Human Studies 21: 79–86, 1998.
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Book Review
The Politics of Methodology
Anthony Flew, Thinking About Social Thinking. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1995. 278 pages including bibliographical references and index. This text reminds every social scientist that the conclusions they reach need to be confirmed by solid evidence. Flew’s perspective is an amalgamation of Popper, Hayek, Adam Smith, and Hume. He provides an excellent critique of methodologies that become preoccupied with guaranteeing the basic assumptions of their approach rather than making sure empirical evidence confirms or falsifies the issue in question. At the same time, Flew’s own rigidity of perspective prevents him from engaging postmodern approaches to being and knowledge. From the outset, Flew is emphatic that social scientists retain the “selfdiscipline” (p. 4) to examine all relevant evidence, especially contrary results to what one is trying to prove. His chapters are replete with examples of “self-deception” (p. 4): social scientists forcing facts to prove “preordained conclusions” (p. 168) or simply ignoring facts which disprove such conclusions. Flew is especially critical of social “experiments” (p. 19) undertaken in the welfare state and in Marxist and leftist undertakings. All too often such ‘experiments,’ he insists provide no objective way to measure success: “stated intentions” replace “actual achievements” (p. 28). Instead, Flew insists that social scientists follow Popper’s falsification method whereby one tries to falsify one’s conjectures in as many ways as possible before coming to any conclusions. He still concludes, at least in terms of English social programs, there remains “an almost universal unwillingness to monitor results” (p. 29). In terms of social science approaches, Flew is equally critical of both the subjectivist and functionalist/structuralist schools. By the former he is referring to approaches which contend that social outcomes can be traced back to specific individual intentions. However, as he pinpoints, “many of the consequences of human action . . . were never in fact intended” (p. 34) On the other hand, he maintains that the functionalist and structuralist endeavor to find causal mechanisms to explain human intentions completely will always fail, for there “neither are nor can be any laws of nature necessitating human
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action” (p. 114). Both of these social science poles commit reductionism, whereas Flew is more comfortable with an approach that does not despair at the fact that social outcomes cannot be completely explained. To the contrary, Flew accents that “The business of social science is to reveal the unintended consequences of intended actions . . .” (pp. 68–69). He finds this approach especially in the work of Smith and Hayek. The beauty of Smith’s invisible hand is that it is a spontaneous “design” (p. 84) that arises “through the not intentionally and collectively coordinated initiatives and responses of various persons or group of persons, most of whom cannot have been directly acquainted with one another” (p. 96). In turn, individual differences in “drive, initiative, energy, resource, enterprise, creative imagination,” (p. 159) he contends, account a great deal for the differences in social outcomes, again in contrast to those who would attribute such disparities to differences in social structures and backgrounds. Thus, as much as he distances himself from the subjectivist school, Flew is on the individualist side of the traditional divide between the individual and the collective: “all social activities, and the operations of all social institutions, are and cannot but be the actions of individual human beings” (p. 65). A prime example of a social mechanism which ends up producing a result contrary to what its designers intended, according to Flew, is the endeavor to eliminate institutionalized racism. First, Flew insists inequality of outcomes should not be the basis for determining the existence of racism, for only if everyone were to be endowed with equal aptitude, talent, and initiative could one even imagine a scenario with equal outcomes. Thus, by pursuing what in the United States is termed affirmative action, the state ends up practicing the very thing it is trying to remedy – discrimination. Equally leery of subjective idealism, the sociology of knowledge, and anthropology, Flew reiterates at the end of his text his principal theme that the charge of social scientists is to “study people as we actually are” (p. 60): recommendations of what the world should ideally be is a matter of partisan, not scholarly debate – Hume’s is-ought distinction. As much as anthropology and Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions suggest that there are “different conceptions of reality” (p. 245), Flew stands by “the primacy of the untheoretical language of public description” (p. 241), for without this common vocabulary, communication and understanding would be impossible. Flew’s basic prescriptions regarding ‘methodolatry’ are well-taken and his concern for common discourse is admirable. At the same time, there are anomalies in his presentation: one ideological, the other both ontological and epistemological. Although Flew occasionally criticizes non-leftist social engineers such as B.F. Skinner, for the most part he focuses on the problems of socialism, radi-
