For the past week or so, I’ve been reading and reading the so-called “preliminaries” section of my social theory comprehensive exam. I hope to start writing on this tomorrow or Saturday. The comprehensive is structured as a mock course proposal, syllabus, and the ‘complete text of the final lecture’. While a moderately silly format, it is a lot quicker than the research paper version. (The program allows comprehensives to be completed in one of those two formats, but one of the exams must be as a research paper.) My ‘course’ is designed as “An Advanced Introduction to Critical Social Theory”. Whatever that means!
The “preliminaries” section is designed as an introduction to (1) the invention of sociology and social theory, (2) the Enlightenment and modernity, (3) traditional and critical theory, (4) realism and the dialectic, (5) perspectivism and genealogy. The boundaries are, of course, largely artificial — why, for instance, include perspectivism with genealogy and not with dialectics? A matter of convenience.
The question I’ve arrived at runs mostly as follows: it seems that most people agree that critical theory in some sense ‘produces knowledge’. “On the Materialist Dialectic,” for instance, is a meta-theoretical model for the production of knowledge. Here, in Althusser’s approach, Generalities III (new knowledge) are produced by the work of Generalities II (models, theories) on Generalities I (the raw material of knowledge). Essentially, in the first instance, ideology is transformed into science and then, in the next instance, science is distilled and made more pure. Largely, the issue is one of a veridical discourse that takes the form of constantly purging error. In a sense, the problematic of science isn’t so much the production of new knowledge, but the elimination of erroneous knowledge.
We can see how this works in a more formalized science, such as physics or mathematics. It isn’t so clear, however, how the social sciences produce knowledge. As far as I can tell, no one I know is actively attempting to eliminate error for the sociological corpus. Sociology doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing in which truth is produced or error found. At the very least, traditional social science is a normalizing discourse — that is, it isn’t coincidental that the bell curve holds a privileged place in sociology.
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You may want to consider adding Seidman’s good friend Charles Lemert’s essay “The Case against big-S Sociology.” Excellent essay that would fit perfectly for that section, I think.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll consider it — first by reading the article! What is the full reference?
In a sense, the problematic of science isn’t so much the production of new knowledge, but the elimination of erroneous knowledge.
Mmm, this can only be true if it’s interpretated in a very broad way. Most of modern physics, for instance, created far more categories of knowledge than it eliminated. I needn’t start on biology…
Sociology doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing in which truth is produced or error found. At the very least, traditional social science is a normalizing discourse — that is, it isn’t coincidental that the bell curve holds a privileged place in sociology.
In this I’d agree wholeheartedly. But I suspect my reasons for agreement would be quite different from yours. For one thing, the reason why this is the case to me is that some aspects of “the social” as I understand it are at present inaccessible to the standard tools of science for formal reasons.
Here, again, I find myself confused as to the nature of your objections. I’m not sure how you conceive the social and which sort of tool is appropriate to its study.
Being clear: I don’t think sociology — or any other social science — should strive to be nomological. The average social scientist — especially the most technically competent and vulgar positivist — regularly confuses a law and a norm and is oblivious to their own role in the production of the norm they are ostensibly studying.
Because all objects are physical objects it should be possible to describe principles for phenomena that have physical existence (which is all phenomena). However, the social is an emergent property of a series of physical interactions, and we lack a good mathematical accounting for certain forms of emergent properties.
People — especially those coming out of a background in the history and philosophy of science — have been talking about complex models and emergent properties for quite a while now. Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers, for instance. (They’ve largely, but not exclusively, attempted to translate the Prigogine’s ideas.) It is of course worth noting that those who have attempted to think complexity and emergence in a social context have been largely derided. See also the Report of the Gulbenkian Commission. (Prigogine, of course, was a member of the Commission.)
More modestly (and personally), I’d recommend Semiotic Flesh and Data Made Flesh, both co-edited by my friend, Phillip Thurtle, and Robert Mitchell.
But, even in terms of emergent properties, we still aren’t dealing with (in a vulgar sense) a “real object”. The object of investigation has no existence except in and through its effects. To take an old example: you can’t point to a real object called “gender stratification”, but you can certainly see its effects. Non-physical objects, of course, are found everywhere. Try gravity, for instance. Or race. Or Catholicism. Or Harvard University.
People (including occasionally moi) have been talking about emergent properties for a long time now, yes, but the mathematics of them is still well beyond your grasp. Even simple deterministic ant simulations contain massive mathematical anomalies as I understand it.
I’m having technical trouble posting anything longer here. It doesn’t want to scroll down for me. I don’t know why, or I’d write more in one post.
Gravity and other fundamental physical phenomena were not intended to be excluded by my term “physical object”. Sorry for any confusion. Catholicism is a mental object, and the distinction between mental and physical objects is, um, blurry.
Mandos, I can’t say I claimed to understand the math — or even to have much interest in the matter. I did, however, indicate to you that people have attempted to make use of the insights of these mathematics, contrary to the tone of your comment. You are correct insofar as these attempts have largely been on the order of ‘translating’ rather than application or development; that is, more akin to an epistemological elaboration. But, like I said, I don’t follow this sort of work all that closely. For a variety of reasons (funding being one; a closer disciplinary reliance on mathematical modelling being another), you’re more likely to find work of this sort (I’d imagine) in psychology and economics departments.
Given the monism defended by Horkheimer, I’d think you’d be more interested in what he had to say.
(Apologies if these are short and curt; I’m doing detail oriented work (“editing”) in another window.)
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that people haven’t tried.
I’m aware of psychology and economics. I’ve argue this critique with economists typically.
Once I finish a very boring book I’m supposed to read for a class and some interesting papers that I need in order to decide on a topic for a term paper for a seminar and a chapter of another book for that same seminar’s discussion next week, I might get to Horkheimer.
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