”Naturalist” and ”Constructivist”
Ways of Knowing.
Apropos Moses & Knutsen,
Kap II, VII og VIII.
Torben Hviid Nielsen
Sept. 2015
1. Læringsmål.
”Naturalist” and ”Constructivist” Philosophy.
”Naturalist”
philosophy (II)
Doubts (VII)
”Constructivist”
philosophy (VIII)
Ontology:
The World as it IS
Independent
particles
Nature: Chaos &
Uncertainty.
Society: Context &
Perspective.
Malleable world,
each of us
participates in
construction
Epistemology:
WHAT “we“ can
know
Sense perception &
reason:
A posteriori
knowledge of
associations
- Presuppositions,
- Meaning,
- Scientific
authority,
Broader repertoire:
- History,
- Impact of Society,
- Role of Ideas,
- Language &
Communication
Methodology:
HOW “we” can
know
Seeks to identify
regularities in the
Real World
Discourse,
“Anything goes”
Seeks to identify
socially constructed
patterns and
regularities
Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
”The Design”
The Naturalist Philosophy. A summary (II)
Doubts about Naturalist Philosophy (VII)
A Constructivist Philosophy (VIII)
a)
b)
c)
d)
The Role of History (176-178)
The Impact of Society (178-181)
The Role of Ideas (181-187)
On Communication and Language (187-190)
5. (En parentes om kausalitet)
6. Four critiques / questions / limitations
a)
b)
c)
d)
To ontologier?
Parallelle, samtidige udviklinger?
Konstruktivisme – relativisme?
Modstilling eller hierarki?
2. The ”Naturalist” Philosophy.
A summary
”Naturalist”
philosophy
Ontology:
The World as it IS
Independent
particles
Epistemology:
WHAT “we“ can
know
Sense perception &
reason:
A posteriori
knowledge of
associations
Methodology:
HOW “we” can
know
Seeks to identify
regularities in the
Real World
Assumptions:
1. Existence of a “Real”
World out there
2. Real World is
independent of our
interrogation
3. Real World is
patterned or orderly
143
3. Doubts.
Doubts (VII)
Ontology:
The World as it IS
Nature:
Chaos & Uncertainty.
Society:
Context & Perspective.
Epistemology:
WHAT “we“ can
know
Presuppositions,
Meaning,
-Scientific authority,
Methodology:
HOW “we” can
know
Discourse,
“Anything goes”
3. Doubts about Naturalist Philosophy
I. Ontological (143-149)
1. Natural World: not characterized by universal
laws and patterns:
1. Chaos (Capra)
2. Uncertainty (Heisenberg)
2. Social World:
1. Subjects are self-aware, reflexive, intentional
(Huntington)
2. Context & Perspective (Nietzsche & Foucault)
3. ”Social scientists study the social world with the
aim of improving it” (149). (!)
3. Doubts about Naturalist Philosophy
II. Epistemological (149-160)
1. Presuppositions: ”Facts” themselves are
historical phenomena (Collingwood, Popper)
2. Meaning: The natural world is caught up in
its own webs of significance and meaning
(Rorty)
3. Authority of science:
– Andre vidensformer:
• Litteratur
• Common sense: Videnskaben og konens forståelse af
Mr. Rouget
3. Doubts about Naturalist Philosophy
III. Methodological (160-164)
”No longer are we limited to the sort of reason,
facts and authority that has permeated scientific
discourse for so long” (160-161)
– Paul Feyerabend: Aesthetic criteria, personal
whims and social factors have a decisive role in
the history of science
– Michel Foucault: ”a theory of discursive practice”
4. A Constructivist Philosophy
Fra Kants transcendentale idealisme til Whewells
sociale konstruktivisme
William Whewell (1794-1866)
Trinity College, Cambridge
«History of the Inductive
Sciences»
«Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences»
1. Critique of Naturalists:
a) Ontologically shallow
b) Epistemologically
incomplete
c) Methodologically
wrong
2. Scientists begin with a
question
3. ”Retroduction” (Peirce),
New knowledge
4. Sense perception +
appropriate processing of
perceptions (173 ff)
4. Constructivist Philosophy
a. The Role of History (176-178)
1. ”no steady patter of accumulation of singular
insights … human knowledge in sociological
terms”
