Hum Stud (2009) 32:391–400 DOI 10.1007/s10746-009-9128-y BOOK REVIEW SYMPOSIUM

Research with a Purpose: A Reply to My Critics Patrick Baert

Published online: 17 December 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Introduction I would like to thank Brendan Hogan and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy for organising a session around my book at the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) in San Francisco in 2007. The articles in this symposium are revisions of the contributions to that session. My book fits the agenda of the society in that it ‘advances’ a position which is at least partly indebted to American pragmatism. It is also, to a lesser extent, indebted to Gadamer’s hermeneutics, but the influence of neo-pragmatism looms large. This does not mean, however, that my position is compatible with classical pragmatism, and indeed some of the contributors to this symposium claim, rightly I think, that my position is in some respects at odds with that of Dewey’s. Before I deal with the various criticisms, it might be appropriate to put my pragmatist-inspired proposal in the context of my own intellectual trajectory in order to make sense of the rationale of the proposal and explain its distinctiveness. Unlike a substantial number of philosophers of social science, I was trained not just in philosophy but also in a social science, have actually carried out social research, am based in a sociology department and teach in an interdisciplinary social and political sciencepr programme. This has given my work in the philosophy of social science quite a distinctive angle in comparison to the armchair philosophy of social science that is prevalent these days. Whereas the content of philosophy of social science used to be tied to the emergence and establishment of new social scientific disciplines like sociology (Baert and Dominguez Rubio 2009), it has in the course of the twentieth century become an increasingly autonomous intellectual enterprise. I have been particularly struck by how generations of philosophers of social science P. Baert (&) Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies, Sociology Department, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, UK e-mail: [email protected]

123

392

P. Baert

have failed to pay attention to, let alone articulate, what precisely makes certain pieces of social research significant and others not. The incessant (and as I argue: erroneous) focus on what makes for scientific research has meant that those works, which count as intellectual milestones in the history of the social sciences, are wrongly disregarded as journalistic, amateurish or impressionistic. Karl Popper’s philosophy of social science illustrates this problem very well. In spite of the diversity of his educational background, Popper was not trained in any social science and remained unaware of the complexities of social research throughout his career. Through his connection with Friedrich Hayek and his employment at the London School of Economics, Popper learned about some aspects of economics but was relatively ignorant about the other social sciences. Popper’s strength was in philosophy and philosophy of science, but not in philosophy of the social sciences. His knowledge of sociology was limited to Marxism and some sociology of knowledge, and his knowledge of psychology limited to Freud and Adler. This did not stop him from making dubious factual statements about the state of the social sciences or indeed prescriptive claims about where the social sciences should go, and indeed chapter 3 of my Philosophy of the social sciences: Towards pragmatism (Baert 2005) explains in detail why Popper’s philosophy of the social sciences is seriously deficient. But leaving aside the details which are explored in that chapter, Popper’s philosophical strategy is problematic and unfortunately emblematic of many philosophers’ take on the social sciences. Like many other philosophers, Popper thinks that the way ahead is to search for the key methodological strategy that all successful sciences have in common, first by showing philosophically that this strategy is superior to other forms of knowledge acquisition, secondly by demonstrating that progress in the natural sciences has been made because scientists employ this methodological strategy, and thirdly by advocating that the social sciences proceed in similar fashion. Other philosophers might disagree with Popper about the precise nature of this successful scientific method but their reasoning is similar. I showed in chapter 4 of my book that, more recently, critical realism has gained considerable significance—both in philosophy, social theory and the social sciences—and that it also puts forward a naturalist agenda. Throughout Philosophy of the social sciences: towards pragmatism, my argument has been that the naturalist line of argument is flawed, partly because recent developments in analytical philosophy jeopardise any search for a neutral algorithm of scientific method, partly because the natural sciences are characterised by immense diversity across and within disciplines, and partly because the naturalist line of argument erroneously presupposes that social research is primarily, if not exclusively, an explanatory endeavour. Exposed as I have been to the social sciences, I have been struck by the extent to which they have often bought this naturalist line of argument. Consistent with the naturalist agenda, social scientists often see empirical research as a testing device, as a means of checking the cognitive validity of the theories they hold. In subsequent articles, I have argued against this notion of empirical research as a testing device, but in Philosophy of the social sciences: Towards pragmatism, I criticise another widespread view of the social sciences: what Dewey called ‘‘the spectator theory of knowledge’’ (Dewey 1930). Indeed, social scientists often

