Foundations of Empirical Analysis
Dr. Syed Rifaat Hussain
Professor and Chair
Department of Defence and Strategic
Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University
What is empirical analysis?
• Empiricism as a philosophy of science
• Key Tenets:
• 1. Sensory experience is the foundation of all
knowledge.
• 2. Correspondence theory of truth – all
knowledge claims are reducible to sensory
experience.
• Reality exists independent of our senses but
can only be known through them.
What is empirical analysis?
• The most trustworthy form of knowledge is
that which is observable and testable.
• Mental objects have empirical referents.
• Ideas are about things and objects that can be
observed or inferred from experience.
• Which cannot be seen or observed is either
metaphysical or an illusion.
Empiricism
• Empiricism goes back to the writings of the
17th and 18th centuries, and directly associated
with the work of Francis Bacon, John Locke
and David Hume.
• Empiricism takes the view that knowledge
come through experience mediated through
the senses, and that insight can only be
achieved through pure experiences.
Empiricism…
• It assigns a high value to experience and gives
primacy to facts. Hence, Observation and
experience offer the basis of knowledge.
• For Hume (1711-1776), opinions are
reflections of our impressions of reality. In a
more radical form (logical empiricism),
empiricism argues that only things that can be
verified empirically exist. What cannot be
verified does not exist; truths that are not
based on experience are meaningless.
Empiricism vs Rationalism
• Rationalism: mind has innate qualities and is
capable of knowing the truth a priori.
• Mind is tabula rasa “ a white paper” to use
Mill’s term and its impressions are derived
from objects external to it.
• Mind does have the capacity to weave
complex ideas from simple ones but cannot
generate ideas of its own accord.
What is science
• Kenneth Hoover: “Science is neither technology, nor
particular people working as scientists, nor a body of
knowledge but a process of thinking and asking
questions…Science is really a matter of figuring out
relationships between things we know something
about. To propose a relationship is a creative and
imaginative act, however much systematic
preparation may lie in the background. To test a
proposition against reality involves a different order
of imagination – mainly the ability to find in the bits
and pieces of information elicited from reality the one
item that is essential to testing the credibility of a
particular idea.” (2001: 1-7).
What is scientific research
• “Scientific research is systematic, controlled,
empirical, and critical investigation of
hypothetical propositions about the presumed
relations among phenomena.” (p. 11)
Postulates of Science
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All behavior is naturally determined
Man is part of the natural world
Nature is orderly and regular
Nature changes slowly
All observable phenomena are eventually knowable
Truth is relative to the existing body of knowledge
The world is perceived through our senses
Our perceptions, memory and reasoning are to be
trusted - senses are relatively reliable agencies for
acquiring facts. Sense experience requires judgements.
What is Scientific Method?
• It is a method of analysis, deals with observable
phenomena. It is objective, logical and
systematic.
• Objectives are to describe, explain, and predict
phenomena
• Description (answers the question of who, what,
where, when or how much)
• Explanation (answers “why” type of questions)
• Prediction (answers what will happen type of
questions)
What is scientific method?
• Kenneth Hoover:
• The identification of the variables to be studied
• A hypothesis about the relation of one variable to
another or to a situation
• A reality test whereby changes in the variables are
measured to see if the hypothesized relationship is
evidenced.
Kenneth Hoover…
• An evaluation in which the measured
relationship between the variables is
compared with the original hypothesis, and
generalizations about the findings are
developed.
• Suggestions about the theoretical significance
of the findings, factors involved in the test
that may have distorted the results, and other
hypothesis that the inquiry brings to mind
Features of scientific mehtod
• The goal is inference: “Scientific research is designed to make
descriptive or explanatory inferences on the basis of empirical
information about the world. Careful description of specific phenomena
are often indispensable to scientific research, but the accumulation of
facts alone is not sufficient. Facts can be collected (by qualitative or
quantitative researchers) more or less systematically,and the former is
obviously better than the latter, but our particular definition of science
requires the additional step of attempting to infer beyond the immediate
data to something broader that is not directly observed. That something
may involve descriptive inference – using observations from the world to
learn about other unobserved facts. Or that something may involve
causal inference – learning about causal effects from the data observed.
The domain of inference can restricted in space and time…or it can be
extensive – human behaviour since the invention of agriculture. In either
case the key distinguishing mark of scientific research is the goal of
making inferences that go beyond the particular observations collected.”
Polany (1958: 128)
• …We should look at the known data, but not
in themselves, rather as clues to the unknown,
as pointers to it and parts of it. We should
strive persistently to feel our way towards and
understanding of the manner in which these
known particulars hang together, both
mutually and with the unknown.”
Features of scientific method…
• The Procedures are public “Scientific research uses explicit,
codified, and public methods to generate and analyze data whose
reliability can therefore be assessed….If the method and logic of a
researcher’s observations and inferences are left implicit, the
scholarly community has no way of judging the validity of what
was done. We cannot evaluate the principles of selection that
were used to record observations, the ways in which observations
were processed, and the logic by which conclusions were drawn.
We cannot learn from their methods or replicate their results.
Such research is not a public act. Whether or not it makes good
reading, it is not a contribution to social science.”
• Robert K. Merton: “The sociological analysis of qualitative data
often resides in a private world of penetrating but unfathomable
insights and ineffable understanding…Science is public not
private.” (1968: 71-72).
