Long time, yes, but I have not reneged on my promise to write something every week. Rather, writing has taken place in a different place. You can take a look at the appendix in this to find a more balanced argument regarding Utilitarianism in Economics, if you are inclined to actually to know something as esoteric. I was torn between writing this post or the factors for the rise of capitalism from my latest, exquisite reading, and finally settled down to write this, after keeping it in the pipeline for more than two weeks. Also, you will soon find Microeconomics notes appearing in 'different place', after reading all what Economics is not, thought it was time to read what it actually is. Warning, though, basic calculus required, the textbook I'm using is somewhat math-intensive. Macroeconomics, while probably more interesting for the stock market savant, will have to wait. Now, back.
Sociology has had an interesting life. Like the tussle between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism in the sibling discipline, sociology too has had its differences, notably between the liberal schools of the French and English and the German Romantics. (one thing though: the schools in economics agreed over the fact that unconstrained industrialization was the only way up, with the fight being as to who controls the means of production, i.e, the factories, whereas in sociology the divide was more fundamental, like what should sociology study)
The French and the English thinkers, notably Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were highly influenced by the Enlightenment, and sought to bring in scientific method into sociology. The Germans, notably Georg Simmel and Max Weber, strove to put the pre-eminence of Man in the study of sociology, i.e, society must be studied as a collection of individuals in relation to others. The west Europeans considered society to be an entity that existed independently from humans, and which followed it's own logic. The dialectic between these lines of thought has definitely left sociology a much richer subject.
Coming to the liberals, they sought to use the scientific method to discover the laws that govern the functioning of society, which was considered to be an extra-human entity, imposing it's will onto us poor humans. By this, they hopes, they could 'enlighten' the masses about the fact that 'Resistance is Futile', to quote a famous quote. Comte made it very clear that spirit of enquiry and free will are illusions and once people learn the laws of society, they will necessarily get rid of such notions, since trying to go against the laws of society would be equivalent to banging one's head against a brick wall. Needless to say, the others were not as militant in their views. Spencer used Darwinian notions of evolution (slightly before Darwin propounded them) to assert that society was the 'survival of the fittest'. This theory was a great hit in the United States, where Spencer became the patron saint of the cult of 'anything goes in love, war and business', who readily identified with what seemed to perfectly describe their society in the 19th century.
Durkheim stated that society was sui generis, and society could not be said to consist of individuals. However, sociology benefited by the stress on empiricism that the scientific method brought in, especially by Durkheim (who is considered the founder of modern sociology).
The Germans, influenced as much by Romanticism as by the Enlightenment, tended to stress on the individual more than the society, and how people influenced and were influenced by the set of all people. Though they developed generalizations as well, they were not all encompassing, everything-explaining theories, but were more of the form of a characterisation of the certain types of people or structures of groups of people that were encountered. Weber's methodology was very influential, and his influence continues to this day. The main contribution of these people was to stop the megalomania of people like Comte from seeping into what was supposed to be a objective scientific enquiry and set certain limits as to what sociology was meant to be.
Overall, if the Enlightenment removed Earth from the centre of the Universe, the sociology almost succeeded in putting Man in its centre.
Showing posts with label social sciences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social sciences. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Whence the Social Sciences ? - 3 : Economics.
Finally got a decent amount of time off from work and studies and all that to write some more.
Last time was some comments on method of the early social scientists, and now something more about economists in particular.
Economics, in the early stages as is now, was a means to understand the patterns in the varied economic transactions conducted by people, how some things came to be valuable, and some worthless. The times of the early economists was during when the feudal systems were slowly going out of fashion, and a new phenomenon called the market was being observed. Here, the market is not some place you go and buy your vegetables, which is but a manifestation of it, but rather in a more general sense where the three important goods, Land, Capital and Labour were to be freely sold and bought. Neither Land nor Labour were previously freely exchangeable under the feudal system.
The transition from a conservative feudal society to an upstart, sanguine capitalist society was not a smooth one, and the varied angles are described well here. The first few attempts to explain economic behaviour came from the Physiocrats and the Mercantilists. Mercantilism was taken apart later, and Physiocracy was never fully accepted. The watershed that occured was, as everyone knows, the publication of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. The book is massive, at times boring, at others highly insightful, at others hugely frustrating, but awe inspiring if you consider the amount of work that would have had to go into making a work like this. Though most of his theoritical contributions to economics are no longer accepted as they were presented by him, there is no questioning his influence on present day thinkers, a famous example being Amartya Sen. His normative doctrine about allowing people free to do things as they choose to, and removal of barriers are definitely still applicable in modern society. It is a shameful thing that many industrialists in the years following Smith used laissez-faire as an excuse to exploit people rather than working for the upbringing of society as a whole which Smith hoped for.
The notable economists who followed him were witnesses of the devastation of the poor that the factory system brought about, and were definitely of a more gloomy and less optimistic outlook.
Malthus, Marx are definitely good examples. There were also some not slightly mad personalities who dreamed of a perfect society which could be brought about, people like Saint-Simon and Fourier (not the scientist!).
Though all of these were prone to seeing grand visions of a perfect world, (except Malthus, of course, who thought people would breed faster than the earth could supply food for them, and therefore mankind would implode upon itself), there was one thing common about all of them : They were deeply concerned about the lot of the common man, and tried to find methods which would help ameliorate the plight of the masses.
