an approach of a "full knowing" of *to be* inherently contradicts the very notion of knowledge and thought. the problem deals with knowledge in an passive vs active form. passive forms of knowledge deal with approaching an infinite number of discrete entities. as one academic once put it, "genius is being able to figure things out quickly." active forms of knowledge are not just digesting pre-existing knowledge, but creating new knowledge by forming connections among the discrete entities one already has acquired; active knowledge is making things work. so, if "full knowing" is something that can be taught, then it is inherently passive knowledge, and *to be* must be defined as active knowledge. if both passive knowledge and active knowledge are defined by "full knowing", then *to be* is defined by the unique combination of universals and particulars of a person. if the infinity of universals and particulars in a person is defined over an interval from point a to point b, then at least one can say social science has defined a "full knowing" of *to be* by what is not a "full knowing" of *to be* -- this includes both "not knowing" of *to be* and "not knowing" of *not to be* (if you have trouble grasping this concept, imagine the four quadrants as defined by a graph in algebra -- the first quadrant is "full knowing" of *to be*, second quadrant is "full knowing" of *not to be*, third quadrant is "not knowing" of *not to be*, fourth quadrant is "not knowing' of *to be*; basically, it's signal detection theory). of course, the use of "not knowing" in contrast to "full knowing" may not be accurate, as just because something is defined by what it is not does not mean that it is necessarily its opposite. so, perhaps "not knowing" could be "partial knowing" or "incomplete knowing", and *not to be* could be *partial being* or *incomplete being*. this is a matter that is probably best left for another day. but to complete my earlier thoughts, social science at least believes it can define "full knowing" of *to be* by whatever either of those is not. however, suppose that it cannot define the infinity of universals and particulars in a person by an interval from point a to point b. if it's defined by the span from negative infinity to positive infinity, then "full knowing" cannot know without having always known -- this implies causal determinism. ok, so how about only from point a to positive infinity, since that would represent the linear progression of time after the discovering "full knowing" at point a. this would imply causal determinism starting only from point a, which would mean either causal determinism existed in some way before point a (reverting back to the span of negative infinity to positive infinity) or that point a is the "big bang" of knowledge, and that there is perfect compatibility between epistemology and metaphysics, which we know is not possible without a perfect theory of everything spanning from negative infinity to positive infinity. how about simply at point a? the problem with this argument is that connections between discrete entities of knowledge occur over a period of time; mathematically this is supported by dividing any number by zero causing an answer of "error" on one's calculator because it is undefined. so, at best, social science can only hope to define "full knowing" of *to be* by what those entities are not, not by what they are.
ok, now for the *definitive* argument against social science being a science. i realized one night that the reason social science has been able to be reduced to science in some quarters is due to the problem of reflexivity with the human race and using some sneaky philosophical tricks to define this problem so as to favor the social science's perspective. allow me to introduce the savior to save the human race from social science...aliens! yes, aliens will save the human race, and here's how. social science ultimately reduced science to a "full knowing" of *to be* by attacking science culturally on both entities. let's assume there are conscious aliens out there who have studied science, discovered the same things we've discovered, and applied their discoveries to technology to "prove" that science works. all of a sudden, since humans cannot "be" aliens, this cultural attack on *to be* in science is nullified, as humans can simply only come *to know* aliens. as such, from a social scientist's perspective, science is no longer a "full knowing" of *to be*, but a "full knowing" of to *to know*; instead of science being reduced to a study of culture, science is reduced to a study of species. furthermore, assuming that these aliens are invulnerable to any scientific discoveries, then the ethical questions surrounding science for them become a relatively moot point, a question of realizing intentionality instead of debating life or death. culturally, this would still mean amongst the alien species that culture defines science, but in a negligible manner. i'm sure the degree of negligibility could be attacked, but it is just something to consider; it is not the core of my argument.
so, according to the above, social science can be reduced to science -- of a second-order; *to know* is first-order, "knowing" of "to know" is second-order. but certainly social science can wiggle its way out of this trap, can it not? first, let me address a fundamental concept of social science vs. science, what i consider to be the relativity principle. the closer social science gets to science, the less the domain of information and knowledge it can cover due to a decreasing number of variables needed in order to arrive at more focused and assertive conclusions. the farther social science gets from science, the greater the domain of information and knowledge it can cover due to an increasing number of variables, forcing one to arrive at less-focused and less-assertive conclusions. thus, social science can deny being reduced to science because social science itself can determine its own end goals to fulfill its definition of science; social science is no longer reduced to science under this paradigm's assumptions, social science *is* science. why is this? because science aims at discovering objective truths, but knows it cannot ultimately reach them, so it settles for approximations. social science, now being science itself but without the severe domain restrictions imposed by "hard science", can therefore set the bar however high it wants according to its needs and still claim to be aiming at reaching objective truths, because these ultimately can be reduced to cultural standards, right? well, not quite. the problem social science encounters is the idea of an infinite domain; at infinity, science becomes art because causality is abandoned. however, in being a science, social science knows that its end goal is merely an ideal and can only be approximated in reality, and it is this experimental error that prevents science from knowing when it has truly reached a state where causality is abandoned; ideally, a 0% correlation between cause and effect would mean the realization of art, but the introduction of experimental error prevents a social scientist from ever knowing if his/her experiment has truly reached a state of zero causation. as such, social science can never reach a state of being true art. so, even if social science is an art, it can never realize that it is an art because of the confounding variable of experimental error. this in turn leads to the following conclusions:
1) by introducing a theoretical alien species, social science can no longer reduce science to a study of culture, and by being simply a study of species, social science is reduced to *second-order* science.
