Science and Social Science

An Introduction

Malcolm Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415194846
• eBook ISBN: 9781134647811
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Is social science really a science at all, and if so in what sense? This is the first question that any course on the philosophy of the social sciences must tackle. In this brief introduction, Malcolm Williams gives students the grounding that will enable them to discuss the issues involved with confidence. He looks at: * The historical development of natural science and its distinctive methodology * the case in favour of an objective science of the social which follows the same rules * The arguments of social constructionists, interpretative sociologists and others against objectivity and even science itself * recent developments in natural science - for instance the rise of complexity theory and the increased questioning of positivism - which bring it closer to some of the key arguments of social science. Throughout, the book is illustrated with short clear examples taken from the actual practice of social science research and from popular works of natural science which will illuminate the debate for all students whatever their background.

1 Where did science come from?

In the Introduction I tried to give some flavour of the controversies surrounding science, both as an activity in its own right, but also in its role in investigations of the social world. Before we can confront these matters we need to get some clearer views of what science is. This is the task of the next two chapters. In this chapter I want to look at a few episodes of what counted as science (particularly natural science) in past times in order to identify what kind of factors have been important in defining such practices as ‘scientific’. Second, I want to show, again with some brevity, how it was that studies of the social world came to be called science.

The dynamic of science

Science is not miraculous, nor is its contemporary manifestation the result of miraculous birth. As a social activity it is of human parentage and like all offspring it has evolved characteristics of its own, though it has retained many of those of its parents. If we stand in awe of science, we stand in awe of ourselves. The history of science is not simply a dialectical development of a relationship of human beings with nature, but also of scientists with their theories, and scientists with society. Society here is shorthand for religion, philosophy, ideology and politics. By this I mean that the romantic idea of the lone scientist pitted against nature is just one small part of the picture. Nature, as the scientist imagines it, is the product of scientific theories, themselves rooted in a philosophical world view. This in turn may have been shaped by politics or religion. Moreover world views may themselves have been shaped by the discoveries of earlier scientists.

We can summarise three interrelated characteristics:

1 The relationship between metaphysics and science. Early science was mystical and bound up with religious beliefs about nature and the universe. What we might see as recognisably scientific content was small. Yet throughout the history of science a desire to know the meaning of the universe was a key motivation. Post-Renaissance science is ‘anti-mystical’, but must still depend on some metaphysical assumptions.

2 The social position of science. This comprises a number of characteristics. The first is the separation of scientific activity and everyday activity. The second is the relationship between science and society, in which the character or power of one has been a formative influence upon the other. The way in which society shapes science can itself arise directly, or indirectly (perhaps through moral prescription) from metaphysical belief. The third characteristic is power: the power of science can be utilised or challenged from society. The most famous early example of this was the trial of Socrates (c.470-395 BC), who was sentenced to death by the Athenian Assembly for impiety and corrupting youth through his ideas (Russell 1979: 103–7). This was the persecution of science, but perhaps more important has been what Tolstoy refers to as ‘the knowledge–power feedback loop’ (Tolstoy 1990: ix), as science became more effective, so it became more desirable as a tool of economic prosperity, or war, and this in turn led to further scientific development.

3 The cognitive development of human beings. The learning capacity and reasoning ability of scientists has developed and increased incrementally (with some setbacks) through the history of science. The cognitive abilities of scientists at each stage of science have been an important characteristic and sometimes limiting feature. The insights of one age become the methodological tools of another. Some of these developments (described below), such as ‘Thales’ leap’, Aristotle’s development of deductive logic or Galileo’s use of experimental method, are documented events, but like most discoveries about the world, these can mostly be seen as markers of the cognitive development of science at that time.