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calism, historicism, the welfare state, and Marxism. For example, the remark that Marx as a revolutionary is “so willing to suppress and to misrepresent” (p. 9) is just one of the many instances throughout the volume where Marx is the target of putdowns. The only figures referenced in the index as frequently as Engles, Lenin, and Marx are Hume and Popper, Flew’s heroes. At times, were it not for Flew’s libertarian bearings, one would swear that the Voegelinian admonition ‘don’t immanentize the eschaton’ is a subtitle for the text. Quite frankly, Flew could have directed the same methodological criticism at conservatives. Many conservatives have bemoaned that the social engineering pursued by radical political theories, only to deny in like fashion evidence that does not conform with the conservatism. For example, as Michael Freeman pinpoints, “because conservatives hold that radical projects are utopian and dangerous, they are inclined to minimize existing misery or attribute it to necessary laws” (Freeman 1992 p. 403). To minimize existing misery is in Flew’s terms to deny or suppress evidence that would falsify part of conservatism. Likewise, to attribute misery or poverty to necessary laws is contrary to Flew’s rejection of “true natures” (p. 99) and “laws of nature” (p. 114). Yet, Flew does not criticize conservatism, unless one considers behavioral and naturalistic approaches to politics – Skinner, Malthus – conservative. Another example of the selective ideological vista of Flew’s critique is his celebration of market economies and disdain for command economies, especially of the Marxist-Leninist variety. Once again, Flew’s insistence that command economies limit freedom and choice and lead to a form of coercion opposite of their aims is well-taken. But this denial of liberty can also ensue in market situations as well. For instance, in most Latin American economies, an extremely small upper class – as little as 5% of the population – controls frequently as much as 90% or more of the wealth. Now Flew could contend that these countries do not have genuinely free markets due to high tariffs on imports and import substitution policies. Nevertheless, the point remains he does he not discuss these examples or those of the emerging capitalisms of South Korea, Singapore, and other parts of Asia which have very little to do with liberal democracy. By not subjecting the right to the same intense criticism that he extends to the left, Flew does not follow his advice to practice ‘self-discipline’ and avoid ‘self-deception.’ The ontological and epistemological anomaly in Flew’s text is despite his enthusiasm for freedom and contingency in market societies and his distrust of political and social theories which claim to explain human action through causal mechanisms or natural laws, his focus on “reality as it objectively is” (p. 235) forecloses exploration of the postmodern critique of the hegemonic social practices and circumscribing of alternative forms of human interaction in modernity. Flew’s presentation is ensnared in analytic categories drawn
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mostly from Hume: two senses of causes, two senses of determinism, “kosmos” v. “taxis” (p. 149), is v. ought, fact v. value, and reality v. “reality” (p. 237). Certainly any social scientist is going to use terms and distinctions to clarify and organize their work, but in Flew’s case they ironically ‘unintentionally’ close off exploration of the questions and issues postmodernism poses to modernism. If Flew’s fixation on criticizing leftist projects is an inconsistency in his text, his unwillingness to engage in a more pluralistic rendering of reality is a contradiction. An example which illustrates how Flew’s approach does not allow for alternatives venues which reveal symbolic hegemonies previously concealed is his portrait of the institutionalized racism debate. He is adamant that progressive attempts to overcome institutionalized racism confuse equality of outcome with equality of opportunity. Indeed, if equality of outcome was the goal of political and social policies aimed at overcoming racism, he is right that this could only occur if the contestants at the start of the competition were “equally well endowed and equally well-disposed” (p. 82). This is impossible due to