As I had previously mentioned, the social sciences came to be heavily influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, especially the naturalist and positivist outlooks. It is in order that one takes a critical look at the methodologies and outlooks of these schools of thought and the attendant consequences.
With some thought, one can notice that the scientific methodology is steeped towards observation and verfication of facts. Now, for scientific method to be a socially acceptable system of generation of knowledge about the world, there must be one important component : reproducibility. Thus, observation and verification of facts must inevitably take the form of constructed experiments, whether they be elaborate or simple, easily reproducible or not. The results which follow and the method for obtaining the results themselves are then published and debated over. The best example for such a phenomenon is the present debate over climate change. If one set of people ( supporting Al Gore, mostly) say that we are going toward decimation, another set ( sponsored by Bush, no doubt) will say that both the method of finding facts of the opposing group and their interpretations of the same are both rubbish, and present other evidence to prove that infact, more petroleum must be burnt, preferably from those companies controlled by the American President. Another parallel is in the Open Source Software debate. Microsoft is decried for making expensive and psychologically damaging software, and Microsoft sponsors a study which shows that Open Source alternatives are much more expensive or more depressing. One thing is to be noted, however, all opposing groups claim to be committed to the same scientific method of observation and verification.
One, however, gets the feeling that both these might contain a grain of truth (unless we look from a partisan point of view), but a lack of larger amount of data is causing the confusion ( Malevolent mischief cannot be counted out, however). I remember reading in a slide of a boring presentation, to an omniscient being, there is no probability, no question of chance. Therefore, until definite information is acquired, nothing can be said. But here lies a weak link in scientific method : it is defined in a negative sense rather than in a positive sense. What I mean by this is that something is held as true only because there have been no observations to refute it. It takes only one antagonistic case to throw elaborate theories into the dustbin. This is due to the fact that most sciences deal with real life, and there is no "Theory of Everything". The only positive proofs that one can give are only related to things which have no actual existence outside the human brain, like mathematics and computer science (CompSci can be taken as a subset of Maths). These are artificially constructed systems which sometimes (fortunately and also by design, sometimes) find applications in real life.
So, one can construct two body experiments in the lab and verify physical laws, stretch a little bit, call change of color of a solution to verify chemical laws, take a leap of faith, you can categorize all things with similar (not same!) features as part of the same species in biology. If it gets this bad in constructed experiments, one can only hope and pray to the unverifiable God that we can generalise and discover (not make, since one also hopes that there is something extra-human called society that makes the laws) laws governing society.
Indeed, the time that we are looking at consists precisely of heroic efforts trying to achieve the above. So, one says humans are brute, scum of the earth being held from destroying each other by people in power who threaten them with dire consequences, and this is the structure of society. Another says, wait a minute, humans are nice things, wanting only to maximize their own pleasure and minimizing their pains, and human society is made to help this happen. Yet another says all crap, humans are divided into classes locked in a death struggle with each other, and finally the lower classes will win. Bull, says another, humans are slowly evolving and so is society (which is taken to be an organism, like all others), and one can see what society was, is and will be by applying Darwinian principles.
And so on and so forth. It is not at all a bad thing to put forth ideas, but to put them forward in a way so as to give it a false legitimacy is what is bad. These were supposed to be 'scientific' opinions, put forth after their proponents delved into 'deep study of humans and society'. Whereas nothing could be more correct than the opposite. In short, most of these propositions were a priori, and not empirically verifiable. This is the firm 'scientific' foundation on which our social sciences, notably economics and sociology came into being.
Added another book from which to draw from: Masters of Sociological Thought by Lewis A. Coser. Sapna bookstore, Indiranagar. Next time will be a more concrete example of how the above theoritical discussion took solid form in Economics or Sociology, depending on mood.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Whence the Social Sciences ?
During and after the final days of 4 years of decadence that has come to be known as Engineering, I developed a certain taste for things non-technical (which is obviously apparent), and decided to try and think of options other than IT as a career. The first attractive option was Economics, after all, these dudes seem(claim) to know why and how we tick, monetarily atleast. Asked around for advice, and Deepak Malghan, (almost sole) author of this blog, gave me very negative opinions about it. Considering that the advice came from a person who studied Economics from Princeton and Maryland, was taken aback and decided to find out for myself the reasons for such an opinion.