Features of scientific method
• The content is the method. “Scientific research
adheres to a set of rules of inference on which its validity
depends. Explicating the most important rules is a major
task of scientific enterprise. The content of “science” is
primarily the methods and rules, not the subject matter,
since we can use these methods to study virtually
anything. This point was recognized over a century ago
when Karl Pearson (1892: 16) explained that the “field of
science is unlimited; its material is endless; every group of
natural phenomena, every phase of social life, every stage
of past or present development is material for science.
The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in
its material.”
Anti-social science arguments
• Experimentation is not feasible in social science
• Quantification is impossible in social science
• Science is nomothetic (deals with generalizations)and
social and political world is ideographic (unique,
singular) social science cannot be scientific
• Social and political phenomena are too complex to
yield law-like generalizations.
• Investigation of social behavior may alter that behavior
• Social science cannot be conducted objectively due to
our values.
• Social world changes as we study it.
Four-fold classification of social reality
• The Actual - what was or is known through the method of
description.
• The Possible – What can be known through the method of
theoretical speculation.
• The Probable – What will be, known through the method of
prediction.
• The Desirable – What ought to be known through the method
of ethical or valuational or normative reflection. These four
categories correspond to history, art, science, and philosophy.
Key Elements of empirical analysis
• Concepts - observables
• Variables – indicators and operational
definitions
• Hypothesis
• Laws
• Theories
• Falsification
• Verification.
Hypothesis
• A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of the
relation between two or more variables.
Hypothesis are always in declarative sentence
form and they relate variables to variables.
Two features of hypothesis are noteworthy:
one, they are statements about the relations
between variables. Two, they carry clear
implications for testing the stated relations.
What is a theory?
• James Dougherty: “At the simplest level a theory is a
general explanation of certain selected phenomena
set forth in a manner satisfactory to some one
acquainted with the characteristics of the reality
being studied…it is a way of organizing our
knowledge so that we can ask questions worth
answering, guide our research toward valid answers,
and integrate our knowledge with that of related
fields.” (p. 20).
Fred. N. Kerlinger
• “A theory is a set of interrelated constructs
(concepts), definitions, and propositions that
a present a systematic view of phenomena by
specifying relations among variables, with the
purpose of explaining and predicting the
phenomena.” (p. 9)
What is a theory?
• A theory is a symbolic construction, a series of
interrelated hypotheses together with
definitions, laws, theorems and axioms. A
theory sets forth a systematic view of
phenomena by presenting a series of
propositions or hypotheses which specify
relations among variables in order to present
explanations and make predictions about the
phenomena.
Functions of theory
• Description
• Explanation
• Prediction
Three conceptualizations of
Theory
• 1. Theory as an ordering framework which
permits observational data to be use for
predicting and explaining empirical events.
• Theory as conceptualization, in which to
theorize means to prescribe a particular way
of conceptualizing something.
• Theory is also often interchangeably with
hypothesis or explanation.
Quincy Wright
• “A general theory of international relations
means a comprehensive, coherent, and selfcorrecting body of knowledge contributing to
the understanding, the prediction, the
evaluation, and the control of relations among
states and of the conditions of the world.”
Levels of Analysis in International Relations
International System
State
Alliances
Government
Interest
Groups
Intergovernmental organizations
International norms/rules
Economy
Individual
Personality
perceptions
activities
choices
National
Interest
Multinational corporations
Hypothesized Interrelationships
among three levels of Analysis
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Global
Regional
Nation State
Global
Nation State
Regional Level
Regional
Global
Nation State
Regional
Nation State
Global
Nation State
Regional Level
Global
Nation State
Global Level
Regional Level
Time continuum
Systemic
aggregation
continuum
Sources that tend
to change slowly
Systemic
sources
Great power structure
Alliances
Size
Geography
Societal
sources
Governmental
sources
Idiosyncratic
sources
Sources that tend to
undergo repaid change
Technology
Economic development
Culture and
History
Situational factors: external
Issue areas
Crises
Situational factors: internal
Social structure
Moods of opinion
Political accountability
Governmental structure
Values, talents,
experience, and
personalities of
leaders
Interpretation: intentionality
• A Twitch and a Wink:
• “two boys rapidly contracting the eyelids of
their right eyes. In one, this is an involuntary
twitch; in the other, a conspiratorial signal to a
friend. The two movements as movements are
identical. Yet the difference is huge….the
winker is communicating, in a precise and
special way…
A Twitch and a wink
• 1) deliberately, 2) to some one in particular, 3)
to impart a particular message, 4) according to
a socially established code, and 5)without
cognizance of the rest of the company…the
winker has done two things, contracted his
eyelids and winked, while the twitcher has
done only one, contracted his eyelids.
Contracting your eyelids on purpose when
there exists a public code in which doing so
counts as conspiratorial signal is winking.
What does this mean?
• This essentially means that without the
concept of winking, given meaning by a theory
of communication, the most precise
quantitative study of “eyelid contracting by
human beings” would be meaningless for
students of social relations.
Psathas (1968: 510)
• “any behaviour by focusing only on that part
which is overt and manifested in concrete,
directly observable acts is naïve, to say the
least. The challenge to the social scientist who
seeks to understand social reality, then, is to
understand the meaning that the actor has for
him.”