differences in genetic composition and personal drive. Flew assumes that we can accurately measure outcomes according to merit and hard work. But what if the standards that are being used intentionally or more to the point, ‘unintentionally’ favor persons of a particular racial, religious, linguistic, or cultural background than others? What if the very visors we are using to monitor the contest are biased or a form of ‘selfdeception’? If so, unequal outcomes is not just a consequence of hard work and determination. One can only monitor results accurately with objective criteria; arriving at such objective criteria to measure merit is a much trickier undertaking than Flew admits. The traditional argument against affirmative action – note, Flew never employs this term, but he does discuss analogous practices in Britain – is that it violates merit principles because a characteristic of the person’s background determines who gets the job as opposed to choosing individuals based upon demonstrable aptitude and achievement skills. Affirmative action criterion seemingly are closer to ascriptive criteria such as patronage and therefore in terms of civil rights constitute ‘reverse discrimination.’ Actually, the best case for affirmative action is not that it is a remedy for past discriminatory practices, for that indeed would be to use discrimination to counter discrimination, but rather that it entails a strict scrutiny of ongoing presumably ‘merit’ criteria to ensure that they are objective: that their assessment of a person’s abilities is not in terms which gives advantage to those of a particular cultural background. If aspects of the recruitment process – securing interviews, succeeding at interviews, and having the right education to excel at merit examinations – enable members of one cultural groups to
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have much more access than those of others, the set of social practices which supposedly determine educational or employment opportunities on a merit basis are actually subtle forms of patronage. It is a democratic set of social relations, not equal outcomes, that is the focal point of progressive attempts to eliminate prejudice. But before we can rest assured that differences in outcome are reflective in Flew’s terms of differences in human aptitude and initiative, we must be confident that there was equality of opportunity at the outset. Flew, though, has difficulty engaging the notion that social processes and institutions might circumscribe equality of opportunity because his framework either refers to individual free actions or determinist historical or natural laws, not a hermeneutical network of human relations between these poles. Furthermore, whether it be his review of the possibility of cross-cultural dialogue or his critique of Kuhn’s presentation of paradigm shifts in scientific thinking, Flew holds onto modernity’s static conception of reality. For Flew, reality still retains an identity apart from the hermeneutical understanding of it by human beings. Consequently, he depicts cross-culture understanding or shifts in scientific paradigms as simply a matter of finding a shared vocabulary between perspectives rather than that these cultures or paradigms might offer quite radically different, but not incommunicable conceptualizations of the world. In the above case of affirmative action, it is difficult for Flew to consider that ongoing educational and professional social practices might constitute a hegemony of one culture over another because his intense commitment to individual freedom prevails over any grasp of the social character of human experience and understanding. Another example will help demonstrate my point. According to Michael Shapiro, Robinson Crusoe in Michel Tournier’s Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique “reproduces and rationalizes the political and economic practices of his age” (Shapiro 1988 p. 161) – English capitalism. Crusoe’s humanization of the island, in this interpretation, was not just out of necessity, but due to “symbolic necessity” – he needed rational order as he understood it (Shapiro 1988 p. 161). However, in this version of the story, Friday creates another set of social practices “dedicated to play rather than the duties of administrator and wage earner” (Shapiro 1988 p. 161). Through this contrast, Shapiro contends, Crusoe comes to see “his administered island is but one among other possible islands” (1988 p. 161). It is precisely this capacity to see other possibilities of being and knowing that Flew lacks: yes contingency, yes spontaneity, but for him only within an understanding of human being and knowledge that is modern at its roots and market-oriented in its use. Despite his almost anarchic portrait of market freedom, for Flew there cannot be plural decentered spheres of interpretation without forfeiting human communication – Flew is not Rorty.
