the role of philosophy and science, part 3

now, to tie up some loose ends. first of all, someone once pointed out to me that making assumptions about human nature is dangerous unless we can either reach a state where biological determinism explains everything or we can analyze humans in pre-cultural states. however, human nature is part of metaphysics, and thus is also a part of the collective political ontology of mankind. using this logic, shouldn't we stop espousing metaphysical political opinions until either biological determinism or a way to study pre-cultural states emerges? however, given the practical need for analyzing metaphysics in politics, i would argue that it is a necessary evil of sorts to make assumptions about human nature. perhaps it is best to only make these assumptions within the context of the collective political ontology so that while existing there, human nature as an underlying root of everything is still inextricably tied into the political structure, and as a result, cannot be fully reduced in and of itself to being subjected to an ultimate judgment.

the second issue i wanted to tackle deals with something i mentioned in a previous post. here is the excerpt:

furthermore, he/she might offer an objective ontology of what he/she predicts will happen, and then offer an alternative ontology of what he/she wants to happen or what could happen if certain changes are made by introducing a new ontology or subtle changes to the old ontology -- basically, in everyday language, this amounts to a social scientist predicting what will happen culturally, etc. if we do nothing and sit back and observe world events versus being proactive and making efforts to convince people to change things, etc.

now, revisit the political declarations i made in the post "bridging the gap between theory and praxis: an optimal political ontology". what this means is that this theorist should act within the guidelines of what i had written, both in terms of the message and the messenger. the theorist is not some external observer outside of the system he/she is studying; he/she is an active observer and participant in the system. as such, in following that "politics is everything", the theorist must believe what he/she preaches, including the decision to include proposed alternate collective political ontologies and/or revisions to the old collective political ontology, and furthermore, that his/her success is governed by the degree to which he/she succeeds in realizing his/her intentionality. the funny dilemma here is that by introducing more than one collective political ontology, the theorist has automatically set himself/herself up for at least partial failure, for only one objective collective political ontology exists in reality (postmodernists would disagree with this and claim reality is subjective, but they are silly with regard to this context and i am therefore dismissing their notions for this); a theorist who proposes only one collective political ontology sets himself/herself up for the remote possibility of not failing and instead having total success. perhaps this is why so many theorists are outspoken and preachy for their single framed arguments instead of taking a back seat and proposing numerous possibilities -- by preaching what will be as being the same as what should be, they are attempting to eliminate the gap between theory and praxis, whereas employing an argument with many possibilities admits, until or unless one of the possibilities turns out correct, that there currently is a difference between theory and praxis in politics (attempting to eliminate the gap between theory and praxis by preaching what will be as being the same as what should be implies that there is not a current difference between theory and praxis, only that the result proving there exists no difference between theory and practice will not occur until later. as such, attempting to eliminate the gap between theory and praxis is a "work in progress" with a destined endpoint.). on the other hand, analytics do not care about any sort of realization of a political intentionality because there is no way of knowing if you have fulfilled your intentionality barring the most extreme of extreme cases which i discussed in that previous blog entry because there is no way that one's realization of his/her intentionality can be objectively measured. so, in this sense, through their actions, both politically-minded and "apolitical" theorists affect the collective political ontology, but neither knows just how exactly they manage to do so. so while the former has good intentions and the second might have what you call a "realistic perspective", both end up without any sort of validation despite the fact that they know that their approaches to create some kind of different effect, negligible or not it is not known, on the collective political ontology. as such, my solution to the problem is what i mentioned in the previous blog entry: analytics "could use analytic social philosophy as a starting point and, combined with soft science, propose sensible representations of the changing political climate and offer possible solutions for ongoing problems", while continental/postmodernists could "theorize about metaphysics within the realm of metaphysics itself without many any outstanding political claims to knowing the truth, instead having their metaphysical ideas have political implications that can be interpreted by political scientists to enhance the knowledge of their field and research."

