Hilary Putnam makes two related points in his recent collection of essays: (1) Values can be rational, and their inescapable intrusion into every kind of discourse is welcome. (2) Ignoring or suppressing this fact is common yet irrational. This is of course true; yet the intrusion in question can be trivial, and it can be problematic. Putnam ignores this here. The book is pleasant to read; it is infused with friendly and appreciative personal anecdotes and observations. It is almost entirely (...) critical and almost always in a friendly way. Yet it is often unclear. In almost every discussion here, the author announces one item and discusses another almost identical with it but one much easier to discuss. Key Words: values • rationality • positivism • Carnap • Popper. (shrink)

In this book, Ronald Giere seeks to resolve the opposition between objectivism and constructivism by suggesting a third way, perspectival realism, according to which both sides are partly right. To prove his case, Giere reconstructs some of the acknowledged puzzle pieces in the philosophy of science (theory, observation, etc.). To my mind, of most interest is the piece Giere calls "representional model." Constituting the basis of every science, it functions as a template that governs data collection as well as theory (...) development. Throughout the book, Giere illustrates his various propositions with examples taken from the natural sciences. I contend that the propositions are just as relevant for the social sciences and present some examples in order to indicate this. Especially, the concept of model is useful both for a better understanding of social science and for increasing its cumulativity. (shrink)

This chapter will develop and apply ideas drawn from and inspired by Dewey’s work on science and democracy to the context of international relations (IR). I will begin with Dewey’s views on the nature of democracy, which lead us into his philosophy of science. I will show that scientific and policy inquiry are inextricably related processes, and that they both have special requirements in a democratic context. There are some challenges applying these ideas to the IR case, but these challenges (...) can be surmounted. To illustrate the fruitfulness of this Deweyan approach, I will end by showing that it provides an interesting new take on a major international crisis of our day: global climate change. (shrink)

I give an account of Max Weber's views concerning the basis of the objectivity of the cultural sciences. In this connection, I offer a critical discussion of his distinction between different "value spheres," each with its own "intrinsic logic." I then consider parallels between Weber's "value spheres" and central elements of Bourdieu's field theory and Luhmann's systems theory, and try to show to what extent Bourdieu's and Luhmann's problems, and the solutions they suggest, can be seen as similar to Weber's. (...) I conclude by a general consideration of Weber's, Bourdieu's, and Luhmann's approach to the problem of objectivity. Key Words: Max Weber • Pierre Bourdieu • Niklas Luhmann • social differentiation • objectivity • value spheres • inherent logic • field theory • systems theory. (shrink)

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 25, Issue 2, Page 179-190, June 2011.

Philosophy of Social Science, that social scientific investigations do not and cannot meet the liberal requirement of "neutrality" most familiar to social scientists in the form of Max Weber's requirement of value-freedom. He argues, moreover, that this is for "institutional," not idiosyncratic, reasons: methodological demands (e.g., of validity) impel social scientists to pass along into their "objective" investigations the values of the people, groups, and cultures they are studying. In this paper, I consider the implications of Root's claims for the (...) use of social scientific results in the formation of policy in a democratic society. In particular, I argue that Root's results amplify familiar "post-modernist" conclusions: there is no "neutral" and "objective" basis for policy-making. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways in which social scientific discourse and classification interact with the objects of social scientific investigation. I examine this interaction in the context of the traditional philosophical project of demarcating the social sciences from the natural sciences. I begin by reviewing Ian Hacking’s work on interactive classification and argue that there are additional forms of interaction that must be treated.

Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values presents an approach to ethics training based on the idea that most people would like to provide input in times of ethical conflict using their own values. She maintains that people recognize the lapses in organizational ethical judgment and behavior, but they do not have the courage to step up and voice their values to prevent the misconduct. Gentile has developed a successful initiative and following based on encouraging students and employees to learn how (...) to engage in communication or action to express their values within an organization’s formal and informal value system. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the Giving Voice to Values approach to empowering the individual to take action to deal with lapses in organizational ethics. We examine the role of Giving Voice to Values in business ethics education, considerations for implementing GVV, and recommendations for business educators and corporate ethics officers. We conclude that while GVV is an effective tool, it is not a comprehensive or holistic approach to ethics education and organizational ethics programs. (shrink)

