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This is actually why we have in the social sciences the concept of abduction. Finding out something that defies the rules, where new rules have to be created. I
by _glass 4y ago
This is actually why we have in the social sciences the concept of abduction. Finding out something that defies the rules, where new rules have to be created. In deduction, you have a type, and infer the tokens. For induction, you have tokes and infer a type. But for abduction, you have a radically new token, where the type needs to be created. I am pretty sure that the techy infosec community finds out that it's closer to the social sciences.
- mjburgess 4y agoWell all explanation, imv, is abductive. But in scientific abduction, the "types" are properties which obtain invariantly across "the space in which they're located". Eg., water heats the same regardless of where it is, assuming identical other conditions. Whereas if we think of human society (, psychology, threats, etc.) as a space, then properties arent invariant (eg., there's path dependence). Hence, I dont think there is such a thing as a "social science". I think we'd be better of ditching the term science entirely, and scrapping much of the scientific method here. We need a new term, we arent building explanations, but rather ways of coping not having them. A kind of "empirical-speculative coping".
- _glass 4y agoI might be misunderstanding you, exactly because I am a social scientist, and we have different kind of vocabulary. Maybe a definition by group instead of an understanding of reality that differs. Your approach looks to me more like what the social sciences critique as a paradigm, the positivist approach, where everything has to be law-like, "nomothetic". From there a stack of ontological/epistemological revelations are following, (the postmodern is one of them). But I think our backgrounds are very different, so that would need a few cups of coffee or tea :)
- mjburgess 4y agoSure, imv, "science" as a term is "positivist" project. There is no such thing as a "scientific critique" of a "paradigm". There can be a philosophical critique of a paradigm. The very phrase, "a social science critique of a paradigm" shows that "social science" isn't a science -- which is no bad thing. My point is there can't be a social science. Since "society" is an object the scientific method fails on.
- _glass 4y agoI am German, maybe this makes the difference. We define science as an object of study, with the basic distinction between natural sciences, which can be explained, and the human sciences that have to be understood. The social sciences enhance in the way also the natural sciences, as everything is a social construct, even physical terms, what is a desert, what is climate, or even what is a man or a woman. Philosophy once included natural philosophy where we would now locate the scientific method. But hermeneutics is equally a scientific method. The reduction of science to the explanation of "certain" physical phenomena is exactly why we then fail to understand the world.
- mjburgess 4y agoSure, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft#Compared_to_the_term_%22science%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft#Compared_to_the_t... "hermeneutics" isnt a scientific method in the english sense: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
- progrus 4y agoWell, except to Feyerabend’s revolutionaries, who say that all science is Calvinball: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method