Philosophy of X?

When philosophers do their thinking within a field called "the philosophy of X", there is always a natural question that arises: how will philosophical reflection about X be helpful or constructive for the practitioners of X? For example, how might the philosophy of science be helpful for working scientists? How can the philosophy of biology or economics be helpful to biologists or economists? And, for that matter -- why isn't there a philosophy of plumbing or long-distance bus driving?As for the last question, there seem to be two separate reasons for this gap in the spectrum -- a dearth of difficult conceptual problems and a lack of potentially useful consequences. First, philosophy finds traction when it deals with subject matter that raises...

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Posted in: CAT_epistemology,philosophy,philosophy of science

Correspondence, abstraction, and realism

Science is generally concerned with two central semantic features of theories: truth of theoretical hypotheses and reliability of observational predictions. (Philosophers understand the concept of semantics as encompassing the relations between a sentence and the world: truth and reference. This understanding connects with the ordinary notion of semantics as meaning, in that the truth conditions of a sentence are thought to constitute the meaning of the sentence.) Truth involves a correspondence between hypothesis and the world; while predictions involve statements about the observable future behavior of a real system. Science is also concerned with epistemic values: warrant and justification. The warrant of a hypothesis is a measure of...

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Posted in: CAT_epistemology,epistemology,prediction,realism

Class in America

Are there social classes in America?In order to answer the question in the affirmative, we would need to determine whether there are major social groups that are defined by their position within the economy, who share --some degree of a common perspective on the worldsome degree of a common culturea set of distinctive economic intereststhe potential of engaging in collective political action in support of their interests.Does American society possess groups with these characteristics? Or, in the negative, is the American population so homogeneous (or possibly, so heterogeneous) in values, interests, culture, and politics, that the concept of class has no bearing today?There are certainly occupational groupings in the American workforce. The...

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Posted in: CAT_power,class consciousness

A diagram of class structure

Consider this schematic representation of several variables defined by circumstances of work, income, and occupation. The diagram proposes a classification of income earners according to a series of distinctions about their economic situation.The diagram captures a handful of separate dimensions of a person's economic location -- one's class. These include:source of income (profits, wages, partner's shares)level of skill and educationfunction as manager or staffincome level (high, medium, low)sector of economy (manufacturing, service, agriculture)These are important economic characteristics that serve to define a person's status, quality of life, and opportunities in American society. (All but income are designated in the dashed boxes on the...

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Posted in: CAT_power

Causal difference

Source: Federica Russo, Causality and Causal Modelling in the Social Sciences, p. 164I've recently read a very interesting recent book by Federica Russo, Causality and Causal Modelling in the Social Sciences: Measuring Variations (Methodos Series) on the philosophical issues that arise in causal reasoning about social phenomena. Russo is obviously a talented and dedicated philosopher, and the book is a highly interesting contribution.Explanation is at the center of scientific research, and explanation almost always involves the discovery of causal relations among factors, conditions, or events. This is true in the social sciences no less than in the natural sciences. But social causes look quite a bit different from causes of natural phenomena....

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Posted in: CAT_mechanisms,causal reasoning

The sociology of class

According to the traditional definition, a class is defined in relation to the broad structure of the property system. A group of people belong to the same class when they occupy the same position within the property system governing labor, physical assets, and perhaps intangible assets such as knowledge or money. This is a structural definition of the concept of class. In nineteenth-century France we might have classified the population into land owners, capital owners, wage laborers, artisans, professionals (accountants, architects), intellectuals, government officials, civil service workers, small merchants, smallholding farmers, tenant farmers, landless workers, and lumpenproletariat. And these groups can be roughly triangulated according...

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Posted in: CAT_power,class consciousness,identity,peasant,structure

Power and class in the 21st century

We could say that power and class are the two most important determinants of everyday life in the 21st century. Class relations – determined by the property system and the basic economic institutions within which we live – determine our opportunities, health, quality of life, and sometimes our basic freedoms. Power relations influence our careers, our opportunities, our freedoms, and very basic aspects of our behavior and choice. It is reasonable to think that the system of power and class within which we live constitutes the basic framework within which our lives and purposes unfold.Further, the two schemata of post-modern life are interrelated. The property system within which we live is like a medieval cathedral – it cannot stand without...