A more and more important role is played by new directions in historical research that study long-term dynamic processes and quantitative changes. This kind of history can hardly develop without the application of mathematical methods. The history is studied more and more as a system of various processes, within which one can detect waves and cycles of different lengths – from a few years to several centuries, or even millennia. This issue is the third collective monograph in the series of (...) History & Mathematics almanacs and it is subtitled Processes and Models of Global Dynamics. The contributions to the almanac present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of global historical, political, economic and demographic processes, as well as their mathematical models. This issue of the almanac consists of two main sections: (I) Analyses of the World Systems and Global Processes, and (II) Models of Economic and Demographic Processes. We hope that this issue of the almanac will be interesting and useful both for historians and mathematicians, as well as for all those dealing with various social and natural sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to investigate the attitudes of Israeli Arab (n = 259) and Jewish (n = 259) high school students toward extrinsic and intrinsic values. A questionnaire, which consisted of eight value scales in two groups?extrinsic and intrinsic values?was administered. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with 31 statements on a five-point Likert scale. Jewish students who experience school-based values education endorsed more intrinsic values (e.g. autonomy: Jews M = 4.27, SD = (...) .53; Arabs M = 3.92, SD = .83), whereas Arab students, whose education as a minority group focuses on education towards achievement, endorsed more extrinsic values (e.g. attractiveness: Jews M = 3.56, SD = .82; Arabs M = 3.96, SD = .84). The findings suggest that the use of a more refined and complex analysis of extrinsic?intrinsic scales yields multiple interpretations of moral education in a modern world. This research may contribute to the discussion on moral education for minority groups, especially where they are a distinct minority in a society where they are surrounded by different cultural values. The growing cultural diversity in the Western world requires that through moral and civic education, schools explicitly expose their students, and especially minority groups, to the diverse interpretations of values and to the need to both respect differing interpretations, on the one hand, and to challenge them, on the other. (shrink)

has become an honorific title used by researchers to commend their work, or the particular approach they adopt. Conversely, the work of others is often dismissed on the grounds that it is "uncritical". However, there are important questions about what the term critical means, about what we should be critical of, and about the form that criticism ought to take. These questions are addressed here in relation to both the role of the social researcher itself and that of researchers operating (...) as public intellectuals. It is argued that the distinction between these roles is an important one, and has implications for what can legitimately be criticised, on what grounds, and in what way. In each case, there are proper limits to criticism, albeit different ones. Like anything else, criticism is not always a good thing. Key Words: critical social research • scientific criticism • social criticism • public intellectuals. (shrink)

It seems that hope springs eternal for the cherished idea that norms (or normativeprinciples) explain actions or regularities in actions. But it also seems thatthere are many ways of going wrong when taking norms and normative principlesas explanatory. The author argues that neither norms nor normative principles—insofar as they are the sort of things with normative force—is explanatoryof what is done. He considers the matter using both erotetic and ontic models ofexplanation. He further considers various understandings of norms. Key Words: (...) explanation • norms • social science • rationality. (shrink)

Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti-feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her (...) view requires even the active cultivation of Nazi scientists in objective inquiry. In this paper I consider one response to the Nazi problem, which I call the good faith argument. I show that the good faith argument itself is just as objectionable, on feminist grounds, as the Nazi problem it is meant to address. (shrink)

An empirically sensitive formulation of the norms of transformative criticism must recognize that even public and shared standards of evaluation can be implemented in ways that unintentionally perpetuate and reproduce forms of social bias that are epistemically detrimental. Helen Longino's theory can explain and redress such social bias by treating peer evaluations as hypotheses based on data and by requiring a kind of perspectival diversity that bears, not on the content of the community's knowledge claims, but on the beliefs and (...) norms of the culture of the knowledge community itself. To illustrate how socializing cognition can bias evaluations, we focus on peer-review practices, with some discussion of peer-review practices in philosophy. Data include responses to surveys by editors from general philosophy journals, as well as analyses of reviews and editorial decisions for the 2007 Cognitive Science Society Conference. (shrink)