the role of philosophy and science continued

so with the three paths we can see that social science basically is a combination of theory and "soft science" (i.e., induction and correlation instead of deduction and causality). here is my problem with this format. soft science in and of itself is fine, generally speaking. it includes not just social science, but most of psychology along with non-lab natural sciences such as environmental studies, nutrition, and meteorology. it helps us make more informed decisions about the world around us, giving us insight into the risks and benefits of our actions. soft science can operate on its own, as it does in non-lab natural science, with its own theoretical framework, theories, and hypotheses. it also has the capability to do the same in social science, but most of the time it instead is combined with metaphysical theory to encompass metaphysics in addition physics, and this is where i have a problem. of course it is possible that soft science, via physical theory, can influence metaphysical theory and demarcate its boundaries. however, within those boundaries, a theorist can propose virtually any theory he/she wishes without a proper system of checks and balances, only the notion of "rigor" that is supposed to regulate the validity of these theories. with analytic philosophy and cognitive science, metaphysical theory is held accountable because without it being properly constructed, parts of it can be extracted and tested in the realm of physics using the scientific method. in short, the relationship between philosophy and science here can exclude not only what is not, but affirmatively define what *is*. on the other hand, the relationship between philosophy and science in social science can only definitely define what is not; any claims as to what *is* are purely speculative, educated guesses on the parts of social science theorists. furthermore, not only does the relationship between analytic philosophy and cognitive science affirm what is epistemologically, but in some cases it does metaphysically as well, for when a universal truth is discovered through causality in physics, then it can holds implications for universals in the realm of metaphysics. on the other hand, social science does not embrace universal truths either way -- epistemologically it is incompatible because social science can only define what is not, not what is, and metaphysically there are no implications because true causality is never found in social science, only strong correlations at best.

it seems like there is so much perceived overlap in social science's theoretical areas -- social philosophy, social theory, political philosophy, political theory, sociological theory, anthropological theory, etc. -- that lost in the confusion is a critical assessment of the curriculum of each. with such an information overload, people just assume that the proper things are being taught for the proper reasons in each of the classes; these people could not be more wrong. if you look at the curriculum of a political philosophy class, you'll see that most of it consists of theory written hundreds of years ago, with only two philosophers from the past half-century being taught: john rawls and robert nozick. why only two and why these two specifically? well, first of all, both are considered to be from the analytic branch of philosophy. second, there just hasn't been much else written from that branch that is considered worthwhile. third, there is a question as to whether anything from that branch can be considered valid at all. wikipedia notes that, "After World War II political philosophy moved into a temporary eclipse in the Anglo-American academic world, as analytic philosophers expressed skepticism about the possibility that normative judgments had cognitive content, and political science turned toward statistical methods and behavioralism." in short, analytic philosophy expressed skepticism about metaphysics in political science and social science in general, and as a result, relied only on "soft science" as evidence (it maintained political theory covering metaphysics up through the 19th century to give students an historical background for political thought before the advent of the use of behaviorism and statistics in political science and social science). now, look at an area like social theory, filled with political theorists such as adorno, agamben, debord, habermas, etc. -- dozens of philosophers from the past 50 years. why are these theorists taught in social theory but not in political theory? because the agenda of these theorists is primarily metaphysical, which automatically bars them from being taught in political philosophy classes. it should also be noted that in addition to rawls and nozick, other contemporary philosophers are taught, but none are nearly as prominent as the previous two and additionally, these other philosophers primarily deal with issues of ethics. this is the other hidden barrier between political philosophy and social theory: political philosophy deals with political and legal systems and evaluates the ethical implications of all political interaction, ignoring culture, whereas social theory's first agenda is dealing with culture, a metaphysical entity, and its political ramifications. also, in general, analytic philosophers rarely are political in what they teach, whereas continental/postmodernist philosophers address politics head-on, and even when they don't what they discuss often tends to be steeped in political overtones. the reason ultimately boils down to this: outside of political systems and ethics, analytic philosophers view politics as being strictly opinions (even if they are educated ones at that), whereas continental/postmodernist philosophers view politics in a way marx would -- everything is ultimately political, not just politics per se!

what both can agree on is that what analytics avoid and what continental/postmodernists embrace is metaphysics, which brings us to one of the most fundamental questions in philosophy today: what is philosophy, what should it study, and how should philosophy study it? to my mind, both analytics and continental/postmodernists have valid points and glaring flaws regarding politics. for analytics, i agree that their approach is sound within the self-contained world of the discipline. however, philosophy is supposed to deal with the rest of the world outside the walls of academia, so just because philosophy doesn't have an answer at present for metaphysical aspects of politics doesn't mean philosophy should shun metaphysics in politics completely, because there exists a real world need for this area to be studied -- without academic guidance, this area becomes a void that can become filled quickly with uneducated opinions. how should analytic philosophy go about doing this? well, for one, it could use analytic social philosophy as a starting point and, combined with soft science, propose sensible representations of the changing political climate and offer possible solutions for ongoing problems. for continental/postmodernists, i believe that their metaphysical political preaching is out of line and, as rorty as pointed out, the far left has probably been counterproductive towards the overall progress of contemporary society. however, i do realize that one of the original goals of philosophy is to keep postulating about the presently unexplainable, and analytic philosophy has certainly distanced itself from this tradition. as such, i believe that continental/postmodernists can theorize about metaphysics within the realm of metaphysics itself without many any outstanding political claims to knowing the truth, instead having their metaphysical ideas have political implications that can be interpreted by political scientists to enhance the knowledge of their field and research.

