Philosophy

The following article has been written by Chaste, who has contributed to this blog before.

I will assume for the purposes of this piece that argument is the dominant form of writing in academia. This is also true of public discourse, but this piece will limit itself to academic writing, and more specifically to writing in the social sciences. If academia aims to produce worthwhile knowledge then the argument is the form that mediates our view of the object studied, and academia is the structure that mediates the production of the specific types of knowledge.

Mediating forms are layers of abstraction that can help understanding. They define a process for understanding that prevents distortion due to visceral or other perceptions. Yet as Adorno warns us, forms of viewing and the structures that regulate those forms can limit our understanding of the object studied. To take a simple instance, researcher-teachers argue a position to get published, and the success of such arguments in staking out and establishing a specific position within the field gets them promoted. Yet we expect researcher-teachers to conduct independent research, and train students to think with an open mind and to acquire comprehensive knowledge in a field. We must be wary lest the form of the argument and the structure of academia advance original/individualistic positions at the expense of responsible scholarship. We must also worry about the lure of political power for academics. Politics desires simple, narrow and sharply defined positions, whether for political posturing or for public programs. Succumbing to this lure can only exacerbate the effects of argument on knowledge.

Nature of Argument and its Role in Academia

I will quickly lay out the nature of the argument as used in academia. The argument typically takes the form of a declared purpose, followed by a description of the theoretical method, which the researcher will use for his analysis. It then applies this method to the selected data to come up with a conclusion that mirrors the declared aim. The primary critique of this form of argument uses a simple piece of reasoning. Applying a theoretical method to a selection of data should always produce the same result and conclusion. Therefore if “reasonable” (sic) minds disagree, this can only be because their aim / conclusion has pre-determined their choice of theoretical method and / or their selection of data.

The primary virtue of argument is its clarity. This is due to two qualities: consistency and discreteness. Yet consistency provides much greater explanatory power when we combine it with complexity than when we use it to support a single point. Argument often achieves discreteness by excluding other perspectives. We can gain greater explanatory power by defining relations between disparate issues perspectives, rather than by limiting them. “Cohere” is useful as it suggests both cohesion and coherence.

The popularity of the argument is doubtless because it mimics similar forms in science and law. Despite its recent success, scientific research is hardly a model of philosophical rigor. Recall the search for the “gay gene,” where scientists confused the biological phenomenon of sexual urge with the likely social phenomenon of sexual attractiveness. Or witness the ongoing fiasco about the continuous upward revision of global warming estimates because scientists had missed such obvious factors as the methane release from a permafrost melt, or missed the systematic differences caused by changes in methods for measuring temperature over the past century. Most scientific research is simple because it deals in the existence of facts. Reporting the properties of an element at 1000c has much scientific value. On the other hand, reporting my thoughts at any given moment has little value even though it may be an appropriate object of study for psychology or political science. Most scientific research does not involve speculative selection and aggregation of data. When it does, as in astronomy, public health, and climatology, its conclusions are no more reliable than those in the social sciences. “Speculative” is crucial when dealing with a seemingly infinite number of variables and infinite data. It underlines the necessity of an a priori judgment when faced with infinite variables and data. The analysis then turns into a test of the speculative judgment. It is at this point that ethics become crucial in such research. The researcher can choose his theoretical methods and select his data to prejudge the outcome in favor of the a priori judgment. Alternatively, the researcher can choose to be ethical. He could either come up with a new hypothesis and test it, or he could simply state the conclusion supported by the most appropriate selection of data and choice of methods.

The argument also mimics the dominant form used by law. However, the legal context is also quite different from that in social science research. It is true that lawyers select and even slant the data. However, the data is very limited. Again, the lawyer has no choice in the theoretical methods. Every legal point in dispute has a clearly established set of legal elements, which the lawyer must prove. It is this systematic exhaustion of every relevant legal element that makes legal briefs both thorough and thoroughly tedious. In academic arguments, exhaustive lists of theoretical methods are not possible. The infinite data and variables provide infinite scope for cherry picking: the only criterion is that the method or data support the argument. Cross-disciplinary studies exacerbate these dangers. They make it easier to ignore any agreement in a discipline about the criteria for selecting relevant data, or about the best methods to analyze a particular type o data. In this instance, the proliferation of theoretical methods simply provides even more tools to derive a conclusion of one’s choosing. An extreme case of this phenomenon is that of the cross disciplinary case study, which narrows the selection of data to a single instance, providing fertile ground for any conclusion whatever.