123

Research with a Purpose

393

conceive of their work as capturing or mirroring the inner essence of the social world as completely as possible; social theory supposedly provides the conceptual building blocks for this mapping exercise. Throughout the book, I show that this conception of social research (and social theory) is flawed, and that there is no such thing as a true mirroring or copying of the social because any act of interpretation of the social draws on a number of presuppositions. When it comes to conceptualising knowledge, the main thrust of my argument lies in a pragmatist move, substituting metaphors of action for metaphors of vision. Such a commitment to a pragmatistinspired perspective inevitably leads to the exploration of the complex relationship between forms of knowledge acquisition and cognitive interests, and amongst the various cognitive interests available, I promote self-understanding as a key aspect of social research. My point is that what those major contributions to social research, which we regard as intellectual milestones of the respective disciplines, have in common is not that they successfully explain or predict external phenomena, but that they manage to help various communities to reconceptualise themselves and to assist in reassessing their hitherto unquestioned presuppositions. In sociology, for instance, we remember the writings of, say, Max Weber, Thorstein Veblen, David Riesman, Zygmunt Bauman and Richard Sennett precisely because they enable communities to describe themselves in a new vein. They did not construct neat deductive models, nor did they come up with accurate predictions. What they did was something much more important: they enabled collective entities to redefine themselves. In the light of this, I argue for a re-orientation of the philosophy of the social sciences centred round this underestimated notion of collective selfunderstanding, and I explore the various methodological strategies in the pursuit of self-understanding—an exploration which has led to new dimensions in archaeology, anthropology, history and sociology. It seems to me that none of the contributors to this issue question my argument in favour of the centrality of self-understanding in social research. They do question the precise meaning which I attribute to self-understanding and the methodological strategies that I believe facilitate self-understanding. They also question the qualms I have about more conventional methodological strategies and the special role I attribute to social researchers. Their reconstruction of my arguments is sometimes incorrect and I will take the opportunity here to show why this is so. However, on several occasions their comments demonstrate that I have not been sufficiently clear, and I am therefore grateful to be able to clarify my position in what follows. I start with Paul Roth’s commentary. He argues that I hold two views which are in fact mutually exclusive. These views are: (a) that the search for a scientific method is highly problematic, and (b) that it is possible to search for a method that pursues self-knowledge. For Roth, if I am correct to argue that the preoccupation with a scientific method is flawed, then I cannot also legitimately search for the method or methods that would lead to self-knowledge. I agree with Roth that I hold both views, and I agree that in their bare bones they could be interpreted as mutually exclusive, but I hold that they are not mutually exclusive in the way in which I articulated and defended those views in the book. Roth believes that I contradict myself partly because he misreads the precise arguments I put forward to support both views. When I write that the search for a scientific method is flawed, I mean

