Social, is a science too!
Philosophy and the sciences
Philosophy is almost impossible if not difficult to define considering its varied ramifications that evolved over time. It is as complicated as asking “what is love?” It can be viewed from phenomenological, metaphysical, or biological lenses and yet, no one can have a complete and sufficient summation of what philosophy really is. To Ian C. Jarvie (2011), it is simply “a field of contestation,” an arena where truth is sought to explain how things are, how they came about, and how they ought to be. The hope always is in finding light on the debates that obscure reality, both in its theoretical realm and practical realm.
Etymologically though, “philosophy” is borrowed from two Greek words, and , (Emporia, 2018) which mean love and wisdom, ergo, philosophy is the love of wisdom. In this way, philosophy is described as an expertise in select fields of discipline generated out of the love for finding the truth in such chosen field (e.g. philosophy of children, philosophy of the arts, philosophy of science, philosophy of social science). Among the greatest known philosophers who pursued wisdom during their time were Plato, Kant, Locke, Hume, Aquinas, Hegel and Marx among many others.
Today, philosophy is loosely taken as a personal ethic, a world view – a ’ as the Germans would put it (which I first heard from Dr. Julio Teehankee during the 2018 PPSA). It is a way of how one sees the universe along with its multi-faceted questions, mysteries and wonders that require answers from a particular lens. This implies therefore that there can be as many philosophies as there are world views among the seven billion people on earth. The question of whether or not God exists can be addressed from and through different perspectives – phenomenology, metaphysics, theology, anthropology, etc. Often, these world views are not compatible with one another. Philosophy therefore challenges us to look at the whole by understanding its parts, asking questions that are oftentimes ignored, seeking answers to approximate the truth in its most universal form. In short, philosophy is an attempt to integrate varying and competing claims of what is true, real and rationally acceptable consistent with Jarvie’s (2011) “field of contestation.”
There are many other ways by which philosophy can be described. Karl Marx (cited by Marcuse, 1975) for instance viewed philosophy as an agent to change the world and not simply to understand the world. While there is no default orientation for change, philosophy is sometimes viewed as meaningless if the search for truth does not inure to the benefit of all persons.
In my undergrad years, I thought of philosophy as a never-ending cycle of question and answer about things that I do not see to comprehend. Inquiry is the beginning of wisdom I thought and answering my questions felt like I have accomplished something only to be disappointed because the answer brings forth many other questions and answering them will generate more down the line. Eventually, I realized that philosophy indeed is a lifelong search for truth. Some answers are not found within the limits of human corporeality, but only in transcendental existence.
Lastly, philosophy can also be described as a criticism, a form of thinking that requires dialectic in respectful conversation with assertions and counter-assertions laid down – all in the hope of finding the truth. As a field of contestation, facts to become truth need to be argued with critical mindedness until conclusions are made and are accepted by the community of intellects, unless a more convincing rationalization is in the offing.
While there are many ways by which philosophy is defined or described, one thing remains consistent, its ultimate goal is to find truth, in theory and in practice.
The Philosophy of science
This brings us therefore to the question, what is the philosophy of science? Following the above-descriptions of philosophy, philosophy of science is a world view that asserts scientific methodologies and process lead us to find answers to our questions, it is a series of investigations and discoveries employing science to tell us what there is (Jarvie, 2011). Particularly referring to natural science, it refers to a set of problems/questions that emerges from science where naturalists often refer to, to answer philosophic questions prior to ontological ones.
The philosophy of science, is a set of public assertions of the truth and falsity of the problems that they seek to address. It puts premium on those that can be tested, without regard as to what people believe or does not believe. As a criticism, philosophy of science argues that nothing is acceptable other than those that passed the scrutiny of scientific methodologies like experimentation and observation.