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At first glance, Flew’s stress on human contingency rather than causal networks, his critique of the subjectivist and functionalist/structuralist poles, and his accent on ‘the primacy of the untheoretical language of public description’ share much in common with existential and hermeneutical phenomenology. The more Flew stresses concrete experiences, not abstract theories, his outlook somewhat resembles Schutz’s concern for preconceptual experience in the ‘life-world.’ At the same time, phenomenology is much more successful than Flew’s outlook at moving beyond the subject-object divide characteristic of modern philosophy since Descartes. Phenomenology captures how human intentionality is situated in social relations and practices: we have a ‘consciousness-of’ the world. We grasp reality not from solipsistic mental musings nor solely as outcomes of determined causal networks, but as a dialogical interaction between ourselves and other people and things – an ‘in-between’: “social structures without agency is meaningless, while agency without social structure is vacuous” (Jung 1993 p. xv). As much as Flew distances himself from subjectivism by acknowledging that consequences of our actions can ensue contrary to our intentions, he never develops an awareness of intersubjectivity and consequently quarantines the human subject from being affected by and in turn actively shaping social processes and institutions. For phenomenology, an appreciation of how we affect social processes and structure and how they in turn affect us is essential for 1) making sense of our lives and 2) giving an ethical direction to both individual and collective well-being. Returning to the previous examinations of affirmative action, phenomenology’s realization that individualization and socialization are entwined allows us 1) to examine and expose the type of sedimented meaning structures which give advantages to one group over others and 2) to strive to extirpate such political hegemonies. Therefore, though Flew clings to the ‘is-ought,’ ‘fact-value’ distinction from Hume – that the activity of describing the real world is distinct from recommending actions – phenomenology’s focus on action as situated in the ‘life-world’ means “there is no separation between what is and what ought to be” (Jung 1993 p. 16). Once we recognize that human beings are social beings, neither isolated individuals nor just products of environments, then to be human is to be responsible for our actions toward and with others. On the other hand according to Flew, such an active concern for the relations between humans and in turn between humans and nature is misbegotten because conscious responsibility for social and political programs only leads to unintended consequences: all we can hope for is that a creative design will haphazardly emerge from our separate individual actions.
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Flew’s perspective, as committed as it is both to human freedom and sensible concrete conclusions about social activity ultimately falls short because he does not articulate social thinking as praxis. His insistence 1) that social scientists be vigilant in ensuring that concrete evidence confirms their theories and 2) that we be attentive to unintended results of intended action are points well taken, but his overall perspective does not genuinely engage social thinking as social. Phenomenology, by contrast, shares Flew’s concern for recognizing a shared vocabulary and common experience between diverse individuals, cultures, and paradigms, but does so through the intersubjective, hermeneutical relations between human beings rather that through a static reality juxtaposed to the ‘life world.’ The finite, yet pluralistic character of the human condition offers, akin to Flew’s view, that an inexhaustible set of human possibilities lies ahead. Nevertheless, because we are “inescapably acting and narrating beings” (Madison 1988 pp. 102–03), we 1) have lateral access to each other through, not in spite of, our differences and 2) have an mutual responsibility to foster democratic human relations which integrate personal distinction with community well-being. As a postscript, as much as Flew aims this work at a “much wider public” (2) than just social scientists, many social scientists will find Flew’s rhetoric cryptic, let alone a broader audience. Much of the book is written in an English as opposed to an American vernacular and most of the examples Flew employs to defend his point of view are from Britain. Flew’s flippant and caustic tone over two hundred and fifty pages also becomes rather wearisome. Perhaps these are more ‘unintended consequences’ of his intentions, but frankly these are matters he could have attended to, especially if his is sincere about the ‘primacy of the untheoretical language of public description.’ John Francis Burke University of St. Thomas, Houston Texas, U.S.A
References Freeman, Michael. (1992). The Critique of Political Radicalism. In Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (Eds.), Political Theory: Classic Writings, Contemporary Views. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Jung, Hwa Yol. (1993). Rethinking Political Theory: Essays in Phenomenology and the Study of Politics. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. Madison, Gary Brent. (1988). The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity: Figures and Themes. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
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Shapiro, Michael. (1989). Weighing Anchor: Postmodern Journeys From the Life-World. In Stephen K. White (Ed.), Life World and Politics: Between Modernity and Postmodernity. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