Abstract This essay describes the value and validity of public dialogue on science?related issues. We define what is meant by ?dialogue?, the context within which dialogue takes place in relation to science, and the purposes of dialogue. We introduce a model to describe and analyse the practice of dialogue, at different stages in the development of science, its applications and their consequences. Finally, we place the practice of dialogue on science?related issues in relation to the wider political process and draw (...) out implications for scientists in particular. (shrink)

Hartmann's way of conceiving what he terms "the actual ought-to-be [aktuales Seinsollen]" offers a fruitful approach to crucial issues in the phenomenology of action. The central issue to be dealt with concerns the description of the "constitution" of anticipated possibilities as projects for action. Such potentialities are termed "problematic possibilities" and are contrasted with "open possibilities" in most of the works published by Husserl as well as those published by Alfred Schutz. The description given by Alfred Schutz emphasized that the (...) projecting of possibilities is thoroughly conditioned by the agent's habitual beliefs and interests. Schutz, however left open the possibility that other factors might affect the projecting of courses of action and the choosing of one in preference to others. In particular, he left open the possibility that the agent come to take an interest in possibilities in which she had no prior interest. More recent interpretations of his position on this issue have left this possibility undiscussed or else excluded it altogether. The result has been that a sort of value nihilism (subjectivism, sociologism, lingualism, anthropologism, historicism, psychologism, etc.) came to prevail in the phenomenological description of actions. A quite parallel development occurred in interpretations of Heidegger's account of actions (of "explication [Auslegung]" in the vocabulary of Being and Time). Heidegger expressly and emphatically rejected most ways of conceiving values in discussing the forms of action (circumspection and assertion in the vocabulary of Sein und Zeit). it came quite generally to be assumed that he subscribed to some variation of nihilism regarding values despite his insistence in the "Letter on Humanism" that he meant no such thing. The literature on this subject has concentrated on Scheler's work to the complete exclusion of Hartmann's axiology — as happened in Parvis Ermad's Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Values, His Critique of Intentionality, foreword by Walter Biernel (Glen Ellyn, Illinois: Torey Press, 1981). Scheler's view entails the radical separation of ontic traits from axiotic traits, of what-is from what-ought-to-be. However, for Hartmann, the set of ontic traits that becomes actual when laws about what-ought-to-be are satisfied is identical with the set of traits that ought-to-be, Hartmann's way of conceiving the ought-to-be, the actual ought-to-be, and the three-fold structure of the finalistic nexus seems entirely compatible with Heidegger's way of thinking about actions. They are also an enlightening supplement to Schutz's description of "Choosing Among Projects of Action" (in Collected Papers 1, 67-96). That description requires that choice and action be thoroughly conditioned by psychological, social, and historical facts about the agent. However, nothing of this vital determination of actions is sacrificed when these concepts that are so central to Hartmann's "absolutism" with respect to values are introduced into the description. Their introduction provides an elaboration that Schutz himself neglected, perhaps due to pragmatic deference to biases which were prevalent then in the intellectual climate of philosophy and sociology in the U.S. Still, the transformation they bring is a significant improvement. It shows decisively that being conditioned linguistically, psychologically, socially, and historically does not enclose the choice among projects within a "Hermeneutical Circle" such as would exclude the possibility that agents be open to previously unfamiliar values. Hartmann's conception of the plurality as well as the absoluteness (or "objectivity") of primary goods allows, put in Kantian terms, that an agent may, however rarely, take an interest in possibilities such as she may never before have been interested in at all; or, put in Heideggerian terms, that she may come to care about possibilities such as have never concerned her before. (shrink)