123

394

P. Baert

(and I write so explicitly) that it does not make sense to talk about a unifying scientific method across the natural and social sciences, and I base my argument (contrary to what Roth says I do) not on a rejection of science’s representational qualities, but on the evidence from the history and sociology of science which shows indeed the enormous methodological diversity across the natural sciences and even within disciplines. Roth is right that I argue against the spectator theory of science, but that argument is made in a different context and does not play a central part in my rejection of the search for a unifying method. In short, my main reservation about the so-called scientific method is grounded in empirical studies of scientists at work, and it is directed against the notion of a universal scientific method (which in turn is based on some elusive notion of the essence of science). It is perfectly possible for me to reject the search for a unifying scientific method in the way in which I did and to search for strategies in the pursuit of self-referential knowledge based on analytical reconstructions of actual practices by sociologists, historians, archaeologists and anthropologists. There is no contradiction. Roth’s second allegation is closely related to the first. He argues that my methodology for obtaining self-referential knowledge acquisition is at odds with the philosophical developments over the last 50 years and in particular with the pragmatist view that I endorse. He takes Quine and Kuhn as key figures in a philosophical revolution that is compatible with the neo-pragmatist perspective which I embrace, but that, according to Roth, is ultimately incompatible with my methodological prescriptions. His core argument here is that ‘‘without objects to represent, the notion of a ‘better’ method loses all grip’’ and so does the search for any method, including the one that pursues self-referential knowledge. It could certainly be argued that my own pragmatist position would be incompatible with a ‘‘strong’’ notion of method—that is, a strategy that, for any context, is effective for the pursuit of a given goal—on the grounds that such a notion would imply the very same error which I wanted to eliminate in the first place. However, I did not refer to the notion of method in that sense. The pragmatist outlook, which I propose, can be easily reconciled with a ‘‘weak’’ notion of method—that is, a strategy that, given the specific socio-historical context in which we find ourselves, is effective for the pursuit of the objective we set ourselves. Indeed, when I pleaded for the significance of the genealogical method as I did in my book, I did not mean to suggest that this method will always prove effective for pursuing self-referential knowledge acquisition, but that it is effective today, given the current arsenal of knowledge and viewpoints at our disposal. My methodological prescriptions are anchored in actual social-scientific practices and can be revisited as soon as those practices shift. Roth argues that I contradict myself a third time because on the one hand I question the viability of causal models in the social sciences, and on the other hand I refer to science studies (Bloor, Latour) to back up my arguments. Roth’s point is that science studies provide causal explanations, so how could I call into question the notion of causality by using studies that involve claims about causality? Roth is of course right that science studies employ claims regarding causality (see, for instance, Latour 2007), but he is wrong in assuming that this undermines my argument. First, I do not reject causal modelling as such, only the way in which some philosophers of social science have conceptualised causality and linked it to a

123

Research with a Purpose

395

notion of scientific law. For instance, I argue that critical realists contradict themselves by on the one hand acknowledging the openness of social systems and on the other claiming that the right scientific method will allow us to gain access to the underlying causal mechanisms. Second, I referred to science studies to call attention to the fact that closer investigations of the practice of science make it less convincing to talk about a unifying scientific method within the natural sciences. If diversity reigns within the natural sciences and if indeed the practice of science fails to correspond or even come close to a notion of scientific method, then it becomes problematic to search for methodological unity across the social and natural sciences. In sum, contrary to Roth’s reading of what I wrote, I did not question claims regarding causality as such; and I am not making any references to the causal claim made in science studies to support my arguments. Roth also argues that I am mistaken in assuming that shared presuppositions exist on which social scientists can reflect. This point is consistent with his critique of Peter Winch (Roth 2003; for a related discussion, see also Turner 1994). I certainly referred to presuppositions, but I do not recall making much of shared presuppositions. Nowhere do I use the notion of commonality in the sense Roth attributes to me. It is certainly true that it would be problematic to believe that shared presuppositions exist if we mean by this that all members of the community under discussion have identical presuppositions. But surely to talk about selfunderstanding in the way in which I did does not necessitate this absurd position. What it does imply, and what I do believe, is that most members of a community, whether a scientific one or otherwise, share enough to make for a relatively ordered existence. To clarify my position, let me give the example of Zygmunt Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust (Bauman 1989), a piece of research of which, ironically, Roth disapproves (Roth 2004). Zygmunt Bauman’s book is a prime example of the type of social research (in this case: sociological research) which brings about self-referential knowledge because it challenges the then-widespread presupposition that the Holocaust ought to be seen as a barbarian, pre-modern outburst or as a quintessentially German problem. Instead, Bauman points out how modernity’s homogenous notion of the state has an inbuilt intolerance towards ambivalent ethnic identities, and he also shows how modern bureaucratic organisations erode substantive rationality and individual responsibility. By doing so, Bauman convincingly shows that at least it is plausible to hold that there is an intricate relationship between the transition towards modernity and the emergence of the Holocaust. So when I say that Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust provides a prime example of self-referential knowledge, I am not implying that everybody within the social-scientific community held the view that modernity and the Holocaust are antithetical. But what I am implying is that a considerable amount of people held this view either implicitly or explicitly, and enough people did for Bauman’s work to gain the significance that it did. But Roth’s critique also questions my use of the term ‘‘presupposition’’ altogether. Following W.V.O. Quine and Thomas Kuhn, he questions the very idea that some beliefs function as presuppositions and others do not, and that ‘‘one knows which are which.’’ To be able to distinguish presuppositions from other beliefs implies that I am in possession of a neutral algorithm that allows for the distinction

