Scott Gordon — The history and philosophy of social science

Автор: Scott Gordon
Название книги: The history and philosophy of social science
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Философия
Страницы: 703
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

A landmark in its field, this book attains the most exacting scholarly
standards whilst making the history of the social sciences enjoyable to read.
Scott Gordon provides a magisterial review of the historical development of
the social sciences. He examines the problems which confronted the great
thinkers in their attempts to construct systematic theories of social
phenomena. At the same time, he presents an authoritative survey of the
major writers in the fields of economics, sociology and political science.
Separate chapters are devoted to particular topics of special significance such
as the nature of sociality, the idea of harmonious order, the conflict between
progress and perfection, the methodology of history and the relation between
biology and the social sciences. In the concluding chapter, the author
examines the main lines of thought that have developed in the philosophy of
science since the breakdown of logical empiricism, and he shows how the
scientific investigation of social phenomena differs from the methodologies of
the physical and biological sciences.
This bold new synthesis of the different traditions in the social sciences is
at once a major contribution and a superb overview.

Alfred North Whitehead once remarked that ‘A science which hesitates to
forget its founders is lost.’ Daniel J.Boorstin tells us that ‘An ample account
of the rise of the social sciences would be nothing less than a survey of
modern European history.’ If I shared these views without reserve, this book
would not have been written, for, according to Boorstin, it would be well
beyond my capacities and, according to Whitehead, it would constitute
academic malpractice.
But perhaps Whitehead may be interpreted as meaning to say that ‘a science
which worships its founders is lost’. With this I can wholly agree. A large part of
the history of social science (and, for that matter, natural science as well) is a
record of theories and inferences that we now believe to be wrong. To admire
John Locke and Adam Smith, or Aristotle and Newton, for what they succeeded
in doing in their time is warranted; to worship them uncritically as promulgators
of eternal truths is not. This book has been written with the conviction that
something of contemporary value can be gained from a study of the efforts of
our forefathers to understand the nature of social life, even when they failed;
and, indeed, we can learn more from their successes if we are aware of the
weaknesses and limitations of theories that we regard, for the nonce, as true.
Daniel Boorstin’s remark is more difficult for me to cope with, for this
book does not even approach being ‘a survey of modern European history’.
Though I emphasize the strong orientation of social scientists to the
economic, social, and political problems of their own times and places, I do
not devote more space than is minimally necessary to considering the
historical context of their work. Nor do I discuss the empirical work of social
scientists, despite its prominence in the modern practice of these disciplines.
My principal objective has been to maintain a strong focus on the flow of
theoretical ideas in the history of social science, and to connect that history
with issues in the philosophy of science. This book, long as it is, is only meant
to be an introduction to a very large subject on which there are already many
books and articles, and room for more.
Some readers who accept the pragmatic necessity of concentrating on
theoretical ideas may nevertheless be surprised to find some things missing that they would consider important. For example, there is no extended
discussion here of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Vilfredo Pareto, or
Thorstein Veblen, all of whom deserve study by the serious student. John
Stuart Mill, unquestionably one of the most important social scientists and
philosophers of the modern era, comes into the discussion here and there but
is not given a chapter or section of his own. Some important topics are
neglected as well, most conspicuously perhaps the history of socialism. In
outlining this book I had originally planned to devote a chapter to a survey
of the political, sociological, and economic theories of socialism, and the
critiques of them, but have had to abandon this upon realization that it
would necessarily constitute a sizeable book in itself. The constraints of
space, and time, have forced me to be severely selective, since I believe it is
more useful, as an introduction to the history and philosophy of social
science, to discuss a limited number of thinkers and topics at some length
than to devote a few pages each to a more comprehensive list. The selection
has been guided by the aim of presenting the history and philosophy of social
science as distinct, but none the less conjunctive, subjects which illuminate
each other. As Immanuel Kant put it, according to Imre Lakatos’s felicitous
paraphrase: ‘philosophy of science without history of science is empty;
history of science without philosophy of science is blind’.
What is the point of doing this? Does it have any ‘practical’ value? Some
philosophers of science take the stance that the object of their discipline is to
delineate a methodology of investigation that guarantees the discovery of truth,
and to prescribe that methodology as canonical imperatives which practising
scientists are obligated to follow. If this were possible, our subject would indeed
have great practical import; studying the philosophy of social science would be
an important part of the training of a modern social scientist. But in fact
courses in philosophy (or history) are not typically, or even frequently, part of
the prescribed curriculum for graduate study in the social science disciplines.
Nor are they prescribed for students in the natural sciences. Professors of
research disciplines teach ‘scientific method’ and note the history of their
subject, but they do so without much explicit reference to what philosophers,
or historians, talk about. If historians and philosophers of science have
something of value to contribute to the work of scientific research, they have
not yet been able to convince practising scientists that this is so.
My object in writing this book is not to remedy this. Though I would not go
so far as Whitehead does, I am not convinced that knowledge of the history of
a science improves one’s ability to practise it, and I am even more sceptical of
the claim that current research would be facilitated if scientists were to pay
close attention to the issues that are the philosophers’ stock in trade. Study of
the history and philosophy of science can be strongly recommended, but for a
different reason: because of the contributions they can make to one’s
understanding of modern Western civilization. Science is one of the most
distinctive, and perhaps the most significant, feature of our contemporary culture. This is so not only because of the substantive findings of scientists and
their practical applications but, more importantly, because of the development
of the ‘scientific way of thinking’, which has spread, though not without
continuing resistance, beyond the domain of science into all aspects of our lives.
This transition from older ways of thinking is very recent, even in the history of
the West; in many other areas of the world it has hardly yet even begun. The
role of the social sciences in this is no less important than developments in the
natural sciences. In brief, my contention is that the study of the history and
philosophy of social science stands on its own. It is not a handmaiden to science
or a servant of public policy; it enables us to understand and appreciate, in a
critical fashion, the intellectual development of our civilization.
During the course of writing this book I have benefited from discussions
with colleagues too numerous to mention. But, for reading the whole
manuscript, or parts of it, I would like especially to thank Mark Blaug, Patrick
Brantlinger, Chung-Ching Chen, Paul Eisenberg, Bruce Fletcher, George von
Furstenberg, Roy J.Gardner, Ronald N.Giere, William D.Grampp, D.Wade
Hands, Herbert J.Kiesling, Bernard S.Morris, Joel Smith, Nicholas Spulber,
Sheldon Stryker, George M.Wilson, and George W.Wilson.