the role of philosophy and science in cognitive science vs social science

in a recent blog entry, i discussed what social science studied, and how this differed from cognitive science. here is an excerpt to refreshen your memory:

truly applied metaphysicists are cognitive scientists, who attempt to directly address metaphysical problems using scientific approaches. however, other social scientists are not interested in trying to address metaphysical problems using scientific approaches, but in effect study metaphysical problems translated back into physical reality; whereas cognitive scientists might try to make in-roads into the mind-body problem by studying the brain, social scientists simply study the behaviors of people -- behaviors that are metaphysically-rooted (consciousness), but expressed physically -- and their interactions with their surrounding physical environment. when studying a group of people, problems with free will and the mind-body are simply ignored or assumed to cancel each other out -- this as opposed to studying an individual, in which free will and the mind-body problem can only be ignored, not assumed to cancel out.

now, compare this to social scientists who are interested in how people's behaviors can be studied using the scientific method, and then using this information, by reincorporating it back into a theory which makes inferences about people's metaphysics -- e.g. belief systems, etc. in this way, social scientists actually operate using principles that are inverted compared to those of cognitive scientists:

cognitive science: metaphysics --> physics --> physical ontology --> metaphysical ontology

social science: physics --> metaphysics --> metaphysical ontology --> physical ontology

the cognitive science method is sound: one starts at the highest level of theoretical knowledge (metaphysics), then siphons off a small portion that can be addressed successfully through physics (using the deductive method most often, i might add, so as to enhance its validity). physics is then used inductively to form a new physical ontology, an ontology which is wider in scope thanks to its physical discoveries, which is then reinterpreted under a new metaphysical ontology, an ontology which is smaller in scope due to the expansion of the physical ontology and which can be reformulated using the physical ontology's implications so as to create a revised version of metaphysics from which further inquiry can result in more physics being siphoned off and the cycle continuing. the social science method is fundamentally flawed: one starts with physical observations, but instead of using those inductively to form a new physical ontology, one circumvents this and immediately creates a new idea of metaphysics, i.e., new terminology, new systems, and the interactions between the two. from this, a new metaphysical ontology is derived (the "theory") and is translated into real world applications through a physical ontology (the "in practice"). one should also note where the different branches of philosophy appropriately fit in with each sequence. in the cognitive science sequence, metaphysics --> physics is done by both cognitive science-informed philosophers (analytic) and cognitive scientists, sometimes working together. physical ontology --> metaphysical ontology is done exclusively by cognitive science-informed philosophers, whereas physics --> physical ontology is primarily done by cognitive scientists alone through their research. on the other hand, the entire social science sequence is done by social science theorists and/or continental/postmodern philosophers, with social science research being done only at the beginning with the gathering of information -- physics -- and the "scientific" (usually statistical) interpretation of the physics into loose physical ontologies (theorists devote much more time to developing exact ontologies whereas the physical ontologies used by social science researchers is much more practical and applied).

the implications for this are critical. what we have is as follows:

analytic philosophy attempts to never vouch for more than it can substantiate, thus keeping its realm of metaphysics as limited and practical as possible, and maintaining a complementary relationship with science and reason; if possible, analytic philosophy would have science and reason explain all phenomena and eliminate the need for metaphysics at all, thus reducing philosophy's role to simply logic. as such, analytic philosophy relies on cognitive science to make in-roads into metaphysics and extract those out of philosophy's realm into the realm of physics. in the course of the sequence, analytic philosophy frames the problem (metaphysics --> physics), cognitive science attempts to solve the problem (physics --> physical ontology), and analytic philosophy attempts to interpret cognitive science's success or lack thereof solving the problem and its implications for the remaining metaphysical issues not yet solved (physical ontology --> metaphysical ontology). as such, this symbiotic relationship encompasses a kind of meta-science, where actual progress is made through science and reason in research, but whose research could not be possible without the metaphysical framework established by philosophy.