123

396

P. Baert

between what is more fundamental and what is not, but Roth points out that I have abandoned the very possibility of such a neutral algorithm and rightly so according to him. Although he agrees that some beliefs are more central because switching them would imply a Gestalt switch, we are helpless in identifying which beliefs those ‘‘more central ones’’ might be. Now, I agree that once the analytic-synthetic distinction has been abandoned, it becomes more problematic to provide a philosophical grounding for the distinction between core presuppositions and other beliefs and experience. But I have never wanted to draw this sharp philosophical distinction in the first place, and moreover this philosophical distinction is not essential to what I have to say about the practice of social research. Again, the Bauman example will explain my case. When I said that Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust helped us question some of our beliefs regarding modernity and the Holocaust, not only did I not mean to say that all of us held those presuppositions (as I explained earlier), but I did not mean to imply either that these presuppositions were in any philosophical sense more fundamental than other beliefs we might have been held on this score. But what I would hold is that within the community of practising historians and social scientists a relative consensus exists that those presuppositions which I am talking about are somehow fundamental to the understanding of modernity, the Holocaust and their relationship (‘‘relative’’ because not all members of this community would agree). This is not to say that this existing consensus amongst practitioners of social science regarding what are the core presuppositions corresponds to some mysterious philosophical algorithm, nor is it to say that this consensus is in any way immutable. But what it does necessitate is that I should be able to provide empirical evidence that such a relative consensus exists. Stephen Turner argues that my commitment to social research as conversation sits uneasily with my argument that the social sciences have some central role to play in this conversation, because the notion of conversation implies symmetry and deference to experts’ authority does not. Turner argues that I believe that social science occupies ‘‘something especially central, more central than what other contributors to this conversation, philosophers, novelists, science fiction writers, intercultural communicators, historians, and others bring to this conversation.’’ I do hold that contemporary social researchers (broadly conceived, that is) are better placed than analytical philosophers because of the way in which they engage more directly with the empirical world, though this is not an a priori argument about the nature of social science or indeed of philosophy, and I would not necessarily want to argue that on this score social research will have the edge over philosophy for decades to come. Contrary to how Turner portrays my position, I would not necessarily wish to argue that, compared to say novelists, social researchers occupy an altogether superior position in this ongoing conversation, and indeed there have been instances whereby novelists have brought about self-understanding in magisterial fashion. But in comparison to novelists, contemporary social sciences do occupy a special position in so far as they operate within an institutional framework that implements procedures of open debate and accountability with regard to sophistication, clarity and plausibility of the empirical claims that are being made.

