Special sciences

Abstract: A typical thesis of positivistic philosophy of science is that all true theories in the special sciences should reduce to physical theories in the long run. This is intended to be an empirical thesis, and part of the evidence which supports it is provided by such scientific successes as the molecular theory of heat and the physical explanation of the chemical bond. But the philosophical popularity of the reductivist program cannot be explained by reference to these achievements alone. The development of science has witnessed the proliferation of specialized disciplines at least as often as it has witnessed their reduction to physics, so the widespread enthusiasm for reduction can hardly be a mere induction over its past successes. I think that many philosophers who accept reductivism do so primarily because they wish to endorse the generality of physics vis d vis the special sciences: roughly, the view that all events which fall under the laws of any science are physical events and hence fall under the laws of physics. 1 For such philosophers, saying that physics is basic science and saying that theories in the special sciences must reduce to physical theories have seemed to be two ways of saying the same thing, so that the latter doctrine has come to be a standard construal of the former. In what follows, I shall argue that this is a considerable confusion. What has traditionally been called 'the unity of science' is a much stronger, and much less plausible, thesis than the generality of physics. If this is true it is important. Though reductionism is an empirical doctrine, it is intended to play a regulative role in scientific practice. Reducibility to physics is taken to be a constraint upon the acceptability of theories in the special sciences, with the curious consequence that the more the special sciences succeed, the more they ought to disappear. Methodological problems about psychology, in particular, arise in just this way: the assumption that the subject-matter of psychology is part of the subject-matter of physics is taken to imply that psychological theories must reduce to physical theories, and it is this latter principle

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: are the social sciences really inferior?, Fritz Machlup what would an adequate philosophy of social science look like?, Brian Fay and J. Donald Moon. Part 2 Explanation, prediction and laws: the function of general laws in history, Carl G. Hempel the theory of complex phenomena, F.A. Hayek a possible distinction between traditional scientific disciplines and the study of human behaviour, Michael Scriven psychology as philosophy, Donald Davidson general laws and explaining human behaviour, Brian Fay defending laws in the social sciences, Harold Kincaid complexity and social scientific laws, Lee C. McIntyre reflexive predictions, George D. Romanos. Part 3 Interpretation and meaning: human nature and human history, R.G. Collingwood the rationale of actions, William Dray interpretation and the sciences of man, Charles Taylor thick description - toward an interpretive theory of culture, Clifford Geertz hermeneutics and the hypothetico-deductive method, Dagfinn Follesdal another look at the doctrine of Verstehen, Jane Roland Martin Taylor on interpretation and the sciences of man, Michael Martin. Part 4 Rationality: some problems about rationality, Steven Lukes the status of rationality assumptions in interpretation and in the explanation of action, Dagfinn Follesdal the nature and scope of rational-choice explanation, Jon Elster the principle of charity and the problem of irrationality (translation and the problem of irrationality), David K. Henderson. Part 5 Functional explanation: the logic of functional analysis, Carl G. Hempel function and cause, R.P. Dore functional explanation - in Marxism, G.A. Cohen, in social science, Jon Elster assessing functional explanations in the social sciences, Harold Kincaid. Part 6 Reductionism, individualism and holism: social facts, Emile Durkheim historical explanation in the social sciences, J.W.N. Watkins methodological individualism reconsidered, Steven Lukes methodological individualism and social explanation, Richard W. Miller microfoundations of Marxism, Daniel Little reduction, explanation and individualism, Harold Kincaid social science and the mental, Alan J. Nelson. Part 7 Objectivity and values: "objectivity" in social science and social policy, Max Weber neutrality in political science, Charles Taylor the value-oriented bias of social inquiry, Ernest Nagel the philosophical importance of the Rosenthal effect, Michael Martin psychology constructs the female, Naomi Weisstein reasoning about ourselves - feminist methodology in the social sciences, Alison Wylie a method for critical research, Donald E. Comstock. Part 8 Problems of the special sciences: the methodology of positive economics, Milton Friedman if economics isn't science, what is it?, Alexander Rosenberg actions, reasons and causes, Donald Davidson special sciences (or the disunity of science as a working hypothesis), Jerry Fodor. (Part contents).

Abstract: INTRODUCTION It is part of today's conventional wisdom in philosophy of mind that psychological states are “multiply realizable”, and are in fact so realized, in a variety of structures and organisms. We are constantly reminded that any mental state, say pain, is capable of “realization”, “instantiation”, or “implementation” in widely diverse neural-biological structures in humans, felines, reptiles, mollusks, and perhaps other organisms further removed from us. Sometimes we are asked to contemplate the possibility that extraterrestrial creatures with a biochemistry radically different from the earthlings', or even electro-mechanical devices, can “realize the same psychology” that characterizes humans. This claim, to be called hereafter ‘the Multiple Realization Thesis’ (“MR”, for short), is widely accepted by philosophers, especially those who are inclined to favor the functionalist line on mentality. I will not here dispute the truth of MR, although what I will say may prompt a reassessment of the considerations that have led to its nearly universal acceptance. And there is an influential and virtually uncontested view about the philosophical significance of MR. This is the belief that MR refutes psychophysical reductionism once and for all. In particular, the classic psychoneural identity theory of Feigl and Smart, the so-called “type physicalism”, is standardly thought to have been definitively dispatched by MR to the heap of obsolete philosophical theories of mind. At any rate, it is this claim, that MR proves the physical irreducibility of the mental, that will be the starting point of my discussion.

Abstract: I do not believe there are any \"special sciences\" in Fodor's sense. I think that there is a large group of sciences I will call them \"historical sciences\" that differ fundamentally from the physical sciences because they quantify over a different kind of natural or real kind than do the physical sciences. Moreover, the laws, or better, the generalizations, that these kinds support are not exceptionless. But heterogeneity is not characteristic of these generalizations. Indeed, I argue, the idea that there could be an univocal empirical science that ranged over multiple realizations of a functional property is quite problematic. For example, if psychological predicates name multiply realized functionalist properties, then there can be no single science that deals with all items having these properties: human psychology, ape psychology, Martian psychology and robot psychology are necessarily different sciences.