The emergence of unnatural thinking

In the beginning there was curiosity and a need to resolve problems, mostly those of survival. Humans learnt to hunt with primitive axes, which in turn gave way to arrows and once the effectiveness of hunting with arrows was established they were improved by using different materials, first iron and later bronze. But bronze required smelting and smelting required fire. The copper and tin themselves needed extracting and this, along with the smelting, required co-operation. Thus in early society we see evidence of technological success achieved through increasing cognitive abilities and social co-operation, some of the hallmarks of what was to become science. As societies became more complex the role of ritual and metaphysical belief became more important. These beliefs informed and were informed by a desire and ability to measure and explain. The Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans set great store in predicting the future, which can perhaps be seen as evidence of a desire to know beyond the material, but crucially for the development of science it led to the emergence of a cognitive élite. The ‘scientific’ development of early society served the pragmatic needs of survival, but perhaps the emergence of a metaphysical curiosity was a necessary precursor to a scientific one?

An abstract metaphysical curiosity was the hallmark of growing social complexity and of urbanisation. This in turn went hand in hand with commerce and required a reliable system of measurement; one which, as Tolstoy notes, provided ‘a continuous running check on the validity of methods’ (Tolstoy 1990: 58). This was also the point where a segregation occurred between the ‘superior’ activities of mind and the ‘inferior’ activities of manufacturing (ibid.). The cognitive élite in many early societies may have been a priesthood; certainly in societies such as Babylon, where astrological abilities were prized, those with such skills would have been an élite. Of course, the precise evidence from these societies is fragmented and disputed, but it remains that by the time such endeavours were recorded by the Greeks a division of labour between the material and the intellectual was well established.

From our vantage point in the twentieth century we have to understand that there was no separation in intellectual activities between the metaphysical and the development of the technological (though of course there was between these and the employment of technology). For example, the development of the Egyptian calendar allowed accurate prediction of the flooding of the Nile, thus allowing a more successful prosecution of agriculture. Yet although this was achieved as a result of astronomical observation, the constellations themselves were identified with the deities. Science and religion were one and the same. If the ‘scientists’ could predict the flooding of the Nile, then presumably the view that ‘The sky was a flat or vaulted ceiling supported by four columns or mountain peaks, and the stars were lamps hung from the sky by cables’ (Dampier 1966: 6–7) would have been taken equally seriously. Of course much of the science was wrong, though it did often lead to accurate prediction and is therefore better described as right for the wrong reasons. It did, however, demonstrate the ability for social co-operation in the pursuit of knowledge and the means to employ this knowledge practically, but also it was the desire to find meaning in the world. Finally, it was an activity that was conducted by a sub-group of society.

For Lewis Wolpert (1992) the foregoing, though evidence of advanced technological thinking, does not amount to science. He maintains that science emerged only when there was a separation between what he calls ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ thinking. This separation, he believes, first took place in ancient Greece (Wolpert 1992: xii) and amounts to a cognitive disjuncture between common sense curiosity and scientific curiosity. Wolpert presents us with a number of simple scientific propositions which he believes to be counter-intuitive to the non-scientist. For example, the common sense view is that the natural state of any object is that it is at rest, but post-Newton scientists know that the natural state is for an object to move at a constant speed until stopped (Wolpert 1992: 3). Likewise few are aware that white light is composed of the colours of the spectrum. We can, he maintains, point to particular departures from unnatural thinking in classical civilisation and he accords the honour of being the first scientist to Thales of Miletos, who lived around 600 BC (Wolpert 1992: 35). The latter’s contribution was to question the prevailing metaphysical ideas of the day to ask, ‘What is the world made of?’ His answer was ‘water’ – and of course wrong – but according to Wolpert, the fact that he could propose something that was so counter-intuitive prefigured such later successful propositions. Perhaps as importantly Thales provided a number of important mathematical insights, such as the observation that if two straight lines cut each other, the opposite angles are equal. As Wolpert remarks:

Here, for the first time, were general statements about lines and circles – statements of a kind never made before. They were general statements that applied to all circles and lines everywhere …

(Wolpert 1992: 37)

Though generalisation was not new (Egyptian cosmology generalised), those that had a longevity beyond their historical setting were. Thales’ contribution was, therefore, not simply lateral thinking, but some foundational mathematics, an essential tool for later science.