123

Research with a Purpose

397

Turner prefers to conceive of social science non-instrumentally. In this view, different actors (individuals, groups) might use social science for different purposes and it is not always possible to predict these different uses. I agree that, whatever form research findings take and for whatever purpose they have been obtained, those findings can always be (and are often) used for objectives different from the ones the researcher had in mind and possibly even contradict those initial objectives. Social researchers could hardly observe the importance of ‘‘unintended consequences’’ of other people’s actions, and not acknowledge it in relation to their own work. However, this does not jeopardise my argument that it is useful for philosophers of social science and researchers to reflect on the relationship between methodology and cognitive interests. While it might be true that any research can be used for more than one objective, it is also true that the specific objective underlying a piece of research has an effect on the range of uses that are available, encouraging some uses rather than others. Also, when Turner promotes Veblen’s notion of ‘‘idle curiosity,’’ he implicitly endorses my notion of self-referential knowledge acquisition, writing as he does about how successful social theories adopt new vocabularies in the face of present problems. It is not entirely clear to me how his perspective does away (as he thinks it does) with the notion of ‘‘external purposes,’’ or, more correctly, how he does away with this notion more effectively than I do. Having been thrown out by Turner, this notion seems inevitably to get in through the backdoor when Turner writes about the history of sociology and social theory. Turner is not convinced about the examples I gave of the social research I had in mind, arguing that Michael Burawoy’s notion of public sociology fits it much better. I agree with Turner that Burawoy’s notion of public sociology ties in with my pragmatist-inspired perspective, as I have indeed explained in another article (Baert 2009). But I do not agree that the other examples do not fit the bill. Turner argues that the notion of conversation is an anathema for the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, because they ‘‘wanted to stand outside the conversations of those who were concerned with these problems.’’ I fear the disagreement between Turner and me might to a large extent be semantic, as I use conversation in the broad sense of the word. When I wrote that Nietzsche and Foucault fit this dialogical model, I did not mean to say that they subscribed to the pragmatist problem-solving worldview, nor did I mean to imply that either of them would wish to consider their readers or intellectual opponents as equals in a hypothetical conversation. Nietzsche would indeed be horrified at the idea. My contention is that their genealogical methodology is particularly well-placed to facilitate the questioning of presuppositions which some of us have held hitherto. In general (and this is also relevant as a response to one of Roth’s criticisms), I did not mean to suggest that the authors to whom I refer— Nietzsche’s genealogy, anthropologists after the critical turn, post-processual archaeologists—subscribe to neo-pragmatism, let alone my specific version of it. Nor did I wish to endorse uncritically all facets of their work. Towards the end of the book, I expressed reservations about these authors in no uncertain terms. Jim Bohman argues that within a pragmatist-inspired critical theory, there ought to be scope for the type of ‘‘nomologically oriented social sciences’’ that I reject. He provides Amartya Sen’s analysis of the relationship between democracy and famine as an example of the type of research that he has mind. Sen, you may recall, tries to

123

398

P. Baert

explain why there has hardly been any famine in democracies and why democracies have hardly gone to war with each other. Now, there is no doubt that these correlations (democracy/absence of famine, democracy/peace) are fascinating, and although I may be less convinced than Bohman about how social scientists operationalise ‘‘democracy,’’ ‘‘famine,’’ and ‘‘going to war’’ in this type of research, I do not wish to diminish the significance of those correlations. But I would insist that we are talking here about a finite (actually a relatively small) number of observed correlations within quite similar contexts. Surely Bohman will agree that there is absolutely no guarantee that these correlations will prevail in the foreseeable future. Whilst he still wants to maintain that ‘‘democracy is instrumentally valuable in preventing great evils, such as war, famine, and human deprivation generally,’’ I would be less inclined to attribute these effects to the intrinsic features of democracy as such, but to the complex interplay between democratic institutions and the specific contexts in which these institutions emerged and in which they were able to sustain themselves. Nomologically oriented social sciences concede this in acknowledging that correlation does not specify causation, and may be the product of a third, not necessarily observable, underlying factor. Any significant change to that context and to its relationship to democracy might substantially alter the picture, and we do not know how it would alter the state of play because the precise nature of this interplay is and will remain unknown to us. This does not make research into the correlations redundant, precisely because contexts of this kind are relatively stable, and therefore it is quite likely that those correlations have some predictive quality in the near future for societies like the US or the UK. But it does imply that I am less confident than Bohman that empirical research of this kind will allow us to infer law-like generalisations that are supposed to be applicable across time and in different cultural settings. Bohman also argues that I fail to acknowledge the importance of what he calls self-knowledge in the ‘‘broad sense’’ of the word. By this he refers to ‘‘a variety of forms of social science, including explanations of social fact that aim at contributing to the reconstruction of practices that realise democratic ideals.’’ I do not wish to argue that self-referential knowledge in the way in which I defined it ought to be the sole aim of social research. As a matter of fact, I emphasised that research can aim at very different objectives and that we ought to celebrate, rather than condone, this diversity. Part of this celebration is also a duty to promote objectives which have been neglected so far, self-referential knowledge being one such objective. I have no qualms with self-knowledge in the broader sense in so far as researchers limit themselves to informed judgements about the state of affairs of the specific context which they are investigating. Research of this kind can be very useful in assisting localised policy making. But given the relative openness of the social world, so many social mechanisms are potentially interfering that I am less convinced that this social research in the broad sense, inevitably conducted in a specific context, can help establish the cognitive validity of general sociological theories of the kind Bohman is promoting. Brendan Hogan’s critique is very similar to Peter Manicas’ (2008a, b). They both feel that my reconstruction of pragmatist philosophy draws heavily on Richard Rorty’s version of it and that Dewey would help me deepen some of my arguments. As Hogan points out himself, pragmatism comes in different guises and different

