Post-positivist Philosophy Of Science Research Articles

Возвращение метафизики как предмет исторической онтологии: аналитический обзор

The article (the publication consists of two parts) presents an analytical and historiographical overview of the problems that are substantively related to the question of the role, meaning and historical fate of metaphysics. The author focuses on the phenomenon of the return of metaphysics to the philosophy of our time. This phenomenon is proposed to be analyzed from the viewpoint of historical ontology, which deals with the ontological presuppositions of knowledge and their historical dynamics. In the first part, the author highlights two directions of the historical development of metaphysical problems, one of which expresses the immediate metaphysical position, and the other represents the criticism of this position. The author associates criticism of metaphysics with the development of science and the philosophy of science. The author shows the difference between the “analytical” and “continental” approaches to metaphysical problems. The consideration of metaphysics as a historical phenomenon is associated with Hegel’s metaphilosophical historicism. The alternative, non-historical, consideration of metaphysics is placed in the context of empiricism and positivism. The concepts of scientific realism are defined as a kind of positivistically restricted analytical metaphysics. The author highlights three points of growth of post-positivist philosophy and pays special attention to the relationship between post-positivist philosophy of science, history of science, metaphilosophical history of ideas, and sociology of science. The author traces the gradual formation of theoretical conditions for the rehabilitation of metaphysics in these research fields. The author demonstrates that the historicization of Kant’s “transcendental subject” creates a specific epistemological perspective that joins historicism with contextualism. Within this perspective, the question of the ontological presuppositions of empirical (primarily scientific) knowledge, their development and change becomes of great importance.

The Trinitarian Basis of Science

ABSTRACTIn this article, I argue that Trinitarian theology provides the transcendental ground for scientific method and epistemology. To this end, my argument unfolds in three steps. First, I set forth the Peircian triadic circuit as a philosophical description of scientific method. Second, I establish the generality of this Peircian description by showing that the triadic circuit constitutes a methodological invariant within the post-positivist philosophy of science. Finally, I show that the Trinity grounds the Peircian circuit and therewith scientific method and epistemology.

СОВЕТСКИЙ НОРМАТИВИЗМ КАК ТЕОРЕТИКО-ПРАВОВАЯ ПАРАДИГМА

The reason for writing this article were two circumstances. The first is the constant desire of mod-ern authors to treat law as a system. In according to this view elementary cell (or, so to say, kernel) of this system is the set of rules, and all the structures of this system, regardless of their content, are com-posed of norms according to the logical and syntactical prescriptions and with the intentions of the leg-islator. The second is the discussion between supporters of a «narrow» and «broad» understanding of the law. In our humble opinion, this phenomena has not only cognitive, but also value arguments. In this connection, a hypothesis was born about the paradigmatic nature of the normative legal concept, as it developed in the USSR.This work was written to verify this hypothesis. The two questions are posed: 1. to what extent it is permissible to reconstruct soviet normativism in a paradigmatic manner; 2. by what rules this reconstruction should be carried out. The conducted research allowed to reach the following conclusions. Legal normativism (in its so-viet version) as a single and continuous tradition of setting and solving scientific problems fully corre-sponds to the criteria of paradigm, designated in the postpositivist philosophy of science. It is character-ized by technical universalism, since the normative definition of law proved to be suitable for the im-plementation of different goals. It is also characterized by ontological reduction - the reduction of nondiscrete legal phenomena (for example, the principles of law) to deontological judgments and the manipulation with them. The article affirms that the positive significance of the narrow-normative view of law consisted not only in the adaptation of the legal discourse to the discourses of power, but also in the indirect, albeit intensive, mental efforts of lawyers, which was affiliated to alternative legal schools.