now, compare this to social science theory/continental philosophy/postmodernist philosophy. first of all, the framework is inverted: the framework starts with "science" (physics), the "research" is done through philosophy/theory (metaphysics --> metaphysical ontology), and the conclusion ends again with "science" (physical ontology). there are two crucial points to be made here. first of all, notice that i did not use an arrow between physics and metaphysics ("physics --> metaphysics") and between metaphysical ontology and physical ontology ("metaphysical ontology --> physical ontology"). the reason for this is that unlike analytic philosophy/cognitive science's sequence, which can be grouped around each arrow as "philosophy, science, philosophy", "physics --> metaphysics" and "metaphysical ontology --> physical ontology" do not constitute either pure philosophy or science. i suppose they could be construed as one or the other or a combination of both, but it is this ambiguity that leaves their designation as an unknown. in short, the sequence of social science theory/continental philosophy/postmodernist philosophy is "unknown, philosophy, unknown". as such, not only can we not ever be sure that real science is ever taking place in a meaningful fashion (science exists as a category in physics here, but it needs to be bound to another category via an arrow to constitute science as a meaningful part of the sequence), and the "research" that is being conducted is purely philosophical, and metaphysical at that -- don't expect continental or postmodernist philosophy to rely on anything outside the most primitive logic in their arguments, as the construction of their arguments primarily relies on the subjectivity of their language. so if the "research" being conducted is purely metaphysical, then unless it is falsified via some extreme event in physics, there is no way of knowing which argument is correct. i know that there exists this notion of "rigor" as a standard for evaluating arguments, but if this rigor is not logical or scientific per se (obviously, illogical arguments are still detrimental, but rigor does not give extra credit to arguments that use more extensive logic than others do), then is it simply a matter of who can write the "best" arguments regardless of their degree of validity in comparison to other arguments? i think this can be supported by the fact that the second most prominent philosopher of the second half of the twentieth-century (the first being foucault) is derrida, a philosopher who has been criticized, even protested against by numerous academics, as being evasive and not meeting the standard criteria for rigor of philosophical argumentation. so given derrida's fame and influence, i find it hard to believe that the idea of rigor alone can provide an objective measuring stick for the validity of one's argument.

the second point is that unlike analytic philosophy and cognitive science's complementary relationship that is a complete, unified cycle, social science theory/continental philosophy/postmodernist philosophy's sequence can actually be short-circuited. because of the problems with the arrows i discussed in the previous paragraph, there are essentially three routes one can take:

1) an attempt at a holistic sequence: physics --> metaphysics --> metaphysical ontology --> physical ontology

2) a more pure philosopher's role: metaphysics --> metaphysical ontology

3) a more pure social scientist's role: physics --> physical ontology

these might be a bit abstract, so let me provide examples for each. the first person might be a geographer who both conducts field research and is well-informed about theory/philosophy. he/she might conduct his/her own research and compare this research with other geographers' research to establish a familiar "physics" with breadth and depth. from there, he/she would extract metaphysics from the physics, e.g. culture, belief systems, etc. then, he/she would establish a metaphysical ontology by explaining how current culture, belief systems, etc. will lead to changes in those areas. furthermore, he/she might offer an objective ontology of what he/she predicts will happen, and then offer an alternative ontology of what he/she wants to happen or what could happen if certain changes are made by introducing a new ontology or subtle changes to the old ontology -- basically, in everyday language, this amounts to a social scientist predicting what will happen culturally, etc. if we do nothing and sit back and observe world events versus being proactive and making efforts to convince people to change things, etc. finally, the transition from metaphysical ontology to physical ontology is simply translating how metaphysical notions of culture, etc. will be evinced through physical behaviors and their interactions with a physical environment. an example of the second person would be a postmodernist philosopher who is less familiar with "physics" and simply keeps informed about world events much like an armchair analyst, not incorporating statistical research, etc. into his/her knowledge base. so in this sense, "physics" here is implicit, and could be labeled as "(physics)". from there, the philosopher then uses his version of metaphysics, say neo-marxism, and then applies this to a situation, such as the culture of his home country in europe, constituting a metaphysical ontology. finally, this is implicitly translated into a physical ontology -- "(physical ontology)" -- loosely predicting future world events etc. without any sort of real knowledge of the interaction between people and their landscape, etc. so the sequence could be refined as:

