Notes on:
Benton, T. (1981) 'Realism and Social
Science'. Radical Philosophy, 27,
Spring
Dave Harris
The new transcendental realism is suspiciously
able to assimilate a variety of positions within
Marxism, including Althusser, and Critical Theory,
as well as natural science. The problem is
that this is too narrow a view of science.
Bkaskar has written two major books [more since] A
Realist Theory of Science (RTS) is about
natural science, while The Possibility of
Naturalism (PN) is about social
science. Various paramorphisms are
established between them. However the
differences between natural and social science are
insufficient and are based on the old dualism
between the natural and the human which is in turn
derived from hermeneutics and neo - kantian
philosophy. This dualism omits some
important bits.
In RTS, the main question is what are the
conditions of possibility of scientific activities
or their intelligibility/rationality? This
includes a discussion of experimentation and
scientific education. However, there are
some ambiguities affecting the premisses of
transcendental deductions. For example is
the existence of a practice the premiss or its
intelligibility or rationality? Only
rationality provides justifiably strong grounds
for the ontological conclusions that the world
really is like scientific practice.
There were two conditions for the possibility of
knowledge, discussed in terms of a transitive and
intransitive dimension. The transitive
dimension arises where the object is a cause of
knowledge which generates new knowledge; the
intransitive arises where the object is a real
structure or mechanism, independently of the
activities of human beings. Transcendental
deduction operates with the intransitive
dimension, since the existence of these
independent objects shows that the world has
'ontological depth'. These can be considered
as mechanisms whose powers may or may not be
exercised, and may or may not be realized when
they are exercised, whose effects may or may not
be detectable [see Collier
on this]. Effects may be produced in closed
or open systems so that scientific laws are
necessary abstractions from the range of
codeterminations that are possible in the
concrete.
In the transitive dimension, a social ensemble is
operated by, but not reducible to, human agency,
so that knowledge and beliefs can be seen as
antecedents for action. Social objects are
not independent of human beings, unlike the
natural ones. There might be shared
characteristics established with natural objects
in the world of philosophy, but not in the world
of science (14). There is an additional
epistemological obstacle to knowledge in social
sciences, because they are unable to close
situations experimentally. Overall, this
seems to be a dualism, including methodological
dualism between social and natural sciences.
Apparently, the possibility of a naturalistic
science of society and the psyche is
discussed, but the whole thing turns on the
availability of experimental data.
However, there is an experimental analogue in the
human sciences, for Bhaskar, where theories are
embedded in practice and are then seen to fail—his
example is the failure of neoclassical economics
with the onset of depression. There are
problems here, however, in that social science
becomes part of social life, not something
autonomous enough to be testable by social
events. The analysis also sounds like Popper
on social engineering as the test of scientific
theories. Nevertheless, the consideration of
the possibility calls into question the rigid
boundaries between natural and social science.
In PN, Bhaskar offers some revision of the
transitive/intransitive boundary. Now,
social objects can be relatively intransitive, for
example, because they can exist and act
independently of human knowledge. There are
still problems with the mechanisms that constitute
knowledge, however (15) [my notes say that it's
not clear why]. Social objects like this can
be existentially independent, but they cannot be
causally independent.
Can we use transcendental deduction with social
sciences too? The problem is whether
there are social science practices in the first
place. Here, the method of transcendental
deduction is not clear. In the first place,
it seems to involve a priori deduction of
general properties of societies and persons.
However, comparing these properties with those in
natural science produces differences. The
demonstration of scientific knowledge is still
possible despite or even because of these
differences. However, each proposition has
problems.
Firstly, we are not sure if these general
properties are derived from the necessary
conditions of social life or from a number of
characteristic types of activity, especially with
intentional activity, which presupposes social
forms according to Bhaskar. The
identification of conditions seems to depend on
philosophy after all, and is hardly
conclusive. The whole approach depends on a
transformational model of human activity and on
controversial definitions, like that of
intentional action. It's not sure at this stage if
there is still a split between philosophical and
scientific arguments. Above all, Bhaskar
seems to be siding with structuralist conceptions
of social life, and thus to beg some questions.
Secondly the procedure operates through a number
of identifiable limits to naturalism alone.
For example there are ontological limits [to what
might be known?] because natural objects are
independent of human activity. However, this
is not actually demonstrated, but taken as self
evident. It is controversial when applied to
social objects. For Benton, a power
structure exists even if it is not activated, just
as the reproductive powers of an organism may
never be activated. There are also
ambiguities about human actions, whether they are
independent of social formations or vectored by
them. Bhaskar says that social structures do
not exist independently of actors' conceptions of
them, but this is ambiguous. For example,
some conception of social structures seems
essential. The real issue is the competition
between common sense and scientific conceptions,
and this competition exists in natural science as
well. Generally, some social formations
clearly depend entirely on whether people conceive
or recognize them from the point of view of
actors, such as a friendship net, but others
don't, so that power structures operate with a
great variety of conceptions. Can actor
conceptions be seen as causal relations?
They do lead to changes in social structure
sometimes, but this is hardly a conclusive
demonstration indicating something a priori:
instead this opens an empirical question. Bhaskar
also says that social objects are less endurable,
but this applies to their concrete
manifestations.
Time and space are not in themselves causal for
Benton (18), and nor do all laws of natural
science correspond to naturalistic
mechanisms. There are differences in the
historicity of the social and natural world,
however, in that new social facts emerge after
theoretical revolutions. Bhaskar seems to
imply a necessary correspondence between social
change and conceptual development, as in Marxism,
but again this would mean that science is not an
autonomous cognitive practice.
Bhaskar notes the difference between open and
closed systems, but he overdoes the decisive role
of experiments in natural science: this is
probably a residual positivism. Do we need
to be able to close a system in order to make a
prediction? Surely we can specify a range of
possibilities in open systems?
Methodologically, it is often difficult to isolate
the variables in social science, but this is not
an epistemological issue which divides natural and
social sciences: for example, statistical
techniques can be used in social sciences.
Further, not all natural science can be
closed—geology and evolutionary biology operate
with open systems and also use statistical
methods. Bhaskar says there are other limits in
that the subject and the object are partially
identical in social sciences. It is still
possible that social structures exist
independently, however, and conversely, the
experiment in natural sciences still requires a
subjective intervention.
There is an implicit status granted to self
knowledge, which looks like Lukacs.
Overall, Bhaskar sees the key in the possibilities
of experimentation. Social crises might be
useful in revealing the mechanisms of work.
However, such crises also produce new knowledge
rather than just testing the old, and even then,
only in some societies. Bhaskar offers no
account of the visibility of generative structures
especially when crises polarize populations—here,
there is no agreement about what is being made
visible.
For Benton, the approach features an unnecessary
polarization between the natural and the social
sciences. It is over selective when
discussing natural science, and over stresses the
role of the experiment. Conversely, it is
over dependent of the problematic of the subject
in social science. Ending such selectivity
and restoring that which is omitted would confirm
the broad outlines of the realist model,
however. It is clear that there are
differences between the natural and the social
sciences, but these are methodological rather than
epistemological and not reducible to a single
dichotomy. Rather, the two display a 'family
resemblance'.
more social theory
|
|