During the last few years, several sociological accounts of scientific consensus appeared in which a radically skeptical view of cognitive consensus in science was advocated. Challenging the traditional realist conception of scientific consensus as a sui generis social fact, the radical skeptics claim to have shown that the traditional historical sociologist's supposedly definitive account of scientific consensus is only a linguistic chimera that easily can be deconstructed by the application of different interpretive schema to the given data. I will argue (...) in this article that such an idealistic conception of scientific consensus results from the radical skeptics' failure to take into account the following three factors that are central to the historical sociologist's narrative account of consensus formation: the "judgmental" character of the reconstruction of scientists' beliefs, the hierarchical nature of the consensus change in science, and the importance of the "temporal dimension" in the explanation of scientific consensus formation. To substantiate these three points, I will draw extensively on two recent historical-sociological studies of scientific consensus formation. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the historical and cultural genealogy of the presumed separation between ethics and economic theory, taking publicly supported care for children of working mothers (or parents) as a case that illuminates problems for thinking about gender justice that arise because of these disciplinary boundaries and the particular concept of “the human individual” that is implicit in them. Care for children of working mothers is an issue that has been important in the West since the inception of “second wave” (...) feminism. However, I argue that the global expectation that women are responsible for care of small children, coupled with the reality that small children really must have caregivers, makes this issue pertinent to women everywhere, and it has lately been recognized as an issue for development and global justice. Predominant political philosophies and neoclassical economics have a common philosophical root in abstract individualist method. I argue that this has made possible a claim of intellectual respectability for neo-liberal politics that resists feminist and postcolonial critique, even though these critiques show its inability to deal with matters, such as the need for child care, that have moral issues inextricably involved in them. The economy of rationalindividual self-interest has so far only generated child care with a very large component of exploitation of caregivers. (shrink)

Within moral and political philosophy and the social sciences, recent conceptual developments in the concept of recognition cannot be dissociated from an opposition to those theories inspired by what is commonly called rational action theory or the economic model of action. The paradigm of recognition represents the heart of those theories that are both alternative and complementary to the theory of individual action. Nonetheless, this conceptual development calls out for an alliance between political philosophy and the social sciences. We argue (...) that the paradigm of recognition can only be developed to its full potential if it is interpreted in the wake of what Marcel Mauss and the Revue du MAUSS, has called the paradigm of the gift. The gift only takes on its full sense when understood as a means, performer, and symbol of public and/or private recognition. (shrink)

This book explores the epistemology and the methodology of political knowledge and social inquiry. What can we know, and how do we know? Friedrich V. Kratochwil and Ted Hopf question all foundational claims of inquiry and envisage science as a self-reflective practice. Brian Pollins and Fred Chernoff accept their arguments to some degree and explore the implications for logical positivism. David A. Waldner, Jack Levy, and Andrew Lawrence address the purpose and methods of research. They debate the role of explanation (...) versus prediction, the relationship of theory to evidence, and their implications for the Democratic Peace research program. A concluding chapter by Mark Lichbach offers a pluralistic reformulation of neopositivism. An alternative conclusion by Steven Bernstein, Richard Ned Lebow, Janice Gross Stein and Steven Weber contends that social science should be modeled on medicine and reformulated as a set of case-based diagnostic tools. The distinguishing feature of the book is the inclusion of authors who represent different approaches to social science and their willingness to engage with one another in a constructive debate. (shrink)

This article is a defense of Michael Ruse's sociobiological account of the origins and nature of morality. In the piece, the author provides a summary explanation of Ruse's views and arguments. Then he goes on to explain and critically discuss a variety of objections that have been made against sociobiological accounts of morality. He argues that the criticisms that have been made often work against less sophisticated sociobiological theories but that Ruse's theory is immune to the criticisms. The author responds (...) to the arguments of the following critics of sociobiology: Kitcher, Flew, Flanagan, Nagel, Miles, Singer, and Jacquette. Key Words: Michael Ruse • E. O. Wilson • sociobiology • altruism • ethical naturalism. (shrink)

Steven Yates has criticized my claim that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry, so that the aim becomes to promote wisdom rather than just acquire knowledge. Yates's main criticism is that the proposed revolution does not have a clear strategy for its implementation, and is, in any case, Utopian, unrealizable and undesirable. It is argued, here, that Yates has misconstrued what the proposed revolution amounts to; in fact it is realizable, urgently (...) needed, and involves exploiting the kind of strategies utilized so effectively by the philosophes of the 18th century French Enlightenment. (shrink)

There is an urgent need to bring about a revolution in the overall aims and methods of academic inquiry, its whole character and structure, so that it takes up its proper task of promoting wisdom rather than just acquiring knowledge. Academia as at present constituted has built into its institutions a momumental and very damaging philosophical blunder - one that most professional philosophers are blind to. This is little short of an intellectual scandal. It is time philosophers woke up to (...) their intellectual and humanitarian responsibilities. (shrink)