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Posted in: CAT_power,class consciousness,power

Maps, narratives, and abstraction

It is obvious that maps are selective representations of the world. They represent an abstraction: a representation of a complex, dense reality that signifies some characteristics while deliberately ignoring other aspects. The principles of selection used by the cartographer are highly dependent on the expected interests of the user. Topography will be relevant to the hiker but not the motorist. Location of points of interest will be important to the tourist but not the long-distance trucker. Location of railroad hubs will be valued by the military planner but not the birdwatcher. So there is no such thing as a comprehensive map -- one that represents all geographical details; and there is also no such thing as a truly "all-purpose" map --...

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Posted in: CAT_epistemology,convention,explanation,narrative

Comparative life satisfaction

We tend to think of the past century as being a time of great progress when it comes to the quality of life -- for ordinary people as well as the privileged. Advances in science, technology, and medicine have made life more secure, predictable, productive, educated, and healthy. But in what specific ways is ordinary life happier or more satisfying for ordinary people in 2000 compared to their counterparts in 1900 or 1800 -- or 200, for that matter?There are a couple of things that are pretty obvious. Nutrition is one place to start: the mass population of France, Canada, or the United States is not subject to periodic hunger, malnutrition, or famine. This is painfully not true for many poor parts of the world -- Sudan, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh,...

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Posted in: CAT_agency,folk sociology,food,subjectivity

Contingent historical development

Here's a relatively limited historical puzzle to solve. A powerful new technology -- the railroad -- was developed in the first part of the nineteenth century. The nature and characteristics of the technology were essentially homogeneous across the national settings in which it appeared in Europe and North America. However, it was introduced and built out in three countries -- the United States, Britain, and France -- in markedly different ways. The ways in which the railroads and their technologies were regulated and encouraged were very different in the three countries, and the eventual rail networks had very different properties in the three countries. The question for explanation is this: can we explain the differences in these three...

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Posted in: CAT_history,comparative method,explanation,France,policy

Objectivity in the social sciences

What is objectivity in social science? What might be meant by the claim that a given theory represents an objective scientific analysis of a range of social phenomena? Debate over the objectivity of social science has often combined a variety of separate theses:There are social facts that are independent of the concepts and theories of the scientist which the theory is intended to uncover--that is, that there is an objective social world. (ontological objectivity)It is possible for a theory of a given range of social facts to be well-grounded on the basis of the right sorts of reasons (empirical and theoretical adequacy). (epistemic objectivity)Social facts are independent of the states of consciousness of participants.Scientific inquiry...

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Posted in: CAT_epistemology,objectivity,realism

Why "philosophy of social science"?

Source: The Frankfurt SchoolThe subject of the philosophy of social science is important but poorly understood. The field considers the most foundational questions about the possibility of scientific knowledge about the social world. What are the scope and limits of scientific knowledge of society? What is involved in arriving at a scientific understanding of society? What are the most appropriate standards for judging proffered social explanations? A philosophy can guide us as we construct a field of knowledge, and it can serve as a set of regulative standards as we conduct and extend that field of knowledge. Philosophy has served both intellectual functions in the past century or two.The importance of the philosophy of social science derives...

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Posted in: CAT_epistemology,CAT_foundations,philosophy,sociology

Historical populations

Historical demography concerns itself with two families of questions -- factual description of population behavior and explanation of the patterns that are observed. On the descriptive side, historical demographers are concerned with estimating the absolute population size of a group or region -- Tuscany in 1400, New England in 1700, the Anasazi in 1000. And they are interested in measuring the underlying demographic rates -- for example, natality, mortality, age of marriage, nutritional and health status, or sex ratios.And, to make useful comparisons, these measurements need to be linked to the same variables over time and comparable populations over the same time period. This set of observations permits the discovery of trends and patterns...

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Posted in: agriculture,CAT_history,China,mechanism