2) (physics) --> metaphysics --> metaphysical ontology --> (physical ontology)

now, the inverse is true for a pure social scientist. he/she will devote most of his/her time to research, then form some implicit metaphysical beliefs by combining his/her knowledge of the field he/she does research in with his/her somewhat sub-standard background in theory/philosophy. as such, he/she will usually treat the metaphysical aspects of his/her discipline as secondary to the "hands on" approach of field research, statistics, etc. finally, arrives at a physical ontology using physics as his/her primary means of justification and metaphysics secondarily. so, the sequence can be refined as:

3) physics --> (metaphysics) --> (metaphysical ontology) --> physical ontology

bridging the gap between theory and praxis: an optimal political ontology

time after time, i've heard from the academic far left about their ideologies and visions of what they consider to constitute justice, freedom, and a global democracy. i often feel that these opinions, though well-intentioned, are misguided and unsupported, and perhaps are more detrimental than they are helpful in mankind's pursuit of the three aforementioned ideas. let me explain what i consider to be one's political position relative to the rest of the world. imagine that there is an objective standard of truth for achieving justice, freedom, and democracy, the collective emitting of behaviors of every person in the world and their interactions with their surrounding environment needed in order mankind to optimally avoid seemingly imminent disasters later this century, e.g. global warming, the energy crisis, the global population crash, etc. this standard of truth is "resource-embedded" and its ontology is exclusively physical in nature: human behaviors and global resources interacting. now, consider the very notion of power, the ability of an individual to compel other people to behave in a way that that individual desires. there are two extremes on this spectrum illustrating the possibility for a perfect unity and complete discord regarding the interplay between political theory and praxis. take, for example, someone who suddenly gains absolute power over the world and whatever his political beliefs are (theory) are immediately and fully implemented into society (praxis). whatever ideology this person espouses is correct in both theory and practice for the collective ontology (not the resource-embedded ontology, however). now, consider the opposite end of the spectrum. imagine a person who exerts absolutely no political power -- he/she cannot vote, cannot discuss politics with other people, is helpless and is cared for by family so he/she cannot influence the political economy by buying any goods or products, etc. suppose this person has a very conservative ideology for whatever reason, but at this given time in the state of the world, the prevailing ideology is very liberal (although not so liberal so that the far left circles around to overlap with the far right); his/her ideology (theory) is diametrically opposed to the world's affairs (praxis), and there is nothing this person can do to change his/her surrounding world. however, although this person is helpless to exert any power or influence politically, he/she can still align himself/herself politically so as to be perfectly compatible with the prevailing world ideology, which in this case is very liberal. whereas before this person had the widest gap imaginable between theory and praxis, now this person, simply by switching his/her own political beliefs to the exact opposite of what they once were, is now in a position wherein there lies no difference between theory and praxis as personal and world ideologies are aligned perfectly and completely harmoniously.

of course, these are two extreme, abstract examples, for in reality, people, though sometimes very impressionable, are still not completely malleable and provide at least some resistance to external forces controlling their minds, and simultaneously, people exert political influence no matter how hard they try to be apolitical because of consumerism, etc. i guess there could be extreme examples that are real -- e.g., extreme mental retardation, etc. -- but since these people can't conceive any political beliefs, they in effect do not exist as "real people" in this schema of humans and politics. anyway, returning to the previous point, the political beliefs of people and the way they are manifested through their actions and behaviors exist as ontologies, and in both extreme cases, these ontologies are absent on one end (in the former case absent from the collective whole except the one person exerting absolute power over everyone else, in the latter case absent from the single person who is unable to exert any influence on the rest of the people in the collective whole ontology). but seeing as how in the real world these ontologies exist, it is important to consider one's own political ontology relative to everyone else's collective ontology. the central idea here is the connection between the collective political ontology of the global population and the ontology of the resource-embedded standard of truth mentioned in the first paragraph. we see here that a triad emerges between one's political ontology, other people's political ontologies, and the ontology of the standard of truth. the goal of optimization is as follows: the individual, by estimating the ontology of the standard of truth, tries to embrace a personal ideology that can align the political ontology of his/her people he/she can influence (this ontology being a part of the larger "collective ontology") -- friends, family, etc. -- as closely to the ontology of the standard of truth ("resource-embedded") as possible. the key here is that the political influence one can exert varies from person to person, and most certainly from ordinary citizens to politicians. whereas a normal person can only exert a political influence on anywhere from a handful to a few hundred people and a "politically-active" person can influence thousands of people, leaders of countries can influence hundreds of millions, or even billions of people. as such, the personal ideology for someone who exerts political influence over only a hundred people and his position relative to moving the collective ontology in greater or lesser alignment with the ontology of the standard of truth will almost certainly be different from someone who exerts political influence over an entire nation.

