Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote:
> ... 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 ... . . .
> Habermas's argument is that we can either have
> empirical/predictive social sciences or we can have a human
> community ... . . .
> ... 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* ...
I certainly see the point of this critique of "social science" (or, perhaps,
its pretensions or intentions). But even in the most desirable human
community, we will still have, indeed, require a set of reasonably reliable
*expectations* about each other's conduct in various circumstances. Doesn't
this knowledge about each other and the life of our community constitute a
"social science" or the elements of such? Wouldn't at least some of it
resemble empirical (even causal) "laws" about us, granting the reflexivity
(and thus time & place boundedness) I was pointing to?
An example occurs to me. Couldn't I perfectly well *participate* in the
discovery that I act within a number of social roles -- teacher, father,
husband, etc. -- and that my conduct with respect to these is reasonably
predictable? That this is so does not make me a passive unknowing *object* of
an alienating social science.
What is Habermas's (or whoever's) view about this sort of (let's call it)
"self-constituting" social knowledge?
--
Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Arts One / History (604) 822-6863 / 822-2561
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C. FAX: (604) 822-4520
CANADA V6T 1Z1 home: (604) 733-6638 / 734-4464
