Towards the Emancipation of the Respondent: a Philosophical Investigation of Realism and Social Science

Abstract

In recent years there has been a noticeable increase in activity among philosophers of science. To a considerable extent this has been prompted by the challenge issued to orthodox or mainstream philosophy of science by proponents of realism. It is realist philosophy of science, and its possible application in sociological inquiry, which I discuss and defend. Mainstream philosophy of science has been dominated by what appear to be two alternative traditions: empiricist and idealist philosophies of science. These traditions developed out of the philosophies of Hume and Kant respectively. However, despite the obvious epistemological differences between the two traditions, there are, with respect to ontology, important similarities. Both traditions, because of their epistemological commitments, see reality as in some way essentially dependent on human experience of it, however that experience is construed. As a consequence of what I expose as a confusion of ontological with epistemological considerations, neither tradition is able to give an adequate account of science. Science, I contend, is concerned to investigate and explain the nature of an independent external reality. Chapters one and two examine contemporary mainstream philosophy of science and its classical origins with a view to situating orthodox philosophy of science within a broader philosophical and historical context than is usual. I show that mainstream philosophies of science, particularly empiricist philosophies of science, merely reflect what I term the subjectivism which, I argue, characterises most of modern philosophical thought. Chapters three and four have a more positive or constructive tone, especially chapter four. In chapter three I examine the inadequacies of the modern Humean analysis of scientific laws. I show that, because of their empiricist commitment, modern Humeans are unable to give an adequate explication of the necessitarian character of scientific laws. This critique is conducted with a view to laying the basis for the more positive tasks dealt with in chapter four. In chapter four I give some content to the ontological dimension which, I argue, scientific laws presuppose. I also give an account of the relationship between ontology and epistemology from a realist point of view. Chapter five consists of a critique of contemporary sociology from the point of view of a realist philosophy of science. Both positivist and interpretative sociologies are criticised on account of their commitment (explicit or implicit) to an empiricist ontology. Some of the shortcomings which follow from this commitment are examined. In chapter six I sketch the form and content of a realist sociology, concentrating on the way in which the social or society is conceptualised from a realist point of view. I conclude with a brief discussion of some of the political dimensions of sociological knowledge formulated in accordance with realist principles.