I do not suggest that such lax cross-disciplinary studies or case studies do not have any value. Their value is that of interpretive works, and is similar to the value of literary works. Literary works sometimes reveal networks of meaning that cannot b openly discussed in their time. Cross-disciplinary case studies can straddle the boundary between what can and cannot be viably discussed in academia. As such, they can provoke thought and provide insights and skeletal structure for further analysis. An excellent work of this kind is Patricia Williams’ “The Alchemy of Race and Rights,” which weaves together insightful arguments and moving, thought-provoking life experiences on various issues.

Another critical difference is that the law uses argument within an adversarial context. There is no counterpart in academic writing wherein a counter-argument immediately follows the argument. In this sense, an academic piece resembles an ex parte hearing in which the lawyer is required to disclose all facts favorable to the absent opponent. No such requirement exists in academic writing.

When used in the unsuitable academic context, the primary disadvantage of an argument is that it induces a loss of perspective by giving disproportionate emphasis to the position argued for. To a reader without extensive knowledge of the field, it is not possible to infer anything about the validity or worth of any claims. Unless the argument is part of a conversation, the only appropriate response is skepticism and a reserving of judgment. Judged by the credibility of its claims, the argument becomes worthless except as a data point in a survey or as part of a meta-reading.

Reforming the Argument

I will briefly examine a few alternatives to the argument as typically practiced. The first option is to abandon the argument in favor of a meditation that densely weaves together patterns of related insights. Meditation need not imply any loss of evidentiary or logical rigor, merely a flexible structure. The form of the meditation has several advantages. It dramatically reduces the problem of disproportionate emphasis on the one position. The substantive part of most arguments is less than 20% of their length. The rest is low value elaboration masquerading as thoroughness. The more flexible structure of the meditation will encourage authors to replace the low value elaboration with related information / insights. The weaving of patterns will become a pedagogical exercise, which will train the reader to map and relate the data in the field.

Meditation may be the ideal form; its practice is very likely to be something else. Authors will be tempted to spawn patchworks of recycled insights. This will make the editor’s job both time consuming and difficult.

Another solution involves a minor modification of the form of the argument. Editors can insist that the articles be self-aware: that they demonstrate how different conclusions can be drawn with different selections of data or variables, and different choices of theoretical methods. This is the least resource-intensive of my three solutions. However, it runs the risk that the author will demonstrate only those alternatives that support rather than undermine his conclusion.

The most pragmatic solution is to have peer-reviewed publications. Unfortunately, most “peer reviewed” journals are a misnomer since they are only peer approved. The journals should publish the peer reviews, and allow the author to respond to the reviews. The reviews themselves should be an engagement with the material, and not merely indicate the quality of the piece. The editors must choose reviewers from different methodological expertise and disciplinary backgrounds (where that is appropriate). This will deter the author from making expedient selections of data and of theoretical methods and traditions. It will also give the reader an adequate perspective on the author’s argument. The interactive nature of the reviews and response will have pedagogical value not only for the reader but also for the author and the reviewers. It will enable the author and reviewers to possibly expand on the conversation outside the journal, and provide networking-related scholarly and career benefits. The article will come with a relatively objective assessment of its worth, which will help both readers and anyone else who may be interested in evaluating the work of the author. The editors should keep the approval process separate from the review process, and keep the submissions to reviewers anonymous. The editors should take care that the reviews not mimic the journalistic practice of seeking input from hacks representing stereotypes of established positions. However, this is achieved relatively easily in academia.

Peer review is reduced to peer approval in the sciences because unlike the social sciences, scientific research often deals in results rather than conclusions, and because the researcher is the only person with direct access to the results. Therefore, peers in sciences are largely concerned with fraudulent claims of results rather than with the validity of conclusions. In social sciences, the data is often public, and the value of the article lies primarily in the validity of the conclusions. Peer review will help determine this validity. It will also encourage responsible scholarship from authors. Not only will every article have to survive a more rigorous engagement; this engagement will be invigorating for all. Above all, it is achievable in practice because it does not impose unacceptable burdens on editors.

Social scientists are technology’s historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and scientists – measuring the social impact of technology. It is important to note that all this activity is forever doomed to survive in the echo chambers of the forgotten consciousness of society and consigned to only enter in casual desultory (or heated but always ineffectual) discussions. Social scientists also produce knowledge that is directly useful to Capitalism and there of course it plays a more important role.

