Flaws in Social Science Methodology, and letter from Manicas which is to be basis for new approach.
Deificiation of Science has now been published in IJPEE.
Based on Research Methods Lecture on 16th September, 2013:
Paper entitled: "An Islamic Approach to Humanities" has been prepared on the basis of these ideas. This is to be presented at a plenary session in 2nd International Conference on Islamic Humanities, in Tehran, Iran from 16-20th November 2013.
OUTLINE of LECTURE:
Use of Scientific Methodology in Economics is a MISTAKE for many reasons. Goal is to explain why.
FIRST: How did it happen that something (which is so obviously wrong) came to be widely accepted as right?
DEIFICATION of Science.
SECOND: What is wrong with it?
Positivism, the idea that we do not need to engage in ontological discussion about invisibles.
CLAIM 1: Science is the ONLY source of knowledge
CLAIM 2:Science is based solely on observations and logic.
Both of these claims are false.
Paper on KUHN for Newspapers.
Differentiating Math & Science: Towards New Methodology for Economics
Attached below, draft of Deification of Science has two other ideas which can be worked into separate papers.
1: The Eurocentric Idea that Science is uniquely European and the damage it has caused in cultural exchange.
2: That just like Math and Science have entirely different methodologies, so Humanities deserves and requires a completely different methodology.
Note to Manicas outlining paper:
Having thought a little about it, the paper I would like to write can be outlined as follows. I would try to keep it short and sweet and avoid getting tangled with peripheral issues.
1. Math is based on Hypothetico-Deductive methodological -- ancient, respectable, highly successful.
2. Greek Natural Philosophy attempted to use this same methodology, and this led to disaster. It is basically wrong to try to deduce the nature of matter from purely logical principles.
3. Science made substantial progress precisely because it ABANDONED greek methodology. One of the keys to emergence of modern science was to give primacy to observations.. If observations conflict with theory then theory must be reconstructed -- this is drastically different from methodology of mathematics, where such conflicts are logically impossible.
4. THIS PART is the tricky one: Science was fine, but methodology of science was drastically misunderstood -- even going back to Bacon. It was clear to all that science was something new, and the excitement of a new way of understanding the world permeates the writings of the enlightenment thinkers. But the nature of what was new about it was not clearly understood -- furthermore this understanding got muddled via Kant & Positivism
5. Because this mistunderstanding -- economists adopted the FAILED methodology of Greek natural sciences, thinking it was scientiific method. They are even now using hypothetico-deductive method, suitable for math but not for science, as a basis for doing economics.
6. Just as progress in science became possible only after abandoning the axiomatic methodology of math, so progress in economics is possible only after abandoning axiomatic methodology currently in use, and paying more attention to actual human & firm behavior as well as the historical and concrete nature of markets, governments, and economy in general.
Note that this bypasses many debates which I had originally intended to enter. In particular, one of the issues that I was very keen on establishing was that humanities or social science has a natural methodology different from that of science because human behavior is not subject prediction by law -- freedom and agency are essential to take into account. However, I think that I would abandon this goal, since the outline above is already tough to swallow for contemporary economists. Similarly, I dont have to take a stand on what is science and I can be a bit vague on what I mean by methodology of science -- it is sufficient to say that it is based on observations and different from axiomatic greek natural philosphy.