Often referred to by Jarvie (2011), Karl Popper known to be the founding father of this field, asserted falsifiability as the primary criterion in delineating the limits of scientific inquiry as opposed to other forms of inquiry. Any proposition or theory must be tested through the application of the principle of falsification, that is, it must be subjected to inquiry to prove if the theory is either correct or wrong. This philosophy therefore advances that any claim if not falsifiable is not scientific, hence, a fake science – no truth, no value.
This reinforces Francis Bacon’s (cited by Ash, 2018) method of science which talks of three main steps to establish the acceptability of a particular claim: 1] description of facts, 2] classification of facts, and 3] rejection of what appears to have no connection with the subject under investigation. What demarcates science from other inquiries is the element of refutability. This resonates as well with logical positivists’ position that the ultimate criterion in verifying what knowledge is can be through experiments rather than based on personal experiences.
The Philosophy of social science
Carving out from the explanatory notes on what philosophy of science is comes the question of what is the philosophy of social science. Is there such a thing as science of the social? Can it be subjected to the same tests as Popper, Bacon or the logical positivist posit? How scientific can the study of society be?
The philosophy of the social science or what Jarvie (2011) calls as the science of social, concerns itself with the problems and answers that develop from and within the domain of society. Unlike the object of scientific inquiry in natural sciences, the philosophy of social science deals with a very expansive area of inquiry, often reconstructed to keep up with the evolving developments in social sciences. As mentioned by Jarvie (2011), “from Plato to J.M. Keynes, the attempt at rational social thought was a response to social change, a response that morphs over time from speculation to empirically testable theories.” Central to its investigation are human beings and social institutions that are neither monolithic nor static.
The goal of social science is to discover the rules and regulations that govern the operation of social entities (Campbell, 2018), or any collection of people who interact with one another like families, villages, religions, professional association, nations, international organizations, and communities of people.
Social science originated in the enlightenment period in the 17th and 18th century (Campbell, 2018) when the world started putting premium on methods and systems in the process of developing an understanding of the world around us. A scientific process became the solid foundation in asserting certain sets of assumptions and in forming a theory to explain the natural world. Social sciences took off from this novel approach. The early social scientists were interested in explaining politics, society and the economy. They embarked on a data collection mission to test their theories although using observation rather than experimentation. Among the notable pioneers of social science are Montesquieu, Thomas Robert Malthus, De Tocqueville and Marx (Campbell, 2018).
Today, social science largely relies on empirical evidences to prove or disprove a claim. Unlike the early political philosophers who employed morals, norms and ethics in their assertions, social scientists today optimize evidence to describe social phenomena and illustrate theoretical exhortations about people and society.
Social science discovers generalizable knowledge from specific contexts – generally using the inductive method as opposed to the generally deductive methodology of philosophy. Philosophy concerns itself on the what should be (normative) while social science looks at the what is (descriptive), primarily because the former argues from first principles while the latter emphasizes the empirical soundness of an argument. Unlike humanities too which seeks to understand the specifics of a phenomenon, social science is interested in engendering generalizations.
When studies invoke empirical evidences, perhaps, the closest discipline to social science in this respect is the world of natural sciences. However, despite the reliance on evidence as basis for generalization, the two are worlds apart. Natural sciences deal with mostly inanimate objects in their study while social science deals with human beings and human institutions. The object of social science exercises free will, they make choices and imagine the future. In contrast, the objects of natural science are generally passive like rocks, soil, energy, gravity, weather, heavenly bodies or plants. They follow the same rules almost universally, unlike human beings that are affected by complicated contexts, histories, and tendencies.
The science of social
Therefore, the society can be studied scientifically. Society and the explanations about how society exists, behaves, and is perceived to be are subjected to the rigors of methodical confirmation and rejection. Theories are tested either to validate the assumptions or to nullify them following basic steps in search of generalizable knowledge about people and the space and time within which they are found (Campbell,2018). Social science is also interested in developing and testing theories through observations or experiments of social units in the hope of understanding more deeply the laws governing their interactions, albeit, in a very challenging fashion considering the intricacies of human nature.