Philosophy's Territorialism: Scientists Can Talk About Values Too

Philosophy's TerritorialismScientists Can Talk About Values Too Charlotte Blease (bio) Keywords Depression, fact–value distinction, is/ought distinction, Kuhn, psychiatric classification Tamara Browne proposes a provocative idea: She argues that philosophers, sociologists, and bioethicists should act as an independent editorial panel for future editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Her paper depends on some well-versed claims in philosophy of psychiatry: She argues that psychiatric classifications are inherently value laden and philosophers, sociologists, and ethicists are best placed to discern (i) the values are that embedded within scientific descriptions of mental disorders, and (ii) to speculate on the effects of any such classifications on individuals and the populace at large as a result of these classifications. I agree with Browne that the DSM (and indeed, medicine in general) requires outsiders—among them philosophers (including medical ethicists) and sociologists—to help influence diagnostic systems. My criticism is that Browne delimits the role of outsiders in medicine to the above academics, whom she sees as some category of elite experts in values. In what follows, I argue that the motivation for her proposal rests on a problematic interpretation of the fact–value distinction (one, I argue, that is prevalent in philosophy of psychiatry and does not see facts and values as fully entwined). Building on these comments, I conclude that although an ethics review panel composed of philosophers and sociologists might have (a few) teeth it would have a lot more bite if it also comprised a composite of academics drawn from the rest of the human sciences (including social psychology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and anthropology). Browne (2017, p. 187) claims that, "there are certain questions that science cannot answer authoritatively where there may be clashes between different scientific groups and decisions made for non-scientific reasons." Following an established tradition of philosophical commentary on the value ladenness of psychiatry she argues that, "there are value judgements inherent in psychiatric classification which are unavoidable and cannot be answered by evaluating scientific evidence alone." In respect of this Browne echoes Sadler (2005) and Radden (1994), the latter of whom argues that "the question of where to draw the boundary between mental health and mental disorder will rest on decisions, not mere discoveries" (p. 198). First, some preliminary observations impel me to recommend that Browne be explicit about her own views in regard to the following matter: Does [End Page 231] she consider that values are a product of subjective preferences (taste, or whim)? Rejecting the fact–value dichotomy need not oblige us to side with social constructionism and the idea an objective reality (out there in the world, so to speak) is naive; by extension it ought not to compel us to construe reality as wholly socially constructed and socially determined. Is there evidence that Browne supports this extreme value-drenched perspective? Although I would emphasize that Browne does not explicitly attach her views to this framework her paper is consistent with it—and this is troubling. Browne (2017, p. 189) uncritically cites Foucault in support of the claim that "value judgments are inherent in psychiatric classification," and she endorses the view that sociologists (as well as philosophers) are uniquely equipped to discern the values that are embedded in science. Which brand of sociologist does she have in mind? Social constructionists? And, if this is not her stance, why only committee roles for sociologists among human scientists? To embrace a postmodernist agenda (or to fail to distinguish one's position from it) is a mistake. Certainly, we can agree with the standard wisdom in the philosophy of psychiatry that the fact–value dichotomy is a dogma and one to be rejected; indeed, key developments in post-positivist philosophy of science have taught us that values are deeply entwined with facts (cf. Kuhn, 1962; Polyani, 1962). Cutting to the chase, however, the epistemological problem with social constructionism is that it creates a theoretical void: as Barkow rhetorically asks, "Where do social constructions come from, what are they made of, how do we know them?" (2001, p. 129). Rejecting the fact–value distinction cannot amount to the claim that science is not, thereby, objective...

A systematic companion to “neoclassical” philosophy of science

After the demise of logical empiricism in the late fifties of the past century, philosophy of science entered a sort of Kuhnian revolutionary phase. Both its central problems and the methods used to address them underwent a profound change; under the pressure of the ‘‘new’’ philosophy of science—and of the various historical, sociological, cultural, or feminist approaches—the way of doing philosophy championed by Carnap and Popper was progressively abandoned by many scholars interested in the study of science. Today, it is unclear whether this revolutionary phase is coming to an end, and if a new paradigm is in sight. That this may be the case is suggested by the appearance of some advanced introductions to the philosophy of science, which aim at replacing classical work like those by Carnap (1966) and Hempel (1966) as manuals for the present generation of scholars. These new contributions provide the (advanced) student, and the expert as well, with a firm grip of what, following Kuipers (2001), we may call the ‘‘neoclassical’’ approach to the philosophy of science: briefly, updating and revitalizing the traditional analytic account to tackle the hot problems of postpositivist philosophy of science. With this book, Gerhard Schurz provides probably the most complete advanced introduction to neoclassical philosophy of science appeared so far. Philosophy of science: An unified approach is an impressive overview of the main issues in general philosophy of science, organized by topics and written in a extremely rigorous and systematic style. To be sure, Schurz’s book is a deliberately biased one: To dispel any doubt, right at the beginning he declares himself ‘‘a follower of logically and empirically oriented philosophers of science such as Carnap, Hempel, Reichenbach, and Stegmuller in the German speaking area’’ (xvii). Thus, it is easy

