ALL RED FEATHER MATERIALS ARE ALWAYS FREE TO STUDENTS AND TO THOSE WHO TEACH THEM....T R Young

Postmodern Philosophy of Science:
Assumptions of Modern Science

No. 26 in a Series.

SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES

by

T. R. Young
The Red Feather Institute

In recent mini-lectures, I have discussed both postmodern phenomenology as well as the structure of philosophy.  Today I would like to take you even deeper into the knowledge process and help sort out some of the most fundamental questions in social science...how do we obtain reliable knowledge about the world in which we must, preforce, live out our lives and, with which to make a sensible case to our students about how the world we purport to describe, really works.

A. MODERN SCIENCE: There are several basic assumptions in modern science to which a postmodern philosophy of science must speak. They include:

1. The utility of Aristotlean logic. Aristotlean wrote, taught around 350 BCE. If one is to frame theory and use it to make predictions, the thought is that one must use the rules of logic put forth by Aristotle. He taught that a thing was either true or false. Postmodern phil/sci speaks of fractal truth values.

   In making validity claims, the Law of the Excluded Middle says that it is impossible for a thing to be in two categories at the same time. Logic developed from geometry.

2. The utility of Euclidean Geometry. If one is to generate analytic categories, the boundaries of these must be clear such that one can place a case into that category without ambiguity; i.e., a given case must go into one and only one category. A person is either male or female; a person is either married, widowed, never married or divorced. A person is either in stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 in Kohlberg's theory of moral development. A group cannot be both primary and secondary in this accounting system.

   In postmodern phil/sci, it is possible for a person to be, at one and the same time, a friend and a clerk in a store. Her behavior is different from that either of friendness or clerkness. In pomo phil/sic, a group must be either primary or secondary; a process must be either sacred or secular. In postmodern phenomenology, two bodies can occupy the same time/space continuum...two processes can interact in the same time frame.

3. The utility of rational numbering. As you know, we count four numbering systems in quantitative methodology and statistical inference; nominal, ordinal, interval and rational. There are numbering systems which use negative numbers, irrational numbers and non-linear numbers. These are not used in arithmetic, algebra, calculus or in statistical inference.

   In postmodern phil/sci, qualitative changes in size, shape or quantity occurs such that ordinal, interval and rational numbering systems lose their epistemological value. A sort of rubber math is available with which to find patterns and to ground truth claims but with considerable less precision than now required in social science for a valid truth claim.

4. The utility of Newtonian Dynamics. Newtonian dynamics are very smooth, very regular, very precise. Order is the name of the newtonian game. Disorder is seen as enemy to truth claims and seen to be the result of bad theory, poor instrumentation, observer bias or just plain bad research design.

   Postmodern science sees a changing mix of order and disorder in every complex system. Order is not set as the basis of truth claims nor is dis-order dispised as enemy to the knowledge process.

5. The unidirectionality of Causality. In the modern science graduate students in sociology are now taught, one is to use the concepts of independent and dependent variable with the intervening variable used to explain why it is that a tight connection between variable A and variable B does is not always observed.
   
   1. Unidirectionality is replaced by the concept of feedback in pomo phil/sci. There are three general kinds: positive feedback between two or more variables in which a system is driven to fill the causal space available to it...sometimes known as disorder. Negative feedback in which a system is driven to death...that is to say to zero change. Then there is nonlinear feedback which does very strange things indeed and set aside all of the assumptions above as irrelevant.
      
   2. Nonlinear feedback loops. One thing that nonlinear feedback does is to maintain the stability of a system; it is a curious thing but it turns out that only chaos can manage chaos...in order to survive in a changing or dangerous environment, it is better to be unpredictable. Hearts of the positivist sink at the thought. But think of a moth in flight...linear flight is dangerous since predators can track it. Think of the beating of a heart; nonlinear heart beat can change more quickly to pump oxygen around than can one that is beating in linear rhythm. Nonlinear thought processes can search memory faster than linear. I am told that nonlinear patterns in reward and punishment is more conducive to learning than are linear.
      
      
   3. Bentham redux. Current theory in criminology, founded upon the utilitarianism of Jeremy Betham asserts that the more control and the more pain used in human affairs, the less crime and more compliance. Maybe. Postmodern criminology would question that. Maybe mercy and forgiveness are better ways to prevent crime than linear increments of incarceration and punishment. Maybe social justice is better than criminal justice as a way to ensure the domestic tranquility.

B. Postmodern Science: Assumptions:

1. The assumptions of postmodern philosophy of knowledge begins with the idea that, of all the complex and inter-twinned levels and varieties of dynamical systems in nature and society, it is a political act to choose just which level to privilege and which to push aside as outside a theory.  The idea that criminal behavior is a result of 'faulty' controls is just such a case.  Such 'theory' ignores all the bio-chemical transformations in the human body, all the electro-chemical transformations, all previous socialization as well as all the key variables which work to produce a given form of behavior we choose to define as 'criminal.'

2.  A second element of a postmodern philosophy of knowledge is that, given the incredible complexity and non-linearity of most dynamical systems, it is both a politics and a poetics to make arbitrary concepts with which to refer to that complexity.    Boyle's Law, for example, begins with the political act of choosing some one set of molecules within a universe of molecules within a given domain as just the set with which to measure pressure.   Another set of molecules within a given domain would yeild different values from any other set within that domain.  The vast disorder of molecular motion is thus transformed into the semblence of a 'law' by a human conceptual act.

3.  Thirdly, human language systems are far to crude to use to describe the changing inter-connections between systems which produce a totality at a given moment.  The use of numbering systems further erodes grasp of reality and produces a false set of ideas about the slice of reality at hand.  The use of inferential statistics further removes a theory from the messsy reality it purports to describe.

4.  Fourthly, the real successes in prediction of modern science speak only to simple systems with three or fewer interacting variables.  Addition of a 4th variable produces second order change to non-linearity.  The precision attributed to theory about complex system dynamics stems from use of such concepts as:

    a. observer bias
    b. measurement error
    c. random variation
    d. inadequate technology
    e. bad theory

    When in fact, a system may well behave such that precision and predictabilty are not possible.

C. The Advantages of Non-linearity.  Chaos and complexity replace the assumptions of newtonian, linear dynamics in most really existing systems...and all social systems. 

This is not just a quirk of nature...non-linearity offers a wide array of advantages over linearity for biological and social systems.

    a.  Flexibility to present conditions

    b.  Adaptability to new conditions

    c.  capacity for creativity

    d.  multiplicity of social forms as a reservoir of coping strategies:

         A plurality of Gender, Economic, Religious and Educational formats offer
         paralllel ways to maintain social order in times of change.

This all means that modern and pre-modern social control tactics are mere apology for some one socio-religious complex...more on this later.