Society is led by the 800 pound gorilla of Capitalism and the ‘logic’ of market, which is quite separate from the ‘logic’ of social good, determines what is sold, how it is sold, and when. Social scientists merely study effects of new technologies as they are unleashed on the world. Universities open up new schools, departments, disciplines, and certainly new topics within disciplines as technology and reality march on. Take for example the following – two decades after television became a common amongst US households, David Phillips found evidence for ‘Werther effect’ like phenomena that linked suicides in real life to television suicides, and later still Robert Putnam linked heightened social alienation to television, and now there is a slew of literature detailing negative impact of violence on television. Of course nobody ever thought that they might want to research the impact of something before it is released.

Social scientists are consigned to doing research that will only rarely wend its way to policy making. And of course they will never get a chance to determine the course of technological growth, or other policies for those are tethered to Capitalism.

So what is the role of social science or for that matter science aside from helping create wealth, and helping society in a small number of cases where money making and social good coincide? There is really none in a world where increasingly the word regulation is seen as plague.

Perhaps we can write our own epitaph – we wagged our fingers and tongues, and scribbled furiously, as the chasm between the economic engine and the social good widened and Capitalism swallowed us whole. We also made some money doing that.

Everyday conversation is generally a site for exchanging social pleasantries, exchanging trivia and anecdotes or ’shooting the breeze’, and reaffirming identities, among other things. Occasionally these everyday conversations take the shape of amorphous dilettante arguments about politics and culture, and even more rarely they turn into serious arguments. But the habits of casual argumentation and unfamiliarity with formal argument theory doom most of these ’serious’ arguments. So rather than proceeding teleologically towards better understanding of a topic through measured refutation and agreement, the arguments either become pitched ego fights or exercises in using logical fallacies or non-existent evidence adeptly to ‘win’ the argument or some combination thereof.

“Unethical” (explained later) argumentation can leave people flustered as they realize – much too late – that the other party has changed the entire argument or distracted them with some contestable irrelevant data, or through an outright fabrication.

I use the word ‘unethical’ in reference to argumentation in the paragraph above and it is incumbent upon me to explain what I mean by that. An argument is generally understood as “discourse intended to persuade” and the idea is to stipulate ethics of persuasion. In other words, stipulating that one follow the rules of inference, logic, corroboration, and procedure ‘ethically’. Broadly construed ‘ethics’ in an argument can be seen to convey a person’s conviction in coming up with a better understanding of the issue at hand, and general introspection to all facets of argumentation. Of course ‘ethics’ alone won’t help construct a ‘better’ argument for there are objective criteria for what constitutes a better argument.

I here briefly go over some key tenets, as I see them, of conducting an ‘ethical’ argument.

Issue, Topic, Question

Most ‘arguments’ in everyday life start with an anecdote or an example and not as formally constructed questions. The conversation then slowly slides into an ‘argument’ as somebody identifies the anecdote as a hypothesis and engages with it.
It is important to be alert to this juncture and to take time at this point to think through the ‘hypothesis’, and where possible turn into a broader question devoted to understanding the ‘topic’ underlying the hypothesis. More importantly, it is necessary to pin down the question or hypothesis with more precision. Additionally, one should think through the breadth of the question and see to what degree is the question tractable.

During the course of the conversation one can renegotiate the wording of the question as more information comes along the way and conversants develop their understanding of the topic or as interests shift.

The pattern of argumentation will differ depending on the topic and question at hand. If one is to say argue about a causal claim then one must iterate through possible causes and see which ones apply to what degree and why. On the other hand if one wants to understand historical context around say origins of democracy, the task then becomes listing possible historical aspects including socio-economic and elite key actors.

Hypothesis and Data

One can use deductive or empirical reasoning (or both) to support one’s claims. Both obviously lend themselves to different types of problems. For making empirical arguments, one needs to rely on data and there it becomes necessary to think through how applicable the data is, how generalizable the instance is if you use an instance to say corroborate a claim, and any major data or instances that exist that will rebut the hypothesis or sometimes provide insight into contextual variables. Aside from applicability there is also the issue of how probable each of the datum is and how large the effect sizes are. Of course part of argumentation also involves judging other people’s data. You can judge data using the criteria I describe above.

One may run into problems of insufficient data or unreliable data and there you can choose to continue the conversation at a later stage after getting the data or pursue the argument by making conditional arguments. For example, if X were true, then the following event is likely to occur.