123

Research with a Purpose

399

versions, and it certainly is true that my arguments have been inspired by such interpreters as Rorty and Richard Bernstein rather than Dewey (who is championed by Hogan). I did not wish to suggest that all pragmatists would endorse my views, and I made it clear in the book that my arguments were meant to take the philosophy of social science forward, rather than inform us about the history of American pragmatism. As for my choice of allies, there are very good reasons why neopragmatists are more appealing to me than previous generations of pragmatists. As I already pointed out in my reply to Manicas (Baert 2008), various developments have taken place within both Continental-European and analytical philosophy in the last half century, and some of those developments were not anticipated by Charles S. Peirce, Dewey or William James. Regarding Dewey in particular, his notion of experimental science draws heavily on the template of the natural sciences and is too restrictive a model to capture the methodological diversity that has subsequently operated within the social sciences. From Hogan’s own account of Dewey and from my reading of him, it is not clear why Dewey’s philosophy is superior to recent developments in pragmatism, how it would help me to develop my argument further and how it would leave us any wiser on the complex relationship between ontology and methodology. Where I do agree with Hogan, however, is that Dewey and G. H. Mead’s philosophical positions are closely connected to what Hogan calls the ‘‘norms of democratic life,’’ something which makes their outlook very attractive indeed. I also agree that, in that respect, my proposal is underdeveloped and could be served by a proper engagement with Dewey’s corpus. Hogan has a point when he suggests that some of my arguments are quite different from those of several classical pragmatists, notably Dewey and Peirce. It is therefore not surprising that since the publication of Philosophy of the social sciences: Towards pragmatism, I have been less interested in developing further the pragmatist dimensions of my proposal. Instead, I have explored the link between my proposal and insights from Continental philosophical traditions, in particular those from Hans-Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas (Baert 2009). Parallel to Levinas’ treatment of alterity, my proposal puts the engagement with otherness at the centre of social research. This encounter with different forms of life entails an opportunity for communities to re-describe and recreate themselves. In Gadamer’s parlance, this form of social research leads to ‘‘self-formation’’ or Bildung, the process by which individuals and collective entities take on a broader perspective and realise the fallibility or parochial nature of beliefs they have hitherto cherished. The research opens up new socio-political scenarios which those communities did not previously consider. I wish to thank Jim Bohman, Brendan Hogan, Paul Roth and Stephen Turner for their insightful comments. Needless to say, I would also like thank the editors of Human Studies. References Baert, P. (2005). Philosophy of the social sciences: Towards pragmatism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Baert, P. (2008). Pragmatism misunderstood: A reply to Peter Manicas. Journal of Critical Realism, 7(2), 246–256.

123

400

P. Baert

Baert, P. (2009). A neo-pragmatist agenda for social research: Integrating Levinas, Gadamer and Mead. In H. Bauer & E. Brighi (Eds.), Pragmatism in international relations (pp. 44–62). London: Routledge. Baert, P., & Dominguez Rubio, F. (2009). Philosophy of the social sciences. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), Blackwell companion to social theory (pp. 60–80). Oxford: Blackwell/Wiley. Bauman, Z. (1989). Modernity and the holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Dewey, J. (1930). The Quest for certainty: A study of the relation of knowledge and action. New York: Minton, Balch. Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manicas, P. (2008a). Rescuing Dewey: Essays in pragmatic naturalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Manicas, P. (2008b). Postmodern pragmatism and social science. Journal of Critical Realism, 7(2), 236–246. Roth, P. (2003). Mistakes. Synthese, 136, 389–408. Roth, P. (2004). Hearth of darkness: ‘‘Perpetrator history’’ and why there is no why. History of the Human Sciences, 17(2/3), 211–251. Turner, S. (1994). The social theory of practices: Tradition, tacit knowledge, and presuppositions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

123