional model for his idea; if he is talking of conventional (case X variable) research, encompassing both quant and qual as a kind of Cartesian plane of possibilities (so that the 'output' is conceivable as a picture or image, like his triangular scatter plot) then is the call for diversity-focused research a plea for a third dimension (case X variable x continuum) which represents the x & y axis flat image as a 3-dimensional one? A traingular scatter plot is just a collapsed pyramid (or, more precisely, a triangular plane resting on one point) in this concept, with the fuzzy mechanic and a kind of sliding redefinition of terms providing the z-axis.
Indeed. Yes, I like fuzzy sets. Although they seem to, like most models, open the door to implicit-favourite option loading. The more you have to model, the more you have to set weights and relational equations, the more you are able to (or perhaps are unable to avoid) building an outcome machine that produces precisely the outcome you are looking for. In this respect, Ragin's celebration of diversity over homogeneity seems less of an enlightened vision and more of a hedge against bad researchers.
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