The caveat that accompanies all empirical reasoning is that it is easy to think that you know more than you do, especially about topics that seem familiar but go largely un-inspected. Systematic analysis of an issue will often uncover troubling gaps in one’s own knowledge and one must allay the instinct to fabricate and instead be conscientious in acknowledge the gaps.

Psychology of argumentation

The most pernicious and bankrupt argumentation occurs when the ego gets involved. To avoid it, focus your critiques on the data or argument and offer them in a manner that is broad minded and acknowledges opposing contribution. The unsaid point here is that your commitment should be towards reaching a better understanding of the issue at hand rather than ‘winning’ or whatever that means.

An important part of conducting an ethical argument is to acknowledge gracefully where you are wrong. This habit goes a long way in ameliorating any tensions that may emerge during the course of argumentation.

Another thing to keep in mind is that almost always people don’t start from polar opposites of an argument (that I believe is a function of conversational norm and selection bias as in whom you choose to ‘argue’ with), though there might be sub-arguments where they may have opposing stances. Hence there would be a large number of cases where both arguments can survive.

Avoid Common Logical Fallacies

Straw Man – “A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent.” (Wikipedia)

You can find other common logical fallacies at the bottom of Wikipedia’s page.

Social phenomenon, unlike ‘natural science phenomenon’, is bound and morphed not only by nature (evolution etc.) but also history, institutions (religious, governance etc.), and technology, among others. Before I go any further, I would like to issue a caveat to point out that the categories that I mention above are not orthogonal and in fact do trespass into each other regularly. We can study particular social phenomenon in aggregate through disciplines like political science, which study everything from study of psychology to institutions to history, or study them by focusing on one particular aspect – psychology or genetics – and investigating how each effect multiple social phenomenon like politics, communication etc.

Given the disparate range of fields that try to understand the social phenomenon, often times the field is straddled with multiple competing paradigms and multiple theories within or across those paradigms with little or no objective criteria on which the theories can be judged. This is not to say that theories are always mutually irreconcilable for often times they are not (though they may be seen as such – which is an artifact of how they are sold), or that favoring one theory automatically implies rejecting others. Success of a theory, hence, often times depend on how well it is sold and the historical proclivities of the age.

Proclivities of an age; theories of an age

Popular paradigms emerge over time and then are discarded for entirely new ones. It is not that the old don’t hold but just that the new ones hold the imagination of the age. Take for example variables that people have chosen to describe culture over the ages – Weber argued religion was culture, Marx argued that political economy was culture, Freud proposed a psycho-analytical take on culture (puritan, liberated etc.), Carey proposed communication as culture, political theorists have argued institutions as culture, bio-evolutionarists argue that cognition and bio-rootedness are primary determinants of culture, Tech. evangelists have argued technology is culture, while others have argued that infrastructure dictates culture.

It is useful to acknowledge that the popularity of the paradigms that were used to define culture had something to do with the most important forces shaping culture at that particular time. For example, it is quite reasonable to imagine that Marx’s paradigm was a useful one for explaining the industrial society (in fact it continues to be useful), while Carey’s paradigm was useful to explain the results of rapid multiplication (and accessibility) of communication (mass-) media. I would like to reissue this caveat that adopting new paradigms doesn’t automatically imply rejecting the prior ones. In fact intersection of old and new paradigms provide fecund breeding grounds for interesting arguments and theories – for example political economy of mass media and its impact. Let me illuminate the point with another example from Political Science which a decade or so ago saw resurgence of cultural theory at the back of Huntington’s theory of ‘Clash of civilizations’. Huntington’s theory didn’t mean an end to traditional paradigms like economic competition; it just postulated that there was another significant variable that needed to be factored in the discourse.

The structure of scientific revolutions

Drawing extensively from historical evidence from the natural sciences, Thomas Kuhn, a Harvard physicist, argued in his seminal book, The Structure of scientific revolutions, that science progressed through “paradigm shifts”. While natural sciences paid scant attention to the book, the book provoked an existentialist crisis within the social sciences. To arrive at that crisis point, social scientists made a number of significant leaps (not empirically based) from what Kuhn said – they argued that growth of social science was anarchic, its judgments historically situated and never objective, and hence the social sciences were pointless – or more correctly had a point but were misguided. This self-flagellation is typical in social sciences that have always been more introspective about their role and value in society as compared to the natural sciences, which have always proceeded with the implicit assumption that ‘progress’ cannot be checked and eventually what they produce are merely tools in service of humanity. Of course, that is quite bunk and has been exposed as such without making even the slightest dent in the research in science and technology. Criticizing natural sciences, especially the majority of it that is in service of ‘value free’ economics, doesn’t take away from the questions that Kuhn posed for the social sciences. Social scientists, in my estimation, put disproportionate emphasis on Kuhn’s work. Social science is admittedly much behind in terms of coming up with generalizable theories but they have been quite successful in identifying macro-variables and phenomena.