2. Kuhn on ”paradigms”.
3. From Story Telling to Telling Histories (IX).
Hayden White on genres:
a)
b)
c)
d)
Romance
Tragedies
Satire
Comedy
4. Constructivist Philosophy
b. The Impact of Society (178-181)
Knowledge affected by:
1. Individuals as Carriers of Knowledge
a) Types of knowledge, forskellige discipliner/fag
b) Context, controversy
c) Social and communal aspects, “societies of scholars”
2. Society as Pools of Knowledge
1. «Wissenssoziologie»
a) Karl Mannheim, “Ideologi og utopi”, “falsk
bevidsthed”
b) The Frankfurter School, “Kritisk teori”
(Merton om Videnskabens ethos og
CUDOS)
Institutionel ethos




Communalism – the common
ownership of scientific discoveries.
Universalism – according to
which claims to truth are
evaluated in terms of universal or
impersonal criteria.
Disinterestedness – according to
which scientists are rewarded for
acting in ways that outwardly
appear to be selfless.
Organized skepticism – all ideas
must be tested and are subject to
rigorous, structured community
scrutiny.
Merton, 1942
CUDOS
”The communism of the scientific
ethos is incompatible with the
definition of technology as
”private property” in a capitalist
economy.
Patents proclaim exclusive rights
of use and, often, nonuse.
The suppression of invention
denies the rationale of
scientific production and
diffusion ...”
1973 (1942): 275
4. Constructivist Philosophy
c. The Role of Ideas (181-187)
«Verstehen» and Hermeneutics
1. Foreknowledge / empathy
2. Verstehen. Hermeneutic circle (Dilthey, Weber)
3. Double hermeneutics (Giddens). “… to interpret
a social world which is already interpreted by the
actors that inhabit it”
4. Annales, ”habitus” (Bourdieu) “.. Socialized
subjectivity … the internalization of externality
and the externalization of internality”
4 Constructivist Philosophy
d. On Communication and Language (187-190)
1. Kuhn: ”facts are theory dependent”
2. The Linguistic turn (Richard Rorty)
1. Saussure: Meaning determined by context or
structure, not content.
2. Prague School.
3. Lévi-Strauss. Universal codes and universal
mental structures beneath all myth and kinship
structures
The ”Constructivist” Philosophy.
A Summary
”Constructivist”
philosophy (VIII)
Ontology:
The World as it IS
Malleable world,
each of us
participates in
construction
Epistemology:
WHAT “we“ can
know
Broader repertoire:
- History,
- Impact of Society,
- Role of Ideas,
- Language &
Communication
Methodology:
HOW “we” can
know
Seeks to identify
socially constructed
patterns and
regularities
1. Naturalists… an
unsatisfactory basis for
social science
2. Tend to be more
agnostic on issues of
truth
3. Tend to be
epistemological
pluralists
192-193
En modstilling (p. 287)
(5. En parentes om kausalitet)
• Aristoteles: Fire årsager – incl. formål
• Hume:
– Reducerer årsag til efficient (intet formål)
– Kausalitet kan ikke ”ses”: Grænse for induktion og
nødvendighed
• Kant:
– Fra Naturen til Brain
– Almene, apriori tankeformer
5. Causality: Aristoteles four causes
Eksemplet: Billedhuggeren
De fire årsager
1. Material: from which a thing is made
2. Formal: The form or pattern
3. Efficient: The original source of change
4. Final: The end, the purpose
”In many cases, the last three of these causes
come to the same thing”
”Since a thing’s nature involves purpose,
then, we also have to understand this
cause”
”... Things happen by chance: they happen
coincidentally, and chance is a
coincidental cause”
”Physics”, 1996: 39, 49, 45
5. Causality: Hume on induction
and necessity
Eksempel: billiardkugler
Årsag ”kun” efficient
Betingelser for kausalitet:
• Continquity in time
• Cause prior to effect
• Constant conjunction
• ……
Kausalitet kan ikke iagttages
Induktion kan ikke vise
“nødvendighed”
Den “sorte svane” som
falsifikation / modbevis
5. From how and why to how as why
- Galileo og Hume
Galileo: how and why
Hume: how as why
One: Description first,
explanation second –
that is, the «how»
precedes the «why»
Two: Description is
carried out in the
language of
mathematics; namely,
equations
Hume argued
convincingly that the
why is not merely
second to the how, but
that the why is totally
superfluous as it is
subsumed by the how
20
Judea Pearl. Causality, 2009: 404 & 406
5. Causality: Kant’s pure concepts (”Reine
Kategorien”) of understanding
Shift of ontological terrain from
nature to the human mind (172)
Ding an Sich og Erscheinung
• Rum og Tid som rene
Anskuelsesformer
• 12 Forstandskategorier
–
–
–
–
Kvantitative
Kvalitative
Relationelle (herunder kausalitet)
Modale (172)
Fra «constant conjuncture» til «betingede
regelmæssigheder» ?
