Stephen Straker wrote:
>
> >> "Information about lawlike connections sets off a
> >> process of reflection in the consciousness of those
> >> whom the laws are about. Thus the level of unreflected
> >> consciousness, which is one of the initial conditions
> >> of such laws, can be transformed. Of course...a critically
> >> mediated knowledge of laws cannot through
> >> reflection alone render a law itself inoperative,
> >> but it can render it inapplicable." (Jurgen Habermas,
> >> KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN INTEREST, Beacon Press, Boston, 1971, p. 310)
>
> Jay Hanson wrote:
> > This is not science.
>
> Huh? What's so *un*-scientific about the observation that social
> scientific "laws" can be true at one time and false at another (later)
> time *just because* the knowledge of them renders them "inapplicable".
>
> Possible Examples: theories of suicide before and after the "cry for
> help" theory was well publicised; theories of war before and after
> Frederic of Prussia; economics before and after Keynes.
>
> Isn't it scientifically true that announced expectations about us and our
> behaviour can lead us to change our behaviour and thus falsify the
> expectations (either quite consciously and purposefully or less
> reflectively)?? (I take it this is what Habermas is talking about.)
I think the implicatons of Habermas's point go further than the
foregoing. I think Habermas is also addressing the issue of whether
human behavior can be subsumed under "empirical laws", as, for instance,
the behavior of billiard balls can be subsumed under such
laws. I think Habermas's main point is that any project of
predictive "social science" can
succeed only on condition that the persons whose behavior it is
attempted to predict *be kept in ignorance of the experimental setup*.
In other words, in principle, causal prediction cannot be
successfully applied to persons who are included in the
dialogical space of the experimenter (persons *with whom*
the experimenter talks, and *with whom* he acts), whereas causal
prediction possibly can be applied to persons who enter
into the experimenter's dialogical space only as objects
being talked about and acted on.
"Good morning, Mr. President. Can we predict
what we are going to do today?"
does not make sense, whereas
"Good morning, Mr. President. Can we discuss
what we want to do today?"
and
"Good morning, Mr. President. can we predict which way the
voters are going to go in today's election?"
both *do* make sense.
The contention is that human freedom depends on being
a co-creator of the social world, rather than an object
(client, student, employee, etc.) manipulated by the
co-creators' deliberationss, in
which deliberations the object is not
permitted *fully as a peer* to participate.
A simple
example is parents talking about what to do about
their child's "disobedience", where the child just has
to sit and listen and "take it", and any "argument"
the child makes is not treated as part of the
deliberations, but rather as just
more disobedience the parents need to factor in to
figure out what they shall do about it.
Habermas's argument is that we can either have
empirical/predictive social sciences or we can have a human
community (or rather: for each person "x", "x" can
either be included in the conversational space
which *is* the community, or be included in the
object space of resources over which the community
disposes). The project of empirical/predictive social
science logically depends (as a necessary but not
sufficient condition!) on keeping the persons about which the
predictions are made *in the dark* (which is the
usual condition of students, workers, clients of
bureaucratic agencies, etc.). Even then, such
activity may prove to be a false-science, but, without
the pre-condition of ignorance, it is impossible
on principle.
Michel Foucault makes some insightful points,
in beautiful prose style, about these matters,
in his _Discipline and Punish_.
\bard mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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