Filosofia das ciências sociais: temas atuais

A filosofia das ciências sociais, concebida da maneira adequada, tem algo a oferecer aos que praticam as ciências sociais. Os cientistas sociais adotam em suas pesquisas, ainda que de forma implícita, alguma filosofia de sua ciência. Para evitar impasses, é melhor explicitar essa filosofia e ser criticamente consciente dos seus méritos. A filosofia das ciências sociais, por sua vez, não pode ser praticada sem um envolvimento íntimo com a pesquisa social. O artigo esboça alguns desenvolvimentos da filosofia da ciência pós-positivista e suas implicações para a filosofia das ciências sociais. Essa perspectiva geral é então aplicada a alguns debates das ciências sociais: a natureza da causalidade; o lugar dos mecanismos na pesquisa social e da legitimidade de explicações puramente macrossociológicas; a distinção entre pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa; a distinção entre evidência observacional e evidência experimental; a polêmica entre o individualismo e o holismo metodológicos na explicação sociológica.

Disciplinary Divides within Asian American Studies: Lessons from Intergroup Contact Theory and Community-Based Participatory Research

Disciplinary Divides within Asian American Studies: Lessons from Intergroup Contact Theory and Community-Based Participatory Research Richard M. Lee (bio) I begin with a confession. I have been an on-again, off-again member of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) for the past seventeen years with the majority of time as a lapsed member. Yet throughout this time, I have been actively involved as a faculty member in Asian American studies (AAS) programs at the University of Texas at Austin (1997–2000) and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (2000–present). Moreover, as a professor of psychology, my research on ethnic identity, perceived discrimination, acculturation, parent-child cultural conflicts, and international adoption has long drawn upon AAS perspectives and scholarship. Nevertheless, I remain ambivalent about AAAS as a professional home, and I believe my own reservations with AAAS reflect a larger disconnect between the behavioral and social sciences and the field of AAS. In this article, I draw upon intergroup contact theory and community-based participatory research methods to suggest ways to bridge the divide between the behavioral and social sciences and AAS/AAAS.9 First, it’s important to begin with an understanding of what I mean by the behavioral and social sciences. I adopt a rather narrow definition that focuses primarily on empirical approaches to understanding human development, health, and well-being, because this specific subset of the field, which includes my own scholarship, is most absent from AAS/AAAS. The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health provides the following description: Basic research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to further our understanding of fundamental mechanisms and patterns of behavioral and social functioning relevant to the Nation’s health and well-being, and as they interact with each other, with biology and the environment. . . . Applied research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to predict or influence health outcomes, [End Page 99] risks, or protective factors. It is also concerned with the impact of illness or risk for illness on behavioral or social functioning.10 This definition explicitly avoids naming particular disciplines, but behavioral and social sciences in this context most often refer to the fields of psychology, political science, sociology, economics, and anthropology—as well as other allied fields such as public health, education, social work. Moreover, behavioral/social scientists use quantitative and qualitative research designs to address these basic and applied research questions. In this respect, most researchers in this defined group of behavioral and social sciences adopt a positivist or postpositivist philosophy of science. Beyond my own confession, the 2013 AAAS Conference programming highlights the lack of involvement by behavioral/social scientists in AAS/AAAS. In a cursory review of the 180 or so program session titles, including plenaries and workshops, I identified only four, possibly five, sessions whose topics and titles allude to a focus on behavioral and social functioning, as defined by NIH. Even among these few sessions, it was not apparent if the presentations involved qualitative or quantitative data. In addition to programming, AAAS also recognizes outstanding scholarship by conferring book awards at the conference, but there are no awards for best peer-reviewed journal articles—which is how the majority of behavioral/social scientists disseminate scholarship. These constructive critiques are not to say behavioral/social scientists only study health and mental health, rely on quantitative or qualitative data analyses, and publish in peer-reviewed journals, but they do suggest an organizational bias or preference within AAAS. It would be easy to blame this poor representation in sessions and awards on the lack of participation by behavioral/social scientists in AAAS or on the outdatedness of the theories and methodologies used by behavioral/social scientists. However, blaming the other (especially when they are in the minority within the organization) is rarely productive and often destructive. To bridge this apparent divide, I adopt intergroup contact theory as a framework to understand how to help overcome perceived barriers and biases. Allport developed the theory based on early field research on black-white relations, such as desegregation/integration leading to more positive racial attitudes. In his pioneering book The Nature of Prejudice, Allport...

