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F.A. Hayek[0] wrote in great depth about this "confabulation" (which he termed Scientism), and, ironically enough, lectured about it directly in his Nobel Prize

by cubano 12y ago

F.A. Hayek[0] wrote in great depth about this "confabulation" (which he termed Scientism), and, ironically enough, lectured about it directly in his Nobel Prize speech of 1974[1]. "It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrarily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible causes of the events which occur in the real world. This view, which is often quite naively accepted as required by scientific procedure, has some rather paradoxical consequences. We know: of course, with regard to the market and similar social structures, a great many facts which we cannot measure and on which indeed we have only some very imprecise and general information. And because the effects of these facts in any particular instance cannot be confirmed by quantitative evidence, they are simply disregarded by those sworn to admit only what they regard as scientific evidence: they thereupon happily proceed on the fiction that the factors which they can measure are the only ones that are relevant." [0] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Hayek.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Hayek.html [1] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1974/hayek-lecture.html http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/lau... [edits]

pron 12y ago
Since "confabulation" is our only option, Hayek warns against disguising it as science -- this is what happens in economics, he says. Most historians, on the other hand, understand the limits of their knowledge, don't try to make predictions (certainly not with the same definitiveness common to many economists), and don't disguise their narratives as physical science. The author of the article under discussion, though, seems to wish history was more like physics, which it just can't be.
- cubano 12y ago
  I think that was Hayek's exact point...that economics cannot be like physics either, and in fact goes on to postulate that very few of the sciences can and/or should be treated as hard.
- benbreen 12y ago
  Interesting discussion here. I don't think you're representing the author's point correctly, though, given the larger context of the work he's doing and current debates in the historical field. Here's what he says: "I suppose the point of this post is to articulate my growing concern that we are so damn good at coming up with post-facto historical explanations to contextualize any given observation, that we are particularly susceptible to confabulating these post-facto rationalizations with the idea that we somehow knew the results of this quantitative work already." The implication here, I think, is simply that historians should be open to multiple ways of testing explanations (i.e., combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, if those are available). And in the larger context of debates about digital humanities, he's swatting down the argument that DH simply tells us what we already knew, because if done right it can be used to add a new perspective on existing arguments. The point isn't that history should be science but that "scientific"/quantitative approaches can be used to test the validity of historical claims based on more traditional historical work, like finding manuscripts in archives, doing a close reading of a key text, tracing correspondence networks, tracing the material history of a painting or object, etc. I agree with him. Edited to add: also need to be careful about confusing prediction with explanation. Historians don't predict much, but we certainly try to explain things a lot! I read this post as being exclusively about the latter.
  - pron 12y ago
    I agree with everything you say (although I read this article differently), but historians should be careful to steer away from Hayek's "scientism". History's underlying mathematical assumption -- an assumption that is almost surely correct -- is that society is a complex system, and therefore cannot be subject to predictions (or very few, qualitative predictions) in the long run. If historians feel quantitative analysis gives their explanations any sort of definitiveness (and "proving" the inevitability of past events is exactly the same as prediction), they will fall into the same trap as economists. A different perspective -- absolutely; a quantitative theory -- no. In fact, quantitative theory, at least in a sense similar to physics, is nearly impossible even in subjects that are much closer to physics than history. The simplest non-linear differential equations defy quantitative study, and history (and even economics and biology) are nowhere near simple. However, it is possible that even in a complex system, there should arise some temporary structures that can be described as linear processes, and therefore subject to some quantitative theory, but it will be short lived. Complex systems undergo phase-changes that tend to break and reform any structure. On the other hand, it can be argued that those phase changes are rare, and that human society is self-stabilizing on some global scale, so that the system -- at least for the moment -- is stable, and some quantitative analysis may apply. But I'm pretty sure no one would classify any specific society (i.e. a small subset of humankind) as stable.
hiddencost 12y ago
My impression of Hayek is that he was trying to shut down his opponents by saying "it's not possible to build models which are predictive". Since the models he was criticizing have been vety successful, I think we should take this stance with a grain of salt.

by cubano 12y ago

pron 12y ago

Since "confabulation" is our only option, Hayek warns against disguising it as science -- this is what happens in economics, he says. Most historians, on the other hand, understand the limits of their knowledge, don't try to make predictions (certainly not with the same definitiveness common to many economists), and don't disguise their narratives as physical science. The author of the article under discussion, though, seems to wish history was more like physics, which it just can't be.

cubano 12y ago
I think that was Hayek's exact point...that economics cannot be like physics either, and in fact goes on to postulate that very few of the sciences can and/or should be treated as hard.
benbreen 12y ago
Interesting discussion here. I don't think you're representing the author's point correctly, though, given the larger context of the work he's doing and current debates in the historical field. Here's what he says: "I suppose the point of this post is to articulate my growing concern that we are so damn good at coming up with post-facto historical explanations to contextualize any given observation, that we are particularly susceptible to confabulating these post-facto rationalizations with the idea that we somehow knew the results of this quantitative work already." The implication here, I think, is simply that historians should be open to multiple ways of testing explanations (i.e., combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, if those are available). And in the larger context of debates about digital humanities, he's swatting down the argument that DH simply tells us what we already knew, because if done right it can be used to add a new perspective on existing arguments. The point isn't that history should be science but that "scientific"/quantitative approaches can be used to test the validity of historical claims based on more traditional historical work, like finding manuscripts in archives, doing a close reading of a key text, tracing correspondence networks, tracing the material history of a painting or object, etc. I agree with him. Edited to add: also need to be careful about confusing prediction with explanation. Historians don't predict much, but we certainly try to explain things a lot! I read this post as being exclusively about the latter.
- pron 12y ago
  I agree with everything you say (although I read this article differently), but historians should be careful to steer away from Hayek's "scientism". History's underlying mathematical assumption -- an assumption that is almost surely correct -- is that society is a complex system, and therefore cannot be subject to predictions (or very few, qualitative predictions) in the long run. If historians feel quantitative analysis gives their explanations any sort of definitiveness (and "proving" the inevitability of past events is exactly the same as prediction), they will fall into the same trap as economists. A different perspective -- absolutely; a quantitative theory -- no. In fact, quantitative theory, at least in a sense similar to physics, is nearly impossible even in subjects that are much closer to physics than history. The simplest non-linear differential equations defy quantitative study, and history (and even economics and biology) are nowhere near simple. However, it is possible that even in a complex system, there should arise some temporary structures that can be described as linear processes, and therefore subject to some quantitative theory, but it will be short lived. Complex systems undergo phase-changes that tend to break and reform any structure. On the other hand, it can be argued that those phase changes are rare, and that human society is self-stabilizing on some global scale, so that the system -- at least for the moment -- is stable, and some quantitative analysis may apply. But I'm pretty sure no one would classify any specific society (i.e. a small subset of humankind) as stable.

hiddencost 12y ago

My impression of Hayek is that he was trying to shut down his opponents by saying "it's not possible to build models which are predictive". Since the models he was criticizing have been vety successful, I think we should take this stance with a grain of salt.