Wolpert’s distinction is a useful one and offers a continuity with modern science: though still deriving from curiosity, science, however motivated, is rarely common sense. However, as Wolpert himself notes there is a circularity in the argument that science is ‘unnatural’. If it were ‘natural’ and just a matter of common sense observation, then there would be no science to explain anyway. (I shall return to the question of curiosity in chapter 2.) Moreover, what is known as ‘Thales’ leap’ cannot be wholly attributed to one man’s ability to think laterally, but also to the existence of a ‘scientific’, or at least proto-scientific culture and metaphysical foundation that allowed such a leap to be made.

Indeed it was not just Thales who leapt. Greek philosophical ideas were of immense importance to both science and to Western civilisation generally (see Russell 1979: parts 1 and 2). Perhaps the greatest contribution to science came from Aristotle (384–322 BC), though, like Thales, much of his science was ‘wrong’; he too gave science an important tool, that of the syllogism. A syllogistic argument has two premises from which a conclusion is entailed. The conclusion can be deduced from the premises, as in the example below.

Premises:

All mammals are warm blooded animals

No lizards are warm blooded animals

Conclusion:

Therefore no lizards are mammals

Science, as we shall see, depends on deduction – on this kind of argument – though we must be careful here, for a conclusion following from premises does not entail the truth of the premises, but what deduction gives us is a rational structure to argument (see Weston 1992). With the formulation of this way of thinking we also have the beginning of rationality, that is, to deny conclusions once we have accepted the premises from which they are derived would be an irrational act.

Deductive logic is a formalisation of patterns of inference (people inferred before formal logic) and provided a framework for science. It is often said that post-Renaissance science produced the culture of rationality that is the hallmark of modern science, but of course to a great extent the opposite had to be true. For rational science to gain legitimacy at least some semblance of a wider culture of rationality had to exist in society (Tarnas 1991: 224–32). The relationship between science and rationality might be seen as a symbiotic one.

In the name of God

With the decline of Classical Greek civilisation and the rise of the Roman Empire scientific endeavour declined, at least in Europe. It continued to flourish in the Muslim world, however, and important advances were made, particularly in mathematics and specifically through the invention of algebra, but from the beginning of the Christian era to the late Middle Ages scientific discovery, as opposed to its utilisation, did not flourish in the West. The cognitive development of science was hampered by the metaphysical basis of science in early Christian civilisation and by the social structure that arose from the Christian hegemony. Nevertheless, because there was little scientific advance on the achievements of the Greeks did not mean that the period was intellectually barren. The medieval period was one of enormous accomplishment, but this was in many ways spiritual. The great architecture of the cathedrals, though displaying enormous technical skill, were dedications to a spiritual faith. Curiosity was not absent but found its expression in Christian endeavours to attain divine knowledge. The metaphysical centre of gravity, as it were, was the Holy Spirit (Tarnas 1991: 156).

The Christian Church’s power – spiritual, ideological and political – extended to all aspects of life. Within its embrace was contained much of that which was progressive, innovatory, barbaric and conservative. Although the power of the Church in society was enormous, alongside it a new economic order was taking shape, one that grew out of the success of agriculture and widespread commerce and was centred on the towns. With urbanisation came important advances in technological ability, which in turn improved commercial efficiency, prompting more investment in technology (Tolstoy 1990: 100). The Church itself was, of course, a major participant in medieval commerce and the source of much of the technological innovation. Indeed much of the learning of medieval Europe was either monastic, or under the auspices of the Church. Philosophers such as St Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham and Roger Bacon were all churchmen. The Church, then, both set metaphysical limits on science as well as being the repository of knowledge – including scientific knowledge.