Then came another watershed : Edgeworth. The man tried to mathematically study economic processes and his method became quite popular, since it dealt with numbers which don't complain, talk back or revolt. The previous problem of studying man's monetary associations with another was linked to solving linear algebraic systems or differential equations. The philosophy which made this possible is known as utilitarianism, and was popularised by Jeremy Bentham, a social reformer from England. It is said of Bentham, the amount good that he did in practice, was counterbalanced by his cloudy philosophising about the innate nature and urges of man. His normative doctrine goes something like this : Man has two masters, pain and pleasure. He always tries to reduce pain as much as possible, and increase pleasure as much as possible. If a man goes after anything but pleasure, he is obviously irrational, and therefore does not count. Even people dying in war, sado-masochists are after pleasure. We choose things purely because they give us pleasure. If we get x units of pleasure by acquiring one thing, and y units acquiring another, we get something like the sum of pleasures if we acquire both. Thus, what is morally right is that which gives us pleasure, and whatever causes pain is morally wrong. However, since people can have opposing desires, moral correctness for the society is that which gives maximum amount of pleasure for the maximum amount of people. He went on to give a felicific calculus that helped one calculate the sum of the pleasures of individuals to calculate the total pleasure for the society.
This philosophy, in a highly refined and sophisticated package is what is presented to us as economics. Once the trivial parts about how to add pleasures and pains and knowing the nature of man are settled, one can go about building a superstructure which will help us understand economic behavior. Now, since one accepts that pleasure is subjective, we go about converting it to an objective measure which can be measured. Veblen goes about showing how economic behavior is related to the current culture and institutions, and cannot be seen as a static process in his Limitations of Marginal Utility. Though it has had its detractors, Utilitarianism has been spectacularly successful and tenacious and survives to this day, not least because of the fact that modern economics was built on it.
Thus, we see how economics evolved from an attempt to understand economic behavior by empirical studies to modelling empirical data to form a mathematical expression which claims to explain away human uniqueness. May be there is a model for that too, who knows.
Last time was some comments on method of the early social scientists, and now something more about economists in particular.
Economics, in the early stages as is now, was a means to understand the patterns in the varied economic transactions conducted by people, how some things came to be valuable, and some worthless. The times of the early economists was during when the feudal systems were slowly going out of fashion, and a new phenomenon called the market was being observed. Here, the market is not some place you go and buy your vegetables, which is but a manifestation of it, but rather in a more general sense where the three important goods, Land, Capital and Labour were to be freely sold and bought. Neither Land nor Labour were previously freely exchangeable under the feudal system.
The transition from a conservative feudal society to an upstart, sanguine capitalist society was not a smooth one, and the varied angles are described well here. The first few attempts to explain economic behaviour came from the Physiocrats and the Mercantilists. Mercantilism was taken apart later, and Physiocracy was never fully accepted. The watershed that occured was, as everyone knows, the publication of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. The book is massive, at times boring, at others highly insightful, at others hugely frustrating, but awe inspiring if you consider the amount of work that would have had to go into making a work like this. Though most of his theoritical contributions to economics are no longer accepted as they were presented by him, there is no questioning his influence on present day thinkers, a famous example being Amartya Sen. His normative doctrine about allowing people free to do things as they choose to, and removal of barriers are definitely still applicable in modern society. It is a shameful thing that many industrialists in the years following Smith used laissez-faire as an excuse to exploit people rather than working for the upbringing of society as a whole which Smith hoped for.
The notable economists who followed him were witnesses of the devastation of the poor that the factory system brought about, and were definitely of a more gloomy and less optimistic outlook.
Malthus, Marx are definitely good examples. There were also some not slightly mad personalities who dreamed of a perfect society which could be brought about, people like Saint-Simon and Fourier (not the scientist!).
Though all of these were prone to seeing grand visions of a perfect world, (except Malthus, of course, who thought people would breed faster than the earth could supply food for them, and therefore mankind would implode upon itself), there was one thing common about all of them : They were deeply concerned about the lot of the common man, and tried to find methods which would help ameliorate the plight of the masses.
Then came another watershed : Edgeworth. The man tried to mathematically study economic processes and his method became quite popular, since it dealt with numbers which don't complain, talk back or revolt. The previous problem of studying man's monetary associations with another was linked to solving linear algebraic systems or differential equations. The philosophy which made this possible is known as utilitarianism, and was popularised by Jeremy Bentham, a social reformer from England. It is said of Bentham, the amount good that he did in practice, was counterbalanced by his cloudy philosophising about the innate nature and urges of man. His normative doctrine goes something like this : Man has two masters, pain and pleasure. He always tries to reduce pain as much as possible, and increase pleasure as much as possible. If a man goes after anything but pleasure, he is obviously irrational, and therefore does not count. Even people dying in war, sado-masochists are after pleasure. We choose things purely because they give us pleasure. If we get x units of pleasure by acquiring one thing, and y units acquiring another, we get something like the sum of pleasures if we acquire both. Thus, what is morally right is that which gives us pleasure, and whatever causes pain is morally wrong. However, since people can have opposing desires, moral correctness for the society is that which gives maximum amount of pleasure for the maximum amount of people. He went on to give a felicific calculus that helped one calculate the sum of the pleasures of individuals to calculate the total pleasure for the society.
This philosophy, in a highly refined and sophisticated package is what is presented to us as economics. Once the trivial parts about how to add pleasures and pains and knowing the nature of man are settled, one can go about building a superstructure which will help us understand economic behavior. Now, since one accepts that pleasure is subjective, we go about converting it to an objective measure which can be measured. Veblen goes about showing how economic behavior is related to the current culture and institutions, and cannot be seen as a static process in his Limitations of Marginal Utility. Though it has had its detractors, Utilitarianism has been spectacularly successful and tenacious and survives to this day, not least because of the fact that modern economics was built on it.
Thus, we see how economics evolved from an attempt to understand economic behavior by empirical studies to modelling empirical data to form a mathematical expression which claims to explain away human uniqueness. May be there is a model for that too, who knows.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Whence the Social Sciences ? - 2 : Comments on Method and Outlook
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.
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.
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.
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