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From: lamaster@pioneer.arpa (Hugh LaMaster)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Modern man (knowledge and the social sciences)
Message-ID: <1888@ames.arpa>
Date: Wed, 24-Jun-87 12:38:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1888
Posted: Wed Jun 24 12:38:35 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jun-87 05:15:42 EDT
References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU>
Sender: usenet@ames.arpa
Reply-To: lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 38

In article <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> carnes@gargoyle.uchicago.edu.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:

>
>There is no such animal as `the scientific definition of knowledge'
>or `the scientific epistemology'.  Your view of knowledge is, in
>broad terms, an empiricist one, which is orthodoxy in the hard
>sciences because it explains them well.  But the philosophical
>question you and others are begging is whether an empiricist
>epistemology is adequate for the kind of understanding we can have of
>the specifically human world studied by the social sciences.  The

One could interpret your arguments just as easily as saying that there is no
such thing as "social science", i.e., that social studies are inherently
unscientific.  Empiricism is at the root of scientific knowledge.  If you
deliberately allow subjective thought to replace it, you have, at best,
"humanities" of some sort.  And not very good ones, at that, since even the
tradtional humanities study shared experience [A work of fiction is not very
interesting if it doesn't rest on a foundation of shared human experience with
you].

A lot of American academics in the fifties were seemingly jealous of the
attention that science was getting, and suddenly invented a lot of new
"sciences".  The misuse of statistics was one of their main weapons.  The
result was a lot of reductionist ("nothing but") nonsense which seems to
refuse to go away.  But social "scientists" can't have it both ways.  To the
extent that what they are doing has a valid empirical basis, then it is
science.  But they can't suddenly shift gears and invent a right to introduce
"subjectivity on demand" as several recent quotes on the net from social
studies texts have done.


  Hugh LaMaster, m/s 233-9,  UUCP {seismo,topaz,lll-crg,ucbvax}!
  NASA Ames Research Center                ames!pioneer!lamaster
  Moffett Field, CA 94035    ARPA lamaster@ames-pioneer.arpa
  Phone:  (415)694-6117      ARPA lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov

("Any opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the
author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or the U.S. Government")