so what happens if the range of the flexibility of the collective political ontology does not overlap with the optimization point for the ontology of the resource-embedded standard of truth? in that case, it is simply one's duty to attempt to move the collective political ontology as close to the ontology of the standard of truth as possible. this is where i take issue with some of these far left academics. while we can never know for certain the ontology of the standard of truth even with the best estimates of global warming, etc., we can still make reasonable inferences as to the limits of the general public's ability to change their collective political ontology. for example, as evinced by the last presidential election, a "left" (he's really more moderate than most people think, but anyway...) democrat was able to be elected president. however, it is highly implausible that a green party member ever will in the near future. as such, i believe that espousing a green party agenda as an implementable perspective (this is different from someone who agrees with the green party in theory, but recognizing the constraints on the political ontology of the general public, espouses voting and doing all political activities in practice for a branch of the democrats) is counterproductive, as was proven by nader unintentionally assisting bush in winning the 2000 presidential election. of course, one could argue that had that not happened, then someone like obama never would've been elected so soon, so it was bad in the short-term but better in the long run, etc. -- i disagree with this position. but returning to academics, my problem is that they hone in on approximating the ontology of the standard of truth while either ignoring the collective ontology of people in reality or treating it as a theoretical construct that is subject to their own metaphysical whims without proper evidence to support their position. going about business in these manners results in either criticizing the collective political ontology without realizing that this does not solve problems and can sometimes be counterproductive and/or projecting one's own beliefs with such conviction so as to belief that they can alter the collective political ontology beyond its objective range of possibility.

here is a theoretical example of what i mean by these ontologies. imagine that we live in a self-contained world the size of city block that has all the resources we need to survive and the number of people in this world is 10. now, imagine that global warming is a problem (ontology of the resource-embedded standard of truth), and the current leader who has majority control over this band of people does not believe global warming exists. consider the power that the other 9 people have to change the situation, their collective political ontology. in this case, the collective political ontology does overlap with the standard of truth, so if the right actions do in fact take place, the self-contained world can be saved from global warming, but that this overlap is very slim. now assume that 7 of the people are "duds", i.e., average people like john doe. of the 2 remaining people (not including the leader), one of them is a far-leftist who wants radical change immediately. this idea, while perfectly compatible with the ontology of the standard of truth, is not compatible with the collective political ontology. as a result, the 7 people remain convinced that the leader, who does not believe in global warming, is correct and the group maintains its current practices until everyone dies due to global warming. now, consider what would've happened had the other of the 2 remaining people (not including the leader) espoused an ideology that fell into that slim overlap between the ontology of the standard of truth and the collective political ontology. while this ideology was not as accurate at approximating the ontology of the standard of truth as the previous person's, thus in theory not stopping global warming as quickly as the other person's proposal but still slowing it enough and eventually stopping it to allow all 10 people to survive, by being compatible with the collective political ontology, the 7 people became persuaded to make the person who had the ideology compatible with the ontology of the standard of truth and the collective political ontology their new leader and followed his/her instructions to change the group's collective practices so as to avert global warming reaching a stage of catastrophic proportions. the analogy here is that some of the far left academics are like the first of the two people, the one who clings to emphasizing only the ontology of the standard of truth (and i don't even think they necessarily are correct about that some of the time either) while preaching an ideology that fails to impress or somehow negatively affects the collective political ontology, resulting in an unimplementable solution leading to a failure for some or all of the global population. some of the more moderate leftists are like the second of the two people, believing that our primary goal is to optimize the collective political ontology (whether or not they actually realize this for the right reasons is a different story, but anyway...) because this is the only way real change can be actualized, even if this means not reaching the range of the ontology of the standard of truth. so even if this does "fail" due to not realizing the other ontology -- the ontology of the standard of truth -- it fails less badly than the ideology of the other person who places the primary emphasis on the ontology of the standard of truth over the collective political ontology. for the first person, total disaster results as the middle-of-the-road and/or right-wing prevail, causing 100% failure for humanity. for the second person, while partially failing by not fully optimizing the ontology of the standard of truth, by at least aligning the global population -- the collective whole ontology -- within the ontology of the standard of truth, the global population will survive even if it means enduring more hardship than if they had been able (in theory) to align the collective whole ontology more accurately with the ontology of the standard of truth. of course, if the only way humanity will survive is by overlapping the two ontologies and it is impossible to do this in reality (simply moving the collective whole ontology closer to the other ontology does not improve our survival ability any more than if the collective whole ontology remained farther away), then we're all screwed -- there's no way around it. however, i believe that the world is flexible enough that we can still do enough within the present constrictions of the collective political ontology to avoid a complete armageddon and that at least some of the human race will survive the pending crises that face us this century.