Methodology and Truth

1) Introduction: hermeneutics and natural sciences For a long time--perhaps starting from the famous meeting in Davos in 1929--hermeneutics and the philosophy of science which derived from Neo-positivism and focused especially on exact and natural sciences followed separate ways. The crisis of the Neo-empiricist conception, though, brought some changes. The recovery of Duhem's holism, the focusing on the 'implicit' and 'tacit' components present in the cognitive process, Quine's rejection of the dogmas of analiticity and reductionism, Sellars' criticism of the myth of the datum, the overcoming of the distinction between theoretical and observational language, all these elements together led to the emergence of theses in the field of the philosophy of natural science similar to those maintained in the field of hermeneutics by authors like Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jurgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur, theses about the circle, pre-understanding, and To tell the truth, the discussion has not led to clear and univocal results yet. Nevertheless, even though it is too early to advance a definite proposal, it seems possible to me to point out the inadequacy of traditional schematizations especially with respect to the epistemological problems of the objectivity and validity of knowledge. Thus, I do not intend to reconstruct the positions of the philosophers I will speak about; (2) rather, I will devote my attention only to their characterisation of hermeneutics in order to underline--in opposition to their intentions--the similarities with the procedure of natural sciences as this procedure is now described by Post-positivistic philosophy of science. The problem is complex and involves many questions, if only because there is no one universally recognised definition of the natural sciences' methodology. Some philosophers refer to the rules of the hypotethical-deductive method, some others to the canons of the inductive method; some refer to the falsification principle and the notion of corroboration, some others to the inductive confirmation. This is not to mention the variety of positions which have been adopted within these two methodological currents. The very question of the unity of method has a long history in which numerous divergences emerged, not only methodological, but also epistemological ones. In order to avoid all these difficulties, I will concentrate on some specific aspects of the traditional way of characterising the method of natural sciences and I will take the following three theses as parameters and starting points of my discourse: I. Natural science's methodology has universal scientific validity. II. The fundamental characteristics of their methodology is their 'being free' from subjective and evalutative prejudices. III. The systematic application of natural sciences' methodology as characterised in thesis (II) is the best guarantee for the obtainment of cognitive objectivity and the progressive approach to truth. These theses can be considered as some sort of common ground between scientistic philosophers and hermeneutic philosophers. In fact, slightly simplifying things, we can say that they express the opinions on the nature of natural science's method held by many of those who are in favour of the universal applicability of this method, and thus also to human sciences, and those who are not. In the following, I will not deal with the validity of thesis (I) and the methodological question in its general form. I will deal only with those aspects of thesis (I) that are connected to theses (II) and (III). These aspects involve the epistemological problem of cognitive objectivity, or, better, the relationship between subjective presuppositions and the objectivity of knowledge. I will focus my attention on the fact that most philosophers attribute qualities (II) and (III) to natural sciences, but not to human sciences and to hermeneutics in particular. …

Post-positivist Review of Technology Acceptance Model.

This paper reflects upon the technology acceptance model (TAM) from the perspective of the post positivistic philosophy of science. I explore what it is to know, what a theory is, and what it means to be scientific in the context of TAM. In particular, I review criteria for determining whether TAM is scientific or not in light of post-positivistic debates about the nature of science. For this purpose, I apply Popper’s principle of demarcation, which determines whether a theory-like TAM-is falsifiable and the logical connection argument to show that connections between actions and intentions cannot be subjected to empirical testing similar to connections between chemical entities. I also draw on Kuhn’s notion of scientific revolutions to observe the degree to which TAM has become normal science. Finally, I review TAM from the Lakatosian perspective of scientific research programs to evaluate whether the program is advancing or declining. My main objective is not to provide a conclusive evaluation of TAM as a research program or a paradigm, but to open the philosophical foundations of TAM for scrutiny so that it can be evaluated not only within the validation rules followed by its proponents, but by applying a set of well known criteria established in the post-positivistic views of science.

