THE DEAD HAND OF PHILOSOPHY

"That the social sciences are in their infancy has become a platitude amongst writers of textbooks...They will argue that this is because the social sciences have been slow to emulate the natural sciences and emancipate themselves from the dead hand of philosophy...." Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, Ch. 1, p 1.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Fate That Narcissists Will Hate: Being Ignored NYT Editorial AVOID MICKEY MOUSE SCIENCE ALSO CALLED JUNK SCIENCE

If 5 categories are eliminated of 10, what does that imply for the previous credibility of this analytic framework, or for its credibility going forward?

Wittgenstein had made some remarks, eg about things like 'experimental methods and conceptual confusion'.

One could perhaps append 'clinical methods, and conceptual confusion' here.....

One needs to avoid the appearance, too often seen in the social sciences, and even many so-called exact ones, of being too 'Mickey Mouse'.

When a so-called 'discipline', see eg recent posts on this topic, goes in, to some extent, for 'more an art rather than a science' rubric, watch out.

Real estate appraisal, just one tiny example, has sometimes been called an 'art', rather than an exact science (whatever that may now be taken to mean).

Thus, it has not been 'susceptible' to certain legalistic standards, otherwise normatively applied, in the legal field, to so-called more 'exact sciences'.............