For instance, the “theory of proximity” explaining that all other things being equal, a voter will most likely choose the candidate who is closest to him/her, geographically or politically, had been proven to work in different conditions using voting pattern analysis, qualitative and quantitative at that. Naming a given problem, hypothesizing on why it exists, outlining methodologies to answer some questions, carrying out an investigation and making conclusions and inferences are all part of the science of studying society. What makes it even more scientific is the iterative process that governs social science studies. By repeating social science experiments given the same variables and methodologies but applied in varying contexts or conditions, will more or less bring the same result. The theory of proximity for example had been tested in a neighborhood, in a network, in national elections and yet, the same generalizable knowledge explains that the closer the people are, the more they develop a sense of relationship and liking to each other. This iteration helps us understand people and society in a more scientific way. Replicability and falsifiability, therefore some of the elements that make social science a science.
The scientific study of the social today has become an interdisciplinary field (Jarvie, 2011). It now requires appreciation of other allied disciplines such as philosophy and the natural sciences. Links with other fields of studies provide social science a wider lens in understanding the different social phenomena the continue to shape and reshape the society.
However, the challenges to social scientists are presented in the transcendental trilemma (Jarvie, 2011): 1] that social science is a misnomer, 2] that social science claims to be a science in the attempt to control and change society, and 3] that all sciences are one and the same. It is alleged that social science is incapable of generating generalizable knowledge since its object of inquiry – people – thinik, behave and act distinctly and separate of each other. It is often accused as the wrong form of science since it is mostly based on conjectures and not on experiments. Also, social scientists are accused of treating society and its institutions as malleable entities subject to manipulation. This makes social science as not (value-free), that it is impelled by its agenda to dominate society. Ultimately, there is no point according to Jarvie (2011) of advancing social science over natural science since all sciences interpenetrate one another and therefore cannot be organized hierarchically.
However, if logical positivists use empirical verifiability and Popper (cited by Jarvie, 2011) asserts falsifiability and refutability while Kuhn (cited by Jarvie, 2011) advances the ability of a discipline to adopt a unifying paradigm, as criteria for establishing that a study is scientific, then, social science is. As Jarvie (2011) puts it:
“Historians used documentary evidence to refute, economists used statistics to refute, sociologists and psychologists used their observations to refute. To argue that there can be no sciences of the social amounts to a social philosophy of sorts, namely unreflective endorsement of the status quo. So the counter to the view that there is and can be no ‘science’ of the social is that there is and has to be if we are to take command of social change rather than simply be its creatures.”
Conclusion
To conclude, social science is the science of people and society, explored in the pursuit of understanding the evolving human and social landscapes with the end view of achieving a social order where human potentials are fulfilled through and with the aid of other disciplines. Methodically, this may be done through observations, hypothesis testing, experimentation, and other forms of scientific processes. This makes social science an empirically-based discipline advancing theories and counter-theories to explain the living and animate subjects of its inquiry. It is a critical form of scientific investigation.
(Photo from percussion.com)
References:
Ash, August. (2018). The Baconian Method of Science. Creation Moments. Retrieved from http://www.creationmoments.com/content/baconian-method-science
Campbell, Cameron. (2018). Why Social Science is a Science? Coursera. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/lecture/social-science-study-chinese-society/1-2-why-social-science-is-a-science-EvDiQ
Emporia State University. (2018). Chapter 1, What is Philosophy. Retrieved from https://www.emporia.edu/socsci/research-and-teaching-links/philosophy-book/chp1.html
Herbert Marcuse, "The Relevance of Reality," in The Owl of Minerva, edited by Charles J. Bontempt, and S. Jack Odell, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1975.
Jarvie, Ian C. and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla. (2011). Introduction, Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences: Paradigms, Methodology and Ontology. The Sage Handbook of the Philosophy of Social Sciences. SAGE Publications, London, 2011. pp 1-36.