Humes «kausalitet»
Intention, sorte bokse og
konsekvenser
Kausalitet
Årsag
Virkning
Konsekvenser
Intention
Formidling
/ Black box
Konsekvenser
Constant
conjuncture
22
Betingede
regelmæssighed
6. ”Naturalist” and ”Constructivist” Philosophy.
Four critiques / questions / limitations
a) To ontologier? To forskellige typer af
lovmæssigheder og/eller en historisk
sammenvævet enhed
b) ”Naturalisme” og ”konstruktivismen” som to
parallelle spor siden antikken/renaissancen
c) ”Konstruktivisme”: A priori kategorier eller
subjektiv relativisme?
d) En modstilling eller et hierarki af metoder?
a. Two Ontologies:
a) Physis & Nomos: two types of “laws”?
Antiphons distinction
Physis
Laws of nature
Nomos
Law in society
Necessary, demands
Artificial,
“Gebote”
“Willkürlich”
Result of agreement,
Ontology Result of natural disposition,
“gewachsen”
“vereinbart”
Sanctions Nature will always punish Can be transgressed without
Transgression
punishment by society
Status
App. 420 b. C,
Rediscovered 1915
a. Two ontologies:
Nature and Society: En historisk enhed ?
”The opposition between
nature and society is a
construction of the 19.
Century, which served the
dual purpose to control and
to ignore nature.
At the end of the 20. Century,
nature is subordinated and
utilized, and has thus
changed from an external to
an internal, from a given to a
constructed phenomenon.”
”… as soon as we grant
historicity to all the
actors so that we can
accommodate the
proliferation of quasiobjects, Nature and
Society have no more
existence than West
and East”.
Bruno Latour, 1993 (1991): 85.
Ulrich Beck , 1986:9
b. Historisk:
To parallelle spor?
”Konstruktivisme” opstår samtidig med
naturalisme i renæssancen og udvikler sig
parallelt med denne:
Eksempler:
1. Machiavelli: ”Fyrsten” – at skabe magt
2. Vico: Historien og utilsigtede konsekvenser
3. Montaigne: introspektion og kulturelle
forskelle
c. ”Konstruktivisme”:
A priori «kategorier» eller social/subjektiv
«relativisme»? Kant versus Latour
“Science is much too
ramshackle to talk
about. …
There is only know-how.
… Despite all claims to
the contrary, crafts
hold the key to
knowledge.
They make it possible to
return “Science” to the
networks from which it
came”.
Bruno Latour, 1988 (1984):
218.
d. Modstilling, hierarki eller
supplement?
Table 8.1, 168
Læringsmål.
”Naturalist” and ”Constructivist” Philosophy.
”Naturalist”
philosophy (II)
Doubts (VII)
”Constructivist”
philosophy (VIII)
Ontology:
The World as it IS
Independent
particles
Nature: Chaos &
Uncertainty.
Society: Context &
Perspective.
Malleable world,
each of us
participates in
construction
Epistemology:
WHAT “we“ can
know
Sense perception &
reason:
A posteriori
knowledge of
associations
- Presuppositions,
- Meaning,
- Scientific
authority,
Broader repertoire:
- History,
- Impact of Society,
- Role of Ideas,
- Language &
Communication
Methodology:
HOW “we” can
know
Seeks to identify
regularities in the
Real World
Discourse,
“Anything goes”
Seeks to identify
socially constructed
patterns and
regularities
Summary
1.
2.
3.
4.
”The Design”
The Naturalist Philosophy. A summary (II)
Doubts about Naturalist Philosophy (VII)
A Constructivist Philosophy (VIII)
a)
b)
c)
d)
The Role of History (176-178)
The Impact of Society (178-181)
The Role of Ideas (181-187)
On Communication and Language (187-190)
5. (En parentes om kausalitet)
6. Four critiques / questions / limitations
a)
b)
c)
d)
To ontologier?
Parallelle, samtidige udviklinger?
Konstruktivisme – relativisme?
Modstilling eller hierarki?