The most intractable problem that social scientists need to deal with is answering what is the purpose of their discipline. Is it to describe reality or to critique it or engineer alternative realities? If indeed it is all of above, and I believe it is, then social science must think about melding its often disparate traditions – theory and practice.

Rorty and the structure of philosophical revolutions

Richard Rorty in his book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, launches a devastating attack on philosophy – especially its claims to any foundational insights. Rorty traces the history of philosophy and finds that the discipline is embedded, much more deeply than social science, in the milieu of paradigm shifts – philosophers from different ages not only offer different “foundational” insights but often times deal with different problems altogether.

Battling at the margins

Those who argue that the singular purpose of social science should be to normatively critique it and offer alternative paradigms are delusional. Understanding how a society works (or how institutions work, people work) is important to craft interventions – be it drug policy or engineering new governance systems. Normative debates often times are nothing but frivolous debates at the margins. The broad overarching problems of today don’t need normative theorists devoted to analysis – though I don’t dispute their contribution – they are evident and abundantly clear. When we take out the vast middle of what needs to be decided, normative theory becomes a battle at the margins.

Post-positivist theorizing; and the sociology of research

The most significant challenges for social science as discipline lie within the realm of how the discipline aggregates research and moves forward and how that process is muzzled by a variety of factors.
Imre Lakatos sees “history of science in terms of a continuous competition between alternative research programs rather than of successive conjectures and refutations on the one hand, or of total paradigm-switches on the other.” Lakatos argues that any research program possess a kernel of theoretical principles which are taken as fixed and hence create a ‘negative heuristic’ that forbids release of anomalous results, and instead scientists are directed to create a “protective belt” of auxiliary assumptions intended to secure correctness of theoretical principles at the core. Finally, ‘positive heuristic’ is at work to “Defend and extend!” (Little, 1981)

Post-positivist scientific philosophy, like the ones forwarded by Kuhn and Lakatos, raise larger questions about the nature (and viability) of the scientific enterprise. While we may have a firmer grasp of what we mean by a good scientific theory, we are still floundering when it comes to creating an ecosystem that foments good social science and creates a rational and progressive research agenda. (Little, 1981) We must analyze the sociology, and political economy of journal publication as the whole venture is increasingly institutionalized and as careerism etc. become more pronounced.

“Communication” comes from the Latin word communicare, which means “to make common”. We communicate not only to transfer information but also to establish and reaffirm identities, mores, and meanings. The two major localities where “communication” takes place are the consumption of mass media, and everyday conversation. While both inform how we view the world, and what is considered important, scant attention has been paid to understanding the nature and shape of everyday communication and charting its impact.

In the entire realm of what is considered communication, arguably the most important part is the “everyday conversation” – the repeated mundane conversation. I say this not because “everyday conversation” occupies the most time, for admittedly consuming mass media does that, but because “everyday conversation” is still the primary site where people seek approval. While the motivations for entering into a conversation have remained largely the same, the nature of everyday conversation has changed dramatically over the last century. Firstly, today the conversation is carried out between socially competitive peers rather than empathetic family members, and secondly the things that provide value, or things that people seek approval on, have changed from “being a good son or daughter or some other social relation” to fickle, competitive identity markets based on consumption of commercial products (or related training like cooking shows, home improvement shows, travel shows) and entertainment. In other words, with increasing atomization and resulting heightened anxieties about identity, for we no longer get most of our identity from family or some other archaic system, but through consuming the right kind of entertainment and consuming appropriate products, everyday conversations have effectively become negotiations of cultural identity among social or (generally “and”) economic equals.

The negotiation of commercialized cultural identities is done via issues like sports, movies, and other cultural products while contentious topics like politics, religion, and race with little or no commercial value are frowned upon as conversation topics. The key ideal in conversation is politeness (and conformity) and it is just not polite to bring in contentious topics except to mention harmonious approval, cues for which may have been exchanged before.

