—“1. social sciences cannot control conditions such to test the variables of a hypothesis.”—
This statement is false. It is one of the many libertine lies. As most libertine lies, and like most successful lies, it relies enough on a grain of half truth to be able to fool the audience by suggestion.
Positivism as a movement is false, but empiricism is not. There is no requirement for constructing data, only for observing and collecting data as measurement of one kind or another, because we must be sure that by the use of measurements, we compensate for the frailty of our wishful thinking, our biases, our reason, our perception, and memory.
For example, we can and did hypothesize red shift. We cannot create red shift, only observe it. Likewise, we can construct an theory of the economy, or of any social phenomenon, and exhaustively test the theory against all instances of the collected data.
As long as the data that CORRESPONDS can be operationally DESCRIBED – that is, reduced to a rational series of human actions – then we have conducted both a test of external correspondence as well as a test of internal consistency.
Just why this lie has been so successful I am not sure. I suspect that it is because people WANT to believe the lie, as they want to believe many lies. Because they try to justify what gives them advantage, rather than seek the truth whether it is advantageous to them or not.
But the fact remains, the criticism of empiricism in the social sciences is nothing more than an elaborate lie, that literally through “advertising” by cosmopolitan libertines, has successfully overloaded an ignorant and wishful population sufficient to persist the lie – just as all cults and religions must accomplish, libertines (all cosmopolitans) have accomplished this particular lie.
PHILOSOPHY IS IDENTICAL TO SCIENCE IF WE SPEAK THE TRUTH, AND WE MAY ONLY SPEAK THE TRUTH WHERE PHILOSOPHY IS IDENTICAL TO SCIENCE. BECAUSE THE DISCIPLINE WE CALL “SCIENCE” IS A MORAL ONE – and has nothing particular to do with scientific research, but all human inquiry.
1 – Empiricism: observe, measure, record.
2 – Instrumentalism: reduce the imperceptible and incomparable to the perceptible and comparable by means of formal instruments (physical instrumentation) or informal instruments (logic).
3 – Operationalism: defend against the introduction of error, wishful thinking, bias, and imagination.
4 – Testimonial Truth: it is not possible to testify to the truth of a proposition that you cannot state operationally, as both a means of construction (internal consistency, existential possibility), and a means of use (external correspondence, external correlation).
As far as I know the libertine fallacy stands irreparably falsified by this argument.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
Me:
—“1. social sciences cannot control conditions such to test the variables of a hypothesis.”—
It is a problem of precision, but meaningful measurements can indeed be made. Not with the accuracy of Newtonian physics experiments, but that doesn’t mean all meaningful measurement is beyond our grasp.
The fallacies of positivism don’t discredit empiricism.
—“The quest for new “evidence” leads to an unending competition from biased researchers looking to “prove” their theories and the movement becomes locked in paralysis by analysis. “—
What about the endless competition of biased philosophers running amok unchained from any connection to the real, physical world?
Sacred cows die agonizing deaths. They did for me.
I used to quote Hoppe to prove that human sciences are strictly rational: “Every human event is unique and unrepeatable because humans have the ability to learn.”
But this is wrong. Every temporal state of the physical universe is also unique and unrepeatable. That doesn’t make experiments meaningless. The levels of precision may vary, but empiricism has not been rendered meaningless by Hoppe’s observation.