Boundaries Of Competence: How Social Studies Make Feeble Science

334 Pages·2003·11.968 MB·English

by  Gwynn Nettler

How Social Studies Make
Feeble Science
0
Transaction Publishers
New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)
3 w f )
(Lah—
Copyright © 2003 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Con¬
ventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
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or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in
writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction
Publishers, Rutgers—The State University, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New
Jersey 08854-8042.
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2003050774
ISBN: 0-7658-0179-5
Printed in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nettler, Gwynne.
Boundaries of competence : how social studies make feeble science /
Gwynne Nettler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7658-0179-5 (alk. paper)
1. Social sciences—Methodology. 2. Social sciences—Philosophy.
I. Title.
H61.N468 2003
300'. 1—dc21 y 2003050774
“Skepticism is the chastity of the intel¬
lect, and it is shameful to surrender it too
soon or to the first comer....”
George Santayana,
Skepticism and Animal Faith, 1923
Cariegle MeHon Univer^
'■Hr: A
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Part 1: Perceiving and Conceiving
I. Primal Knowledge 3
, 2. Linguistic Follies 13
3. Varieties of Knowing 35
Part 2: Knowing with Numbers
4. Measurement 57
5. Units and Correlates 73
6. Probabilities 89
Part 3: Limited Vision
7. Social Facts 113
8. Vicarious Observation 133
Part 4: Explanation
9. Empathetic Explanation 173
10. Causal Explanation 191
Part 5: Policy
II. Rationality 215
12. Morality 223
%
Summing Up 237
Notes 243
References 269
Index 313
Preface
At Cambridge University, 1840, William Whewell invented the word, “sci¬
entist.” He derived the term from the Latin, scire, “to know,” and intended his
neologism to replace the phrase, “natural philosopher.” Until then, the latter
title had been used to denote those explorers who endeavored to decipher
Nature by disciplined reason and diligent observation rather than by unob¬
servant thought and appeal to authority. Whewell’s invention was an instant
success.
The tools that characterized these intellectual adventurers were publicly
verifiable observation and classification, measurement, experiment where
possible, and inductive inference. With these instruments, inquirers were ex¬
panding knowledge in such diverse domains as astronomy, anatomy and physi¬
ology, botany and biology, geology and geometry, chemistry and physics.
At the same time, 1830-1842, the French social reformer, Auguste Comte,
published a multi-volume thesis in which he argued that human thought was
evolving inevitably toward an overarching science he called “sociology.”
This progressive mode of comprehending social reality would make possible
policies that assured the universal, rational improvement of “the human con¬
dition.” The implicit logic was, “If Man is part of Nature, and if scientific
probes of Nature allow engineering of its parts to fit our dasires, then why not
a science of ourselves, applicable to the prediction and control of ourselves?”
Comte’s invention has been as successful as Whewell’s only in the name-
game. The word, “sociology,” has been adopted by the common lexicon. But
Comte’s Queen of Sciences has failed to perform as the vaunted “science of
the fundamental laws of social relations.”1
Nevertheless, words propagate, and they often do so by coupling, so that
the twentieth century saw the burgeoning of studies bearing the promissory
title, “social science.” This compound is now attached widely and loosely to
assorted inquiries about human action and condition.
Promising a science of social action poaches on the success of Natural
Philosophers. The honorific title, warranted by college degrees, proposes
new techniques for improving upon common sense, adds cachet to the opin¬
ions of those who certify themselves as “social scientist,” and provokes hostil¬
ity among other claimants to moral and political authority.
IX
x Boundaries of Competence
The contest continues. At issue is whether social scientists have contrib¬
uted to knowledge of human action and, if so, how much in which domains of
activity.
Some such contribution is evident, and is cited throughout this exercise.
If, to this advantage, we add the works of historians, biographers, biologists,
and neurophysiologists, then we assuredly know more today about our na¬
ture than we did as recently as ten years ago. But the tools we employ limit the
questions we can answer.
Chapters to follow describe some of these limits. They do so by noting
major impediments to an applied science of social action. Their message is
cautionary, not only for those who produce social science, but also for those
who consume our products.
Boundaries of our competence are apparent in three overlapping realms—
those of fact-finding, knowledge-creation, and knowledge-application.
Chapter 1 begins the story by grounding knowledge in perception. It
shows that a primitive form of “knowing”—the ability to classify and
discriminate among objects, actions, and actors—comes with the biologi¬
cal equipment of all organisms. We are not born blank slates. A sense of
reality is not merely socially constructed and therefore malleable according
to our desires.
However, language makes a difference. As we graduate from primal per¬