Given that the motivation for everyday conversation is garnering social approval, attention is paid to story telling, artful handling of anecdotes, sarcasm etc. and not on “accurate” objective reasons. Additionally, the exchange about product preferences is liable to be subjective, and hence not eligible for closer scrutiny, and anchored to some accepted commercial shtick or parameters of “coolness” or “hipness”. This ineligibility for closer scrutiny is there for a reason for it is in the protection of that kernel of ‘irrationality’ and some vague notion of ‘individuality’ can one sell absolutely anything. The fact is that trillions of dollars in this economy rides on the fact that tomorrow millions of people will wake up and make a suboptimal decision – or more accurately be convinced about their economically sub-optimal decisions – about their decision to buy some product.

The other important facet of everyday conversation, as I mentioned earlier, is that it is done primarily between economic and social equals. Conversation between classes has altogether dried up. This drying up can be seen as a result of drying up of places where these interactions used to take place. Cross class interaction or conversations always took place when the person from a lower class offered a service to the person from the higher class. The fora for these exchanges of anecdotes and stories between economic classes have almost dried up under current economic regime. For example, the mom and pop stores manned by neighborhood people have been replaced by chain stores that hire salaried employees with high turnover and whose only focus is to provide an efficient economic transaction and offer an empty courtesy. These routine commercial interpersonal transactions not only keep us from learning the difficulties across classes and hence possibly build empathy, but also have a profound impact on our everyday interaction with other people- even of similar social status. Let me weave in another anecdote here to illustrate the point. When I first came into this country, I was often asked some variation of “how I was doing?” at the beginning of each conversation. I frequently responded by providing full descriptions of how I was doing. It was only after many months and after receiving numerous impatient glances that it dawned on me that people expected nothing but empty curtsies.

The normative point that I want to make is that our everyday conversation affects the nature and extent of our knowledge and style of argumentation. For example, it affects whether one is interested in politics or not, and the political proclivities one may have. The site of “everyday conversation” needs to be reclaimed to build a healthy body politic. Specifically for politics, we may need revival of public conversational spaces what Habermas writes about and what Tocqueville observed.

It is often times much harder to evaluate how much we know and don’t know about everyday life as compared to say ’scientific facts’ for which we exactly know whether we know them or not know them. We all live with some understanding of the etiology of social phenomenon, or produce one when confronted with a question. Hence we instinctively feel that we know the nature, extent, and cause behind social phenomena. Our understanding of the world, and knowledge, is based on a wealth of information that we glean from living in the world. Our knowledge though is biased in one significant way – it is limited to the environment that we live in, and to the knowledge of outside world that modern communication technologies like TV, phone, books etc. make available to us.

The case of the climatologist

It is troubling when natural scientists have the same attitudes towards social scientists that they accuse the lay public of having towards them.

A prominent professor of Communication recently narrated this anecdote to me – “I was at the meeting for American Association for the Advancement of Science this past weekend. The meeting used to be dominated by natural scientist, and still is, though recently social scientists have been given more attention.

Anyways, this time the meeting was dominated by the topic of climate change. On Saturday night, I had the good fortune of having dinner with a group of climatologists who spend time complaining about how people just don’t get what they were saying. Some person sitting in his bedroom watching television says that ‘I don’t see any warming – last winter was still cold. I just don’t buy it’. The climatologists were clearly frustrated by this attitude, “Leave the science to us. If we tell you that something is going on- believe it. Just don’t come back and tell us that since you don’t notice something – it doesn’t exist.”

The conversation went on like this for long time and then the same climate researcher, who until then was expressing his frustration with public’s inability to understand science, stuck a more positive note saying, “Americans’ attitudes towards climate change have really changed over the past year. I think they now seem to be getting the message.” After some nodding from others in the group, the conversation eventually wended its way towards me as a scientist asked my opinion –”Aren’t you into communication or something. You must have something to say about this.” As a matter of fact, I did, given my own extensive research and interest in the area of communicating information about climate change. I said that I don’t think data supports such optimism- American public’s attitudes haven’t changed much on either the question of whether climate change exists, or for those who believe it exists on whether it has anything to do with humans. This climate scientist looked at me as if I was some sort of a moron who didn’t really know what was happening. He then proceeded to argue that I didn’t really know what I was talking about and the perception shift in American public’s mood was real and significant.

