any result, lacanians - marxistphilosophy

[Ralph Dumain]

Very briefly, for now: let me iterate my response to Steve Heeren:

" ... 'my' distinction between the natural and social
sciences is not dualistic in this manner. I'm not interested in dividing
them off from one another, each to be shuffled off into a separate
realm. That is in fact what's wrong with the compartmentalization that
creates a separate philosophy of the subject apart from physical
science. The trick here is to recognize both the unity of the world and
its differentiation at the same time. Recalling what was happening in the
last third of the 19th century with the dominance of scientism, Social
Darwinism, etc., one can understand the battle that Engels fought, albeit
imperfectly, to restore qualitative specificity to the domain of social
investigation without severing it entirely from the physical world. Later
on, other people came up with ideas about emergent properties, integrative
levels, etc. So perhaps one should say the proper world-picture is neither
dualistic nor excessively monistic."

So I would agree with you not to propose a rigid ontological duality, 
especially the sort that developed in the 19th century I believe with 
Dilthey and afterwards.

Your reservations regarding my remarks is based, it seems, on the following 
line of argument:

(1) If I claim that ontology precedes epistemology (that the character of 
the object of science determines the method) ...

(2) ... then I am making a priori judgments about the objects of study that 
rigidify the appropriate methods in advance, thus not subjecting my a 
priori judgments to any further testing or critique.

(3) Since you reverse the priorities--epistemology comes first, ontology 
second--this retains a non-dogmatic spirit of enquiry that leaves open the 
determinations of the character of the "natural" and "social" dimensions of 
the world and their delimitations.

I certainly agree with your concerns.  I don't claim that we should be 
rigid about first defining the ontology and then strictly dictating what 
consequences follow.  Nor would I say that quantitative statistical methods 
are irrelevant in social research.  I don't believe that (2) [above] 
follows from (1).  We can keep our ontological delimitations flexible as 
long as we realize that the distinctions matter.  Does this help?

At 12:26 PM 4/12/2003 -0400, Kareem Khalifa wrote:
>Dear Frankfurters,
>
>This philosophy of science discussion is one of the better threads I've 
>seen on this list, and has been enjoyable to follow. A few thoughts have 
>occurred to me along the way:
>
>1) It is worth noting that many anglophone philosophers of social science 
>writing since the mid-eighties think there is no a priori distinction 
>between natural and social sciences. To put this very starkly, this has a 
>lot more to do with how postpostivist philosophy of natural science has 
>debunked the mythology of there being "the" scientific method. The lessons 
>to learn from Quine, Kuhn, etc. is that things like "interpretation" are a 
>necessary part of natural science as well as the social sciences. Cf. 
>Bohman's New Philosophy of Social Science, Henderson's Explanation and 
>Interpretation in the Human Sciences, Risjord's Woodcutters and Witchcraft.
>
>2) Before we were careful to note that H&A were making astute claims for 
>their time, but Ralph's recent remarks suggest that he still wants to make 
>a pronouncement on more recent social science:
>"The shallow scientism of the empiricist sociology I had to suffer some 
>decades back is based on statistical number crunching and trivial 
>hypothesis testing, but obscures the fundamental
>characteristics of social structure that need to be studied."
>I'm inclined to say that while this is a necessary component of empirical 
>sociology, it's not sufficient for sociology writ large. Sociologists also 
>try to establish theories; unlike physics, the division between 
>theoretical and empirical analysis is not as easily traversed. As a 
>result, it's not always clear how, e.g., empirical sociology falsifies or 
>bolsters theoretical sociology.
>
>But a major upshot of postpositivist philosophy of science is that the 
>reasons for the greater fluidity between theoretical and empirical physics 
>versus that found in sociology is not a priori in character; there don't 
>appear to be any claims (at least not any irrefutable ones) about the 
>ontological differences between humans and bits of matter that can account 
>for this (other than that the former are more complex, but this is to say 
>that there is a quantitative, not qualitative difference): human beings 
>can exhibit statistically regular behavior, and physicists "interpret" the 
>behavior of subatomic particles to square with some theories they hold.
>
>3) A caveat of this: Ralph, I'd be interested in hearing more about what 
>you mean by "the ontological differences among the objects of study (i.e. 
>of the various natural and social sciences) com[ing] first, as they 
>determine the methods most appropriate to them." Part of my concern here 
>is that there are certain ways of interpreting this sentence that harken 
>back to a pre-Kantian dogmatic realism. My first impulse is to assert that 
>epistemology precedes ontology. In particular, it seems as if any claims 
>that an object of natural or social scientific study exists is a claim 
>liable to justification (assuming justificaiton is epistemology's domain). 
>A fortiori, any claims saying that such objects exist in a certain way 
>(e.g., are the bearer of particular properties and predicates) are also 
>liable to justification. Thus, it would seem that the ontological 
>differences you speak of presuppose the methodological commitments you 
>claim are their consequences (I'm thinking here of Hacking's work, 
>especially Representing and Intervening). Now admittedly, you may have had 
>something else in mind by ontology and methodology, so feel free to 
>articulate the meanings of those terms in further detail.
>
>Best,
>Kareem Khalifa
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:rdumain@igc.org>Ralph Dumain
>To: 
><mailto:frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu>frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu 
>
>Cc: 
><mailto:marxistphilosophy@yahoogroups.com>marxistphilosophy@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 10:41 AM
>Subject: Re: any result, lacanians - marxistphilosophy
>
>"In the analysis of economic forms, moreover, neither microscopes nor
>chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both.
>"  -- Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, Preface
>
>I have to leave soon for an anti-war protest, so this time I'll brief,
>though I have more to say.  For me, the ontological differences among the
>objects of study (i.e. of the various natural and social sciences) come
>first, as they determine the methods most appropriate to them.  While the
>spirit of scientific theorizing (scientific idealization, not merely
>empirical generalization) is the same in all cases, the appropriate methods
>vary according to the objects of study, as well as the nature of any
>lawlike properties discovered.  The shallow scientism of the empiricist
>sociology I had to suffer some decades back is based on statistical number
>crunching and trivial hypothesis testing, but obscures the fundamental
>characteristics of social structure that need to be studied.  The unity of
>science does not consist in an obsession with quantification to the
>exclusion of other considerations, nor in ignoring the qualitative
>differences among the objects of study.  The world picture is unified with
>the recognition of internal differentiation and stratification.  This is
>hardly a new thought; anyone studying Marxism should know it, which
>suggests how little people interested in critical theory nowadays care
>about Marxism.  This view can be found in a number of places, not just in
>dialectical materialism.  There is Roy Wood Sellars' critical realism, for
>example (see PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FUTURE, 1949), not to mention Roy Bhaskar's
>critical realism (whose followers act is if his ideas are brand new,
>whereas what's new primarily are his neologisms.)
>
>At 07:18 PM 4/11/2003 +0300, j laari wrote:
> >Ralph, tell me what was the note at the end of your post where you
> >wrote about the ontological difference of natural and social sciences?
> >See, sciences can also be demarcated according to the characteristics
> >of their methods. In other words, and according to Heinrich Rickert:
> >there are two irreducible viewpoints on differences between sciences,
> >'materially' we make a distinction between the objects of sciences,
> >'formally' the distinction is between the methods. One can utilize
> >'natural scientific' method also in cultural sciences (as Rickert them
> >calls), but 'historical method' is of lesser use in natural sciences,
> >though Rickert himself believed it has some relevance also for nat'l
> >sci's. I don't go into details. See the nearest English translation of
> >his "Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft" (1921).
> >
> >Sincerely, Jukka L