now, consider an alternate scenario using another group of 10 people facing the same circumstances as the previous group. now, of the two remaining people, there is one who espouses an ideology that falls in the overlap between the two ontologies. however, this person is a poor debater and is not generally well-liked by the other 9 people for whatever reason. so, despite his/her ideology being correct, the group rejects him/her and everyone eventually dies due to global warming. now, imagine if the other person of the two remaining people, a person who espoused an ideology that only pushed the two ontologies closer but not overlapping -- the only overlap being between the collective whole ontology and a "compromised" version of the ontology of the standard of truth -- but was a good debater and was generally well-liked by the other 9 people. despite his/her ideology not being as correct as the other person's, it's still better than their current leader's, and as a result, global warming is gradually slowed and 8 of the 10 people survive (only 8 of 10 because the overlap of the "compromised" version of the ontology of the standard of truth means that only some people will survive, not all people as in the normal version of the ontology of the standard of truth). do you see the lesson learned? the messenger is just as important as the message. so, making an analogy to academics, if some of the academic far left was able to present their positions without resorting to some of their silly tactics and ideas, then perhaps more people would be persuaded by them and the goals of the true far left of the range of the collective political ontology, presently unattainable due to the messenger instead of the message, could be realized and bring us closer to, managing an overlap with, or managing the optimal overlap with the ontology of the standard of truth.

now, it should be noted that nothing is ever perfectly static, and things are always in a state of flux. as such, one might ask whether the constant change that goes on both in people and the environment prevents one from establishing the two ontologies correctly, because after all, the ontologies are always changing. the answer is that the ontologies cover a range at any given point in time, and usually do so over more meaningful periods of time (say, from hours to days to weeks, but not as long as a year); there is a range that covers all possible ranges of the changing ontologies. in essence, they are approximations whose lack of a completely stable, definite ontology does not render them useless because the ranges are sufficient enough for practical purposes. furthermore, it must be stated that the ranges for the ontologies exist unaffected by whether or not we live in a determinist or indeterminist universe. using these principles, it should become clear that the ideas espoused in the previous paragraphs are as compatible with reality as they are in theory and thus my position is applicable to the real world, not just being some theoretical ideology disconnected from our everyday lives.

what in the world does social science actually study? (a clarification of a previous blog entry's definition of social science and social scientists)

social science faces a number of hurdles other than its major fundamental flaw. first of all, science attempts to establish universal truths given a certain set of conditions, and once that has been determined, then the limits on the set of conditions to which the universal truth is applicable can be determined. by not having true causality in social science and using correlation instead, social science encounters a problem -- particularly for non-lab based research like for anthropology and sociology -- since it cannot perfectly recreate situations, and thus it cannot know how much of an experiment's error and/or lack of correlation is due to an inherent lack of causality within the experiment if it were to be theoretically conducted again and again under the same conditions and how much of an experiment's error and/or lack of correlation is due to not being able to recreate the experiment under identical circumstances to its initial ones. this leads me to my second point, which is that due to these varying circumstances, experiments are rarely carried out using exactly the same methodology, and because of this, one cannot know how much of an experiment's error and/or lack of correlation is due to methodological problems and how much is due to an inherent lack of causality within the originally conducted and conceived experiment. for example, consider an experiment in chemistry in which two chemicals are mixed to form a new compound. now, imagine that the methodology is approximated by each scientist, but that the actual time of mixing the two chemicals varies from 5-10 minutes. so within that time frame, one is guaranteed a universal truth (assuming there such things exist, and for the sake of