What were the metaphysical limits and how was this different to Classical Greece? In terms of scientific development the end of Classical Greek civilisation was also its apex. A product of this early scientific world view, or indeed possibly contributing to such a view, was a growing philosophical secularism, a shift from astrology and theism, first to the pantheism of the Stoics, but eventually in Epicurus to a philosophy which denied the existence of gods as the creators of nature. Epicurus’ view was that gods were simply part of nature as humans are and that there is a finality in death (Dampier 1966: 39). Such views as this were not to be expressed again widely in the West until the Renaissance; the medieval world view was militantly anti-secular and this extended to learning. All sanctioned learning was in the service, or at least context, of theistic knowledge, whereby philosophical ideas – often the inspiration to scientific activity in Greece – were in the service of theology. Yet the very early Christian Church made a conscious effort to fuse together Christianity with Greek philosophy. The result was successful in terms of the ideological longevity of Christianity, yet, rather like Chinese whispers, what survived of the philosophy in medieval Europe was a faint echo. Aristotle’s work survived, though in imperfect form and mainly expressed through his logical principles, themselves the basis of attempts to ‘prove’ the existence of God (Russell 1979: chapter 13), or through his physics of the direct perception of substance, essence, matter, form, quality and quantity. This, in Wolpert’s term, was a ‘natural’ physics, which accorded with experience, but was wrong.

The doldrums into which science had sunk were dominated by mysticism sanctioned by ideology, limiting the cognitive development of science to the bounds of theology. Indeed, as we shall see in the case of Galileo, to enquire too much into the nature of reality was impiety, even heresy, not just because it challenged the hegemony of the Church, or a Church-dominated intellectual and political élite, but also because it undermined the spiritual security of the afterlife (Dampier 1966: chapter 2).

Galileo and the birth of modern science

Galileo (1564–1642) has often been called the ‘father of modern science’. His work in dynamics and astronomy was certainly foundational for the version of science as we know it, but just as importantly for our purposes, he personifies the clash between secularism and mysticism, Enlightenment and medievalism and specifically between science and the Christian Church. Before considering Galileo and his ideas it is necessary to briefly say how the transition from the theistic medieval world came to pass.

Tolstoy (1990) calls the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance a period of transition between the science of the classical world and the modern one. The social and technological bases of modern science were laid down in this period of transition, and even though theology set limits to philosophy, ideas of great importance to later science evolved. One particular example is Ockham’s Razor (named after a Franciscan monk, William of Ockham, c.1285–1349), the principle of parsimony, usually expressed as ‘entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity’, a principle important in choosing between scientific theories and a matter I will return to in chapter 2.

The head on clash between science and religion came with the challenging of theological a priori truths with observation and reasoning – Wolpert’s ‘unnatural thinking’. Galileo’s difficulties with the Inquisition are perhaps the most celebrated example of this. Two things are of importance here: first, what it was Galileo was challenging and what that challenge was, and second this as an exemplar, not of the formal defeat of Galileo (for that is what happened at his trial), but as the beginning of the end for Christian theology as a ruling ideology in the West.

I have noted above the importation of Aristotelian thought into Christian philosophy and science. With some modifications Aristotle’s mechanics and cosmology had become the Christian world view. Galileo challenged both. Aristotle’s physics appealed to common sense. The world, it was said, was made up of four elements: earth, fire, air and water. Fire moves upwards and earth moves downwards, thus the natural place of rocks is the centre of the earth, of water resting on the earth and of fire between the air and the surface of a sphere separating the earth from the heavens. It follows from this that motion will continue until the object moves to rest as close as it can to its natural place. The heavier a solid object, the more quickly it will fall to its natural place of rest – the centre of the earth. Galileo demonstrated that objects of different weights (assuming the same air resistance) will fall to the earth at the same speed. These experiments in dynamics and the claims that followed from them were not the focus of the dispute with the Church, but instead cosmological claims were. Aristotle’s four earthly elements (he added a fifth heavenly one of the aether) were characterised by rectilinear and discontinuous motion, whereas the moon, the sun, the planets and stars were continuous and circular, a fact which was observationally demonstrable, as was their motion around the earth. These bodies were ‘perfect and incorruptible’ (Dampier 1966: 30) and thus evidence of a final mover – that of God.

Aristotelian cosmology was, like the medieval mysticism it served, of an a priori kind, that is, observations had to fit the existing meta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Where did science come from?
• 2. Science and its method
• 3. Social science as science
• 4. Against science
• 5. Against science in social science
• 6. Science, objectivity and ethics
• 7. New science and new social science
• 8. Conclusion: the science of social science
• Glossary
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index