The idea was not to study Economic theories, but to study Economics (or Sociology, since I wanted to see what these guys were upto as well) in itself. The fundamental assumptions, the philosophy behind these subjects, which would help me form my own opinion about them. This is still an ongoing process, and thought a mid-term check of what has been gleaned will be in order. This post will be the first in a series of posts which will describe, as the header says, the origin of the social sciences, and I will concentrate on sociology and economics, since they are what I have studied so far, rather than psychology, Anthropology or any others. I will draw my main streams of thought from Isaiah Berlin (the book has been previously mentioned), Reassembling the Social by Bruno LaTour and some other sources like The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbroner, Limitations of Marginal Utility by Veblen, The Affluent Society by John K. Galbraith (who was Ambassador to India, btw), maybe a little from Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher as well, if I can get it back from a friend who is currently (not!!) reading it. If time permits, I will add some notes from The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (which i intend to finish sometime before I die).
Though it may be noticed that most of the books are Economic literature, and Sociology has been underrepresented (only LaTour), LaTour's book is more philosophical in nature, as compared to the others, and since that is the focus of this series of posts, and due to lack of literature, will have to content myself with it. This will not be a comprehensive, nor well rounded survey, and all mistakes are acts of omission rather than commission.
As Isaiah Berlin rightly points out, the ideas and theories that one studies is incomplete if not viewed along with the historical conditions that surrounded its birth. Thus, it makes sense to
learn about the birth of the social sciences, and the reasons for their coming into existence. The scene is the 17th century, and Isaac Newton is on his way to superstardom after the publication of the Prinicipia Mathematica, Galileo and Copernicus are much admired for their brave stand against the oppressive intellectual climate created by the Church for whatever reasons, and the numerous breakthroughs in physics and mathematics (by above mentioned people and others like Leibniz) have captured the imagination of the intellectuals of the era. Newton actually was able to predict orbits of planets which were empirically given until then by Kepler's laws, and heliocentrism made possible a very accurate picture of the solar system. The triumph of reason over blind belief, of science over theology, of logic over metaphysics was seen as an imminent, inevitable happening. The oppressive feudal system which gave prominence for place of birth over any intrinsic ability was much decried against, and the 'enlightened' people of this era set about building systematic arguments about the idea of divine rights of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and all such nonsense. This was about the same time when the Holy Roman Empire was in its death throes and people were beginning to speak boldly, questioning the basis of despotism, feudalism, nobility and primacy of the Church as a source of both divine and material power.
It was an era of tremendous change, and brought to the fore men of great intellectual ability like Voltaire, Hobbes, Rousseau, Descartes, the list will simply go on and on. They were the pioneers, so to speak, in the wilderness of unreason, irrationality, despotism, trying to find paths which lead to liberty, equality, fraternity (the main themes under which the French Revolution of 1789 was fought) using the guiding torch of reason. Every set about writing their own views about the world, and how it should be, and the printers probably laughed all the way to the bank. These were men with the noble task of ushering in the "Age of Reason", as the Enlightenment is also called. Everything had to be argued on the basis or reason, had to be rational, or else you probably were reactionary (i.e, siding with the Church or the kings, which was very bad). The Medieval Ages were ruled by all kinds of fairy tales, cults of irrationality called religions, and now was the time to break from all that and start another cult : the cult of Reason or Rationality.
Now, all the old institutions were to be disposed of with. The State, as previously identified with a majestic king who was given the right to rule over his subject by someone no less the God himself could no longer be accepted. God is an irrational creation of man, not verifiable in any sense, and therefore could not be a source of authority. Man was not created by the breath of God, and therefore there must be other ways in which to understand him ( Gender sensitivity was not necessary for political correctness then, from what i gather). What better way to start analysing such things if not by the methods adopted by the spectacularly successful natural sciences ? Newton, the blue eyed icon, who stood for all that is Rational, was to be emulated in studying all aspects of the world. Studies had been made and successfully explained why a stone moves if we kick it, and why the moon does not spin away from the earth, and obviously these things were explained using rational arguments, therefore it must be possible to explain man, agglomerations of men in the same manner. After all, everything in the universe followed a rational pattern, and one just required the insight to find it. Man was a bunch of atoms, and we knew how atoms work, so by induction we must be able to postulate general laws as to the behaviour of man. But since not everything is known to us as of now, we must atleast postulate laws which in some sense must be empirically verifiable.
Every genuine question must have a genuine answer : if not, the question is false, irrational. Since questions like "what is the nature of man?", "what is the nature of the State?" "How can economic relations between men explained ?" are genuine questions, they must have genuine, unique answers. And these can be answered, atleast to the extent of the present knowledge, by employing methodologies which have had such success in the natural sciences, i.e, they must be verifiable or be supported by sound reasoning.