ception to conceptions of the world produced with symbols, language not
only expands our ability to conceive relations among individuals, things,
and events, it also opens doors to delusion.
Chapter 2 describes some of these invitations to folly. They are particu¬
larly abundant as social scientists regard the world through symbolic filters
that fuzz description with evaluation.
For the most part, students of social affairs work with ordinary language.
Unfortunately for science but happily for rhetoric,2 the terms of a vernacular
contain small kernels of denotation embraced by large auras of connotation
saturated with moral significance.
Such words can mean something without referring to anything observable.
They seduce our language-using species into drawing maps of reality with
symbols that evoke feelings but lack physical reference. This defect is serious
for, in the name of meaningful but empty abstractions, human beings kill
themselves and others. v
Chapter 3 describes a continuum of perceiving—conceiving involved in
different ways of “knowing” worlds. Scientific procedures are but one of
these modes with its own powers and limitations. Not all questions we ask are
empirical, and not all empirical questions can be answered.
Chapter 4 lays out the requirements of measurement. It argues that assign¬
ing numbers to dubious observations gives false assurance that mathematical
manipulations, as in “statistics,” necessarily represent events.
Preface xi
Chapter 5 continues the argument. It shows that social scientists’ most
popular tool for finding causes of human action—correlational analysis—
has defects. Among these is the likelihood that degrees of association re¬
vealed can change with the unit of measurement employed.
Chapter 6 holds that, given deficiencies in knowledge, and perhaps be¬
cause of the way Nature works, we assess probabilities rather than seek cer¬
tainties. Four different concepts of probability are described.
Chapter 7 illuminates the difficulty of counting events by noting the dif¬
ference between “brute facts” that exist independently of our observing them,
and “social facts” that depend on agreement among persons. Social facts are
invented and employed at varying “conceptual distance” from any brute
facts that might anchor them. The greater the “distance,” the more likely are
quarrels about their existence. As the language we use loses connection with
perceptible events, and hence reduces agreement about the denotation of
terms, ethico-political interests intrude to distort measurement.3
Social facts are slippery, and yet we have to handle them. Therefore, if we
are to be rational, we need to measure them. This presents another difficulty:
We cannot observe most of the activities that concern us. Instead, we invent
indirect probes that, with varying degrees of accuracy, reflect the conditions
and actions we wish to gauge.
Chapter 8 describes such “vicarious observation.” It shows how these sub¬
stitutes can yield “findings” that are wide of the targets of inquiry.
Despite the difficulties of accountancy, all of us try to explain events we
assume we’ve classified and tallied. Allaying curiosity is one such satisfac¬
tion, and an end-in-itself. Promise of a better world is another, popular kind of
satisfaction. In the United States, for example, we give prizes to those whose
explanatory schemes fortify hopes.
In the political arena, explanations satisfy insofar as they justify what we
already believe, and assure us that means are available with which to attain
our desired ends.
In general, and more pragmatically, we look to a science of social affairs to
improve anticipation of what may occur, and what may occur if we do, or do
not do, particular things. A science of social action, it’s been proposed,
will increase our power to predict events, both those that lie within the
compass of our individual lives and those that occur in the lives of others.
This aspiration poses three different, and difficult, tasks: “knowing” our¬
selves, “knowing” others, and “knowing” the likely effects of distant social
processes.
Acknowledging this complex of satisfactions, chapter 9 criticizes ways of
explaining conduct by characterizing actors and their acts, and by under¬
standing them through empathy.
Chapter 10 discusses the important, and never-ending, quarrel about cau¬
sation. It shows that causation is not one idea. In addition, we dispute the
xii Boundaries of Competence
location of causation (the what) and the style in which causes produce par¬
ticular social events (the how).
These pages also illuminate the difference between assigning causation
and attributing responsibility. It remarks on the difference between the job of
doing science, interpreting and administering law, and achieving justice.
Concluding chapters argue that, in social affairs, decision is regularly tom
between doing what is effective (rational) and doing what is right (moral).
Chapter 11 describes the nature of rational action. Chapter 12 addresses the
quality of moral feeling. While rational reasoning weighs means appropriate
to ends, morality guides choice of both ends and means.
Given moving mixtures of rational and moral stimulants to action, error-
free policies are beyond our powers. Unintended effects are common. Some of
these are neutral to our purposes; others are perverse, or what physicians call
“iatrogenic.”4 Our predicament is expressed by Garrett Hardin’s “First Law of
Ecology”: We can never do just one thing.