2) social science is science according to however it wants to define science. by acknowledging that there are different levels of objective truths based on the size of the domain, social science sacrifices the goal of science to aim for an objective truth by subjectively determining the degree of causality it deems necessary for an experiment. this would be fine if social science ultimately kept a limit on its domain size so as to keep its relationship between cause and effect to stand distinguished in the face of expected experimental error. however, by forever increasing its domain -- as is demanded by social science's end goal of a "full knowing" of *to be* -- the greater the possibility for social science to become an art without being aware of it. so, by reducing science to social science, social science has unintentionally opened the door for reducing science to art.
therefore, if social science wishes to be reduced to science, it is a science of a *second-order*. if social science does not wish to be considered inferior and reduced to science, then it can become science, but in doing so, undermines itself by relativizing science based on domain size, and by aiming to achieve a "full knowing" of *to be*, asserts end goals diametrically opposed to the original goals of science by risking becoming an art without knowledge of having achieved such a state. as such, if social science wishes to be science, it will destroy both and render them useless. if social science wishes to have any meaning, it must submit to science as being reduced to the *second-order* instead of the *first-order*.
criticism: does studying biology make it a *second-order* science? the answer is no, because one is attempting to obtain a "full knowing" of *to know*, not a "full knowing" of *to be*. what about the idea that the since we are composed of atoms and molecules, that they define *to be*, and therefore chemistry and physics (along with biology) are ultimately a study of "full knowing" of *to be*, which is compatible with the definition of social science? well, first of all, this assumes a strict materialist perspective in the mind-body dichotomy. the problem with this idea is epistemological; science aims, in theory, for an external objective truth about the universe. if epistemology covers *to know* and metaphysics covers *to be*, and social science is reduced to levels of hard science (atoms, molecules, etc.), then only two conclusions can be drawn, both of which are incompatible with social science's end goals. for one, by reducing social science to hard science, social science is forced to abandon epistemology and the idea of *to know* because it has claimed an idea of *to be* on those levels. as such, social science must choose between either metaphysics or epistemology, and since epistemology is ultimately subsumed under metaphysics, social science simply amounts to *to be*, and *to be* fits the definition of art rather than that of science. furthermore, since abandoning epistemology means the metaphysics, in order for social science to succeed as an art by being *to be*, then social science must be a theory of everything. if it is not a theory of everything, then epistemology cannot be subsumed by metaphysics and there will always remain an element of "to know" with "to be", which equates to the end goal of social science being a "full knowing and full being" of "to know and to be". i don't claim to be a logician, but from what i can tell, it seems that this leaves us with two mutually exclusive propositions, which makes the possibility of a "full knowing and full being" of "to know and to be" null and void.