This seems to be the bouyant mood in which Western Europe was in the Age of the Enlightenment. This was the time when the systematic study of man and his relations with others started, which was later termed as the Social Sciences. The consequences of this outlook at the birth of the Social Sciences has had many effects, swinging both in the positive and the negative direction. What they were, next time.
The idea was not to study Economic theories, but to study Economics (or Sociology, since I wanted to see what these guys were upto as well) in itself. The fundamental assumptions, the philosophy behind these subjects, which would help me form my own opinion about them. This is still an ongoing process, and thought a mid-term check of what has been gleaned will be in order. This post will be the first in a series of posts which will describe, as the header says, the origin of the social sciences, and I will concentrate on sociology and economics, since they are what I have studied so far, rather than psychology, Anthropology or any others. I will draw my main streams of thought from Isaiah Berlin (the book has been previously mentioned), Reassembling the Social by Bruno LaTour and some other sources like The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbroner, Limitations of Marginal Utility by Veblen, The Affluent Society by John K. Galbraith (who was Ambassador to India, btw), maybe a little from Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher as well, if I can get it back from a friend who is currently (not!!) reading it. If time permits, I will add some notes from The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (which i intend to finish sometime before I die).
Though it may be noticed that most of the books are Economic literature, and Sociology has been underrepresented (only LaTour), LaTour's book is more philosophical in nature, as compared to the others, and since that is the focus of this series of posts, and due to lack of literature, will have to content myself with it. This will not be a comprehensive, nor well rounded survey, and all mistakes are acts of omission rather than commission.
As Isaiah Berlin rightly points out, the ideas and theories that one studies is incomplete if not viewed along with the historical conditions that surrounded its birth. Thus, it makes sense to
learn about the birth of the social sciences, and the reasons for their coming into existence. The scene is the 17th century, and Isaac Newton is on his way to superstardom after the publication of the Prinicipia Mathematica, Galileo and Copernicus are much admired for their brave stand against the oppressive intellectual climate created by the Church for whatever reasons, and the numerous breakthroughs in physics and mathematics (by above mentioned people and others like Leibniz) have captured the imagination of the intellectuals of the era. Newton actually was able to predict orbits of planets which were empirically given until then by Kepler's laws, and heliocentrism made possible a very accurate picture of the solar system. The triumph of reason over blind belief, of science over theology, of logic over metaphysics was seen as an imminent, inevitable happening. The oppressive feudal system which gave prominence for place of birth over any intrinsic ability was much decried against, and the 'enlightened' people of this era set about building systematic arguments about the idea of divine rights of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and all such nonsense. This was about the same time when the Holy Roman Empire was in its death throes and people were beginning to speak boldly, questioning the basis of despotism, feudalism, nobility and primacy of the Church as a source of both divine and material power.
It was an era of tremendous change, and brought to the fore men of great intellectual ability like Voltaire, Hobbes, Rousseau, Descartes, the list will simply go on and on. They were the pioneers, so to speak, in the wilderness of unreason, irrationality, despotism, trying to find paths which lead to liberty, equality, fraternity (the main themes under which the French Revolution of 1789 was fought) using the guiding torch of reason. Every set about writing their own views about the world, and how it should be, and the printers probably laughed all the way to the bank. These were men with the noble task of ushering in the "Age of Reason", as the Enlightenment is also called. Everything had to be argued on the basis or reason, had to be rational, or else you probably were reactionary (i.e, siding with the Church or the kings, which was very bad). The Medieval Ages were ruled by all kinds of fairy tales, cults of irrationality called religions, and now was the time to break from all that and start another cult : the cult of Reason or Rationality.
Now, all the old institutions were to be disposed of with. The State, as previously identified with a majestic king who was given the right to rule over his subject by someone no less the God himself could no longer be accepted. God is an irrational creation of man, not verifiable in any sense, and therefore could not be a source of authority. Man was not created by the breath of God, and therefore there must be other ways in which to understand him ( Gender sensitivity was not necessary for political correctness then, from what i gather). What better way to start analysing such things if not by the methods adopted by the spectacularly successful natural sciences ? Newton, the blue eyed icon, who stood for all that is Rational, was to be emulated in studying all aspects of the world. Studies had been made and successfully explained why a stone moves if we kick it, and why the moon does not spin away from the earth, and obviously these things were explained using rational arguments, therefore it must be possible to explain man, agglomerations of men in the same manner. After all, everything in the universe followed a rational pattern, and one just required the insight to find it. Man was a bunch of atoms, and we knew how atoms work, so by induction we must be able to postulate general laws as to the behaviour of man. But since not everything is known to us as of now, we must atleast postulate laws which in some sense must be empirically verifiable.