By presenting a number of concrete examples, this paper aims at soliciting a reflection on how social phenomena become the 'objects of a science' by being classified in specific ways, to answer specific questions, in different social sciences. This is in view of arguing that the objectivity of the procedures by which social scientific objects are identified and classified can only be assessed in relation to the actual questions addressed and formulated about these objects - rather than by referring back (...) to some ideal standard or protocol of objective inquiry. This also goes against the practice, often endorsed by social scientific literature, of fixing a model for what social objects are to be like (scientific or philosophical, under some description or other) and the distortingly 'normative' idea of social scientific objectivity which derives from such practice. The objects of social scientific inquiry are complex in a specific sense, and a plural identification of those objects in the context of the widest array of methods of description, classification and analysis is to be pursued. (shrink)

A theory is value-neutral when no constitutive values are part of its content. Nonneutral theories seem to lack objectivity because it is not clear how the constitutive values could be empirically confirmed. This article analyzes Franz Boas’s famous arguments against nineteenth-century evolutionary anthropology and racial theory. While he recognized that talk of "higher civilizations" encoded a constitutive, political value with consequences for slavery and colonialism, he argued against it on empirical and methodological grounds. Boas’s arguments thus provide a model of (...) how, under the right conditions, scientific inquiry can provide empirically objective grounds for political critique. Key Words: value-freedom • Franz Boas • race • objectivity • neutrality. (shrink)

: At the turn of the twentieth century, comparative studies of human culture (ethnology) gave way to studies of the details of individual societies (ethnography). While many writers have noticed a political sub-text to this paradigm shift, they have regarded political interests as extrinsic to the change. The central historical issue is why anthropologists stopped asking global, comparative questions and started asking local questions about features of particular societies. The change in questions cannot be explained by empirical factors alone, and (...) following Jarvie, this essay argues that political factors motivate the change. Jarvie's understanding of the role played by egalitarian politics is criticized, and the essay develops a new model of how political or moral values can become constitutive of scientific inquiry. On the erotetic view of explanation, whether one proposition explains another depends on the choice of contrast class and relevance criterion. Since political or moral values can motivate these choices, explanation can depend on non-epistemic values. The essay argues that the comparative questions of nineteenth-century ethnology presupposed that Europeans were superior to other races. It closes by arguing that Fanz Boas recognized the political values implicit in nineteenth-century ethnology and rejected its questions on those grounds. (shrink)

To what extend do the standard tests for realism, say in the philosophy of mind, apply to the social sciences?

s book, Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science: A critique of Gadamer and Habermas, intends to present an account of debates on objectivity in the social sciences, in stressing the political and epistemological responsibility, in public spheres, to those who want to create a fairer understanding of societies and history, without demonizing natural enterprises or leaving social studies out of acute critical questioning. Key Words: dialogue • hermeneutic • social sciences • natural sciences • method.

Objectivity and value freedom have often been conflated in the philosophical and sociological literature. While value freedom construed as an absence of social and moral values in scientific work has been discredited, defenders of value freedom bracket off methodological values or practices from social and moral ones. In this paper I will first show how values exist along a continuum and argue that science is and should be value based. One of these values is necessarily objectivity for science to be (...) possible. However the version of objectivity I will describe is socially situated in methodological practice, but also crucially in the particular purpose of a given science. Objectivity (or its absence) may be transferred vertically from practices, goals, or discourses outside science through several levels to that of the day-to-day activities of the scientist. It is also possible for this transfer to occur in the other direction and indeed objectivity can be situated in extra-scientific practices and discourses. Objectivity (or its absence) may also be transferred horizontally within particular methodological practice to other disciplines or parts of a discipline. Ultimately a socially situated objectivity is an achievement of the community of science. I will use some brief contemporary and historical illustrations from science and the intersection of science and public policy to show how objectivity has been achieved or failed. (shrink)

This book argues that the traditional emphasis on the accuracy of a given theory of human agency has systematically obscured the normative dimension in these theories and that recognizing this normative dimension allows us to see that a ...