the other conclusion that can be drawn is that "to know* exists independently of hard science (atoms, molecules, etc.), and by employing a form of mind-body dualism, that it is possible for a "full knowing" of *to be*. however, even if one favors dualism over materialism, the problem is not solved unless one equates the mind with *to know* (first-person ontology) and everything else (including the body) with *to be* (third-person ontology); the mind is viewed as a construct unable to be perceived epistemologically by an external observer, and instead is classified under *being* as described by metaphysics -- when pertaining to humans, the human condition -- with metaphysics being the existence of everything other than the capacity *to know*. so, there appears to be no overlapping conflict between *to know* and *to be*. however, since in order to escape being subsumed by the metaphysical world *to know* can only be experienced by the individual, some interesting dilemmas result. it appears, for the time being, that it is possible using dualism for there to exist a "full knowing" of *to be*. however, let's examine these dilemmas. first of all, one has to define where the metaphysics ends (third-person ontology) and the epistemology (first-person ontology) begins; since cartesian dualism has all but been abandoned, the only philosophers in the world who believe in dualism are property dualists, and even they are in the minority (they espouse that physical entities that cause consciousness possess both a physical property and a mental property separate from each other but co-existing simulaneously). so, one would have to define where consciousness and unconsciousness arise from the hard science of atoms and molecules, or if in fact consciousness can be explained from a holistic perspective that somehow skirts around the reductionist framework of hard science. another issue is that social science, in aiming for a "full knowing", somehow implies that knowledge can be transferred from one person to another. so, naturally this assumes translating epistemological knowledge of one person into a metaphysical language which is then translated back in epistemological form in this other person's mind. so, a few questions arise here. first of all, where exactly are the transformations defined? secondly, is anything lost in translation? the second issue is a major obstacle for this argument to succeed, because translating knowledge can only be done via some sort of language, and post-structuralists have already attacked the structural objectivity of language by relating it to each individual's interpretation. the third problem is that the definition of "full knowing" is defined as *how*, not *why*. epistemological considerations always stem from *why*; a cognitive psychology professor i had in college once said if you could tell him *why* he raised his finger at any given time, then you would automatically receive an A for the course. since in theory, cognitive science at its best could only answer *how* and not *why*, then the same can be said for social science at best (and as i have described in an earlier post, it is likely worse than cognitive science due to its focus on more than a single individual). at present, the mind-body dichotomy is addressed as a *how* issue, but if the problem is ever solved, then *why* will be as well; fundamental questions of human nature like free will should be concretely answered to the point where the infinity of possibilities concerning one's actions can be explained with full cause and effect at all times and places. and as such, social science should finally be realized as science with no ifs, ands, or buts. however, it appears extremely unlikely that the mind-body dichotomy will be solved, which leaves us simply with the different schools of thought trying to address *how* the mind-body dichotomy exists, with some schools appearing to have better explanations than others, and as a result being better reflections of the truth.
therefore, i have reduced social science's claim to be science -- albeit still a second-order one -- without compromising its end goal of approaching a "full knowing" of *to be* to being dependent on property dualism, a mind-body dichotomy view that that has very few adherents in the field of philosophy of mind; most philosophers of mind are materialists of some sort, and their views would be compatible with the other suggestions i have made about social science not being a science in this blog entry and others.
now, there is a little addendum i would like to add to this argument: the possibility of philosopher John Searle's biological naturalism. in short, biological naturalism is a form of materialism that best caters to those wishing to employ some aspects of dualism in their theories without resorting to dualism per se. here is a little background from wikipedia:
Searle denies Cartesian dualism, the idea that the mind is a separate kind of substance to the body, as this contradicts our entire understanding of physics, and unlike Descartes, he does not bring God into the problem. Indeed, Searle denies any kind of dualism, the traditional alternative to monism, claiming the distinction is a mistake. He rejects the idea that because the mind is not objectively viewable, it does not fall under the rubric of physics.
Searle believes that consciousness "is a real part of the real world and it cannot be eliminated in favor of, or reduced to, something else" whether that something else is a neurological state of the brain or a software program. He contends, for example, that the software known asDeep Blue knows nothing about chess. He also believes that consciousness is both a cause of events in the body and a response to events in the body.
On the other hand, Searle doesn't treat consciousness as a ghost in the machine. He treats it, rather, as a state of the brain. The causal interaction of mind and brain can be described thus in naturalistic terms: Events at the micro-level (perhaps at that of individual neurons) cause consciousness. Changes at the macro-level (the whole brain) constitute consciousness. Micro-changes cause and then are impacted by holistic changes, in much the same way that individual football players cause a team (as a whole) to win games, causing the individuals to gain confidence from the knowledge that they are part of a winning team.
He articulates this distinction by pointing out that the common philosophical term 'reducible' is ambiguous. Searle contends that consciousness is "causally reducible" to brain processes without being "ontologically reducible." He hopes that making this distinction will allow him to escape the traditional dilemma between reductive materialism and substance dualism; he affirms the essentially physical nature of the universe by asserting that consciousness is completely caused by and realized in the brain, but also doesn't deny what he takes to be the obvious facts that humans really are conscious, and that conscious states have an essentially first-person nature.
It can be tempting to see the theory as a kind of property dualism, since, in Searle's view, a person's mental properties are categorically different from his or her micro-physical properties. The latter have "third-person ontology" whereas the former have "first-person ontology." Micro-structure is accessible objectively by any number of people, as when several brain surgeons inspect a patient's cerebral hemispheres. But pain or desire or belief are accessible subjectively by the person who has the pain or desire or belief, and no one else has that mode of access. However, Searle understands mental properties to be a species of physical property -- ones with first-person ontology. So this sets his view apart from a dualism of physical and non-physical properties. His mental properties are putatively physical.
it seems to me that by maintaining different ontologies, the distinction between epistemology and metaphysics (first-person ontology vs. third-person ontology) is upheld; *to know* is a mental property that is a species of a physical property with first-person ontology, and *to be* -- the micro-physical properties -- remain with a third-person ontology. so, while *to know* and *to be* can co-exist from a physical perspective, their ontological differences makes it impossible for a person to realize both simultaneously the way the end goal of a "full knowing" of *to be* demands.
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