Mokslo vertybinio neutralumo problema

Straipsnyje analizuojama šiuolaikinių diskusijų mokslo vertybinio neutralumo klausimais priešistorė. Išskiriami trys mokslo vertybinio neutralumo problemos aspektai: loginis (deskriptyvinių teiginių ir vertinimų dichotomija ir „Hume'o principas“), metodologinis (reikalavimas priimti ir atmesti hipotezes vien pažintinių vertybių pagrindu), etinis (draudimas mokslo vardu ginti ir skelbti nepažintines vertybes) ir trys diskusijos šiuo klausimu etapai. Analizuojami neutralumo principo šalininkų argumentai, pateikti pirmų dviejų tos diskusijos etapų metu. Ypatingas dėmesys skiriamas keblumams, su kuriais susidūrė šio principo pagrindimas: tai duomenų statistinio reikšmingumo lygmens pasirinkimo priklausomybės nuo nepažintinių vertybių problema, kuri iškyla tikrinant statistines hipotezes (ji yra aktuali loginiam empirizmui), taip pat problema, kaip suderinti sprendimų ir faktų dichotomiją su bazinių teiginių konvencionalumo teze (su ja susiduria kritinis racionalizmas). Aptariami neomarksistinės „kritinės teorijos“ kritinio socialinio mokslo uždavinių sampratos ypatumai, nulėmę jos ryžtingą opoziciją mokslo vertybinio neutralumo principui. Kaip atskaitos taškas skirtingoms mokslo vertybinio neutralumo principo redakcijoms išdėstyti ir palyginti imamos klasikinės vokiečių sociologo Maxo Weberio (1864-1920) formuluotės. Ypatingas dėmesys skiriamas Weberio teiginiams apie „kultūros mokslų“ vertybinių prielaidų kintamumą, anticipuojantiems kai kurias postpozityvistinės mokslo filosofijos idėjas. Lyginant Weberio pažiūras į racionalią diskusiją dėl „galutinių“ vertinimų su povėberinės analitinės metaetikos idėjomis, kvestionuojamas požiūris (jį reiškia A. Maclntyre ir W. G. Runcimanas), kad Weberis buvo nonkognityvistas. Weberio pasisakymai šiuo klausimu interpretuojami kaip kvazitranscendentalinės praktinio proto dialektikos apmatai, kurie gali būti gretinami su Kanto transcendentaline teorinio proto dialektika.

Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry

Studies of human development have taken an ethnographic turn in the 1990s. In this volume, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists discuss how qualitative methodologies have strengthened the understanding of cognitive, emotional and behavioural development, and of the difficulties of growing up in contemporary society. Part One, informed by a post-positivist philosophy of science, argues for the validity of ethnographic knowledge. Part Two examines a range of qualitative methods, from participant observation to the hermeneutic elaboration of texts. In Part Three, ethnographic methods are applied to issues of human development across the life span and to social problems including poverty, racial and ethnic marginality, and crime. Restoring ethnographic methods to a central place in social inquiry, the 22 essays in this text should interest everyone concerned with the epistemological problems of context, meaning and subjectivity in the behavioural sciences.

I. Kantas, T. Parsonsas ir postpozityvizmas socialinėje teorijoje

Straipsnyje ieškoma atsakymo į klausimą, kodėl sociologijos teorija vadinama dviem skirtingais pavadinimais – „socialine teorija“ ir „sociologine teorija“. Grindžiama tezė, kad ši dvivardystė yra dviejų iki galo neišspręstų sociologijos episteminio statuso problemų (sociologijos santykio su kitais socialiniais mokslais ir jos santykio su filosofija) semantinis simptomas. Minimalistiškai save suprantanti sociologija yra mokslas apie visuomenės socialinę bendruomenę. Maksimalistinė sociologijos samprata teigia, kad sociologijos objektas yra visa visuomenė: sociologija tampa socialine teorija ir neišvengia sociologinio proto antinomijų dialektikos, kuri reiškiasi alternatyvių „visuomenės esmės“ sampratų konfliktais. Socialinė teorija ir istorijos filosofija straipsnyje traktuojamos kaip alternatyvios tradicinei metafizikai „modernybės metafizikos“. Postpozityvistinė socialinė teorija traktuojama kaip forumas, kuriame svarstomos turiningos ontologinės sociologinių teorijų darybos problemos.

The new philosophy of science and educational research

Our conceptions of educational research depend very much on our philosophical views. Positivism, in its various guises, is the dominant tradition. Three key positivist notions are considered and evaluated in the light of recent work in postpositivist philosophy of science. The first is foundationalism and the theory-ladenness of observation; the second is verification and holistic revision; the third is value-freedom and epistemic virtues. It is concluded that even if positivism is rejected, a scientific account of educational research can still be retained.

The semantic conception of theories and scientific realism

Frederick Suppe has come to enjoy a position of undisputed leadership in the post-positivistic philosophy of science. Students of the field will therefore welcome publication of the present account of his views. The fourteen chapters derive from papers published since 1971, but which have been subje