I was just kind of stuck by their attitude – it seemed to mimic the kind of attitudes they criticized in lay people, or the arm chair arbiters of data on climate change. The fact of the matter is that climatologists have little or no insight into people’s attitudes or attitude change. Their own attitudes are based on anecdotal evidence or convenient samples of their cohort rather than random sample surveys and yet they felt confident talking as if they knew all the facts.”

Stop for a second and ponder about what you know and what can be known. Think about say what you know about people’s support for Bush. There is a good chance that if you are a typical American, you have mostly either met Bush supporters or people who oppose Bush. Do you think that you can really reliably extend this anecdotal evidence to explain attitudes of 300 million people? The fact of the matter is that whatever idea you have a number of Bush supporters is either through what you know from the results of elections or the more or less scientifically conducted media polls. If you take that information away, you have little to judge the support of Bush by.

It may come as a surprise to you, but if you investigate carefully, about how little we actually know about the nature, extent, and cause of social phenomenon. It is very hard to look outside oneself – to think of a person who thinks differently, is equally convinced of the merits of his opinions etc. By either believing that others think like us or adopting social attitudes or ‘folk knowledge’ as truth, we continue to be uninformed.

The case of the cousin

A couple of years I was at my cousin’s family for a dinner. After the dinner we were sitting in the dining room when the conversation drifted towards poverty and the causes for poverty. My cousin, who comes from a well off family and was studying to be a doctor at the time, kept citing Oprah as ‘proof’ that the only thing holding poor people back was themselves. Eventually I got tired of her delusional argument and noted acerbically that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I said that I don’t even think that her opinion was valid and worthy of any attention. She took this, rightly, as an insult and said that every opinion was valid. I said that I disagree with this assessment. Since she was studying medicine at the time, I asked her how she would feel if I told her that I believed blood letting is a great way to cure cancer. She never answered whether she would consider my thoughts on medicine as valid opinions but kept to her guns arguing people’s opinions should be respected. I agree to the premise but of course I don’t buy the assertion every opinion is equally valid. Clearly arguments based on better data, and using better normative groundings are more valid than ones using anecdotal data with limited normative basis.

Anyways, I believe that my cousin was on to something like that climate scientist. I will use that to expand my thesis to the rest of humanity and not just natural scientists. There are normative issues and empirical issues in any social science debate. By normative issues, I mean moral issues or judgments about right and wrong and of course there is robust social science and philosophy around deciding what is right and wrong but at the heart of this kind of moral judgment people believe they have the right to their opinions. The other important component is the empirical part, testable items around which we have evidence. There is also validity of argumentation based on the way one cites data, the quality of data, logic, issue that is addressed, etc. Anyways, this second part is what average people typically completely botch. I am sure my cousin wants poor people to live comfortably, and I am sure the climate scientist wants good data on public attitudes towards climate change. With normative issues out of the way, social science provides ways (imperfect ways) to analyze causes (and hence find interventions) around poverty, and calculate any attitude change around global warming in Americans.

Let me summarize the arguments that I make above. Firstly, there is very little that can be reliably discerned from immediate environment about wider social phenomenon, and popularity of certain attitudes and ‘facts’. Similarly, there is little reason to believe that we can come up with a useful understanding of causation (and hence draft interventions or not draft any) about the wider social phenomenon. In fact it is hard to imagine that most people would have a good understanding of person level phenomenon, though they may rely upon them on a daily basis.

The second point that I want to make here is that argumentation based on anecdotal evidence has less validity than one based on better understanding of facts. We can always come up with convincing arguments that rely on anecdotal evidence, and the reason why they are convincing is because they tap into other people’s reserves of prejudice and ‘folk knowledge’, but they tend to be of little use if our real interest is in understanding and not winning a narrow debate or an electoral contest. Only facts or good social science can serve as basis for substantive ethical argumentation, which I believe is the only way to reach a better understanding of truth.

Lastly, what I am asking people to do is be more reflective and be more humble in accepting what they don’t know about social phenomenon and that includes social scientists.

There is a schism that runs right in the middle of social science divvying up the field between the critical theorists and the positivists. Positivists aspire to model the success in nature science and hence tend to focus on the causality and statistical proof, according to Dr. Tang at the National Taiwan University. Critical school, on the other hand, starts from some starts from some philosophical axioms, for example – “social good” or “justice for all” or “maximizing social good”.