Every genuine question must have a genuine answer : if not, the question is false, irrational. Since questions like "what is the nature of man?", "what is the nature of the State?" "How can economic relations between men explained ?" are genuine questions, they must have genuine, unique answers. And these can be answered, atleast to the extent of the present knowledge, by employing methodologies which have had such success in the natural sciences, i.e, they must be verifiable or be supported by sound reasoning.
This seems to be the bouyant mood in which Western Europe was in the Age of the Enlightenment. This was the time when the systematic study of man and his relations with others started, which was later termed as the Social Sciences. The consequences of this outlook at the birth of the Social Sciences has had many effects, swinging both in the positive and the negative direction. What they were, next time.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Of harlots and men.
Short post, just a few random thoughts. Been doing the Bangalore-Mysore trip quite a few times in the past few months, and usually reach the station at B'lore late in the evening (Since I don't believe in political correctness, BengaLuru won't appear more than this one time). A walk through the subway to the bus station from the railway station transports you quite literally (and metaphorically) to the underbelly of this silicon(e?) valley wannabe.
Women lined up, reclining against the subway walls, which are stained with chewed betel leaves, showing that if these women are comfortable in these surroundings, one can only imagine what their regular surroundings would be like. They bear the lewd looks of passersby and retort with stinging remarks to the equally stinging and demeaning remarks of abhorrent men. Being highly enterprising businesswomen, they answer even cursory glances with a questioning stare : "How about it?".
Another interesting group of people are beggars. Their methods have become more and more sophisticated (or crude?) as time passes by. The woeful, pained look which appears only when someone passes by (I have actually seen the transition from normal to unhappy happen!), using kids and handicaps as props, and resorting to touching and pawing at people as a last try. Atleast people would give in not to be pawed at. How many times have we not seen people jumping back or warning beggars not to touch them?
The third group is that of the hijras. This group is probably discriminated against the most, you would not find one travelling via public transport even if they are able to afford it. Wearing loud makeup and using equally loud voices and claps to get paid to get away from a certain place is one of the very few options for them to make money. Though they are getting organised to fight against it, how widespread such a movement would be and how it would help change public perception is to be seen.
The thing to be noticed about all the above mentioned groups is that they are highly incapable of earning money in ways which does not have to reduce them to sideshows due to a large number of factors. Also to be noticed is that the only way to keep body and soul together is by feeding off the lust, shaky ethical stands and disgust of the rest of the society respectively. Interestingly also, these are largely urban phenomena: the more affluent the city, the more prevalent are members of these groups. What inferences can one draw from such observations ? Each will have their own views, i'll leave it at this.
Women lined up, reclining against the subway walls, which are stained with chewed betel leaves, showing that if these women are comfortable in these surroundings, one can only imagine what their regular surroundings would be like. They bear the lewd looks of passersby and retort with stinging remarks to the equally stinging and demeaning remarks of abhorrent men. Being highly enterprising businesswomen, they answer even cursory glances with a questioning stare : "How about it?".
Another interesting group of people are beggars. Their methods have become more and more sophisticated (or crude?) as time passes by. The woeful, pained look which appears only when someone passes by (I have actually seen the transition from normal to unhappy happen!), using kids and handicaps as props, and resorting to touching and pawing at people as a last try. Atleast people would give in not to be pawed at. How many times have we not seen people jumping back or warning beggars not to touch them?
The third group is that of the hijras. This group is probably discriminated against the most, you would not find one travelling via public transport even if they are able to afford it. Wearing loud makeup and using equally loud voices and claps to get paid to get away from a certain place is one of the very few options for them to make money. Though they are getting organised to fight against it, how widespread such a movement would be and how it would help change public perception is to be seen.
The thing to be noticed about all the above mentioned groups is that they are highly incapable of earning money in ways which does not have to reduce them to sideshows due to a large number of factors. Also to be noticed is that the only way to keep body and soul together is by feeding off the lust, shaky ethical stands and disgust of the rest of the society respectively. Interestingly also, these are largely urban phenomena: the more affluent the city, the more prevalent are members of these groups. What inferences can one draw from such observations ? Each will have their own views, i'll leave it at this.
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