The approach by “critical theorists” is riven with difficulties due to the multiplicity of the philosophical starting points around which one can build theories. As one would expect, critical theory today has myriad “schools”, each based on different philosophical assumptions and each with, if one may say, their own geometry and calculus which works only in their own universe. Positivists circumvent the epistemological and other philosophical issues that dog the critical theorists by relying on the natural science model of doing research that stresses on coming up with falsifiable hypothesis that can then tested either via experimentation or observation (within representative randomized sample). Given the difficulty of defining and measuring useful variables in social science, positivists rely upon their own methodological axioms though a lot of research is currently underway to help refine methodology.

The dichotomy in the field brings one to question how social science should ideally be conducted. The answer depends on what one expects from social science. One may argue that social science has ceded its primary responsibility of trying to resolve the dispute between differing philosophical paradigms and wrestling with issues pertaining to the nature and future of society. Without the moral or philosophical grounding, a lot of research may seem like monkey work – repetitive and commercial applications aside utterly aimless. On the other hand one may argue that quantitative work often illuminates how humans and society works and it is first important to understand both of them before we move on to the task of circumscribing their behavior in philosophy. I would argue that social science’s aims need to be a hybrid of both of the strands. Social science needs to continue to grasp with the important epistemological and philosophical questions that underpin our existence and provide direction in a way to where research is headed. At the same time, social science needs to be more pro-active in understanding humans and society.

Rationalism is not an end in itself but a tool which helps us “understand” something. Merriam Webster defines the word “understand” as “to grasp the meaning of” or “to grasp the reasonableness of”. The fact is that modern “understanding” is closely tied to agreeing to the reason/meaning behind something. Going beyond this initial premise we can see that the whole structure of modern perception/conception is based on attributing meaning to things. Most of social science has been devoted to understanding the structure, shape, evolution and construction of this meaning and its effects of us who live in this “meaningful” world. Mining the ontology of “meaning” is a circular task because ontology itself is defined in rational terms.

World also has its “unreasonable” people – the radical, the fanatics, the jihadists or more simply the believers. The fact that we can understand something itself is seen as a conceited concept – especially in eyes of people who “believe”. These believers are further split in two branches – one who believe that the world is too complex to be understood by human intelligence and the ones who believe there is no meaning in the world.

Scientists have proven time and again – ironically through rigorous scientific experiments – that humans are fairly irrational, that we learn primarily through mimesis, we are endlessly ritualistic and that subtle change in wording/environment can lead to vastly different results. Let me give you an example – we work better under deadlines. We may know that such and such is beneficial for us but we may endlessly procrastinate simply because we can. A “rational” person may not need an additional incentive to do a thing which is beneficial for us.

Let me get back to the whys and wherefores of this piece. Logic has its genesis in Maths and in the mathematical world things are absolute i.e. arguments don’t demur to variety of view points unlike “real” world. Logic, therefore, makes a particularly poor transition to the human world. The point that I am trying to make is that reasoning is not an end in itself but a “power tool” -literally and figuratively- that can help us communicate and “understand” and even empathise. Contrarily reason as an arbiter between people has its own limitations – primarily that it can only work where people have compatible moral/other standards.

Let me end by pointing out the egregious transition that I made from reason to rationalism to logic. All three are different. Reason doesn’t need to be “reasonable” but rationalism is based on the “reasonable” clause. Reductionism logic -the variety we use most commonly – starts from a basic assumption – axiom or postulate- and it can be a Bible or a Koran or a science text book. Another flaw in reason is that it doesn’t have to be “true”. Rationalism on the other hand is based on the assumption that we have complete knowledge -which we really don’t have. Alright I am being unfair. we don’t really need all knowledge but just the major variables for example I am hungry is a good enough reason for eating.

The larger problem though is that reason is very much goal oriented as in we often “reason” to “prove” our side of the story or our morality and the fact that the strongest reasons for supporting something are increasingly the ones that are hyped most and that tap into our hidden prejudices for example most Americans don’t like to give welfare to poor people as it exploits the common myth that welfare recipients are lazy black people.

This brings me to the discussion of “asymmetric nature of knowledge”. Focualt argues that the universe of knowledge is asymmetric and power centric. Some pieces of knowledge – let me tap into say the case of Muslim scarf – get prominence while other pieces of knowledge rot in oblivion. So we need to be careful as to what pieces of information we use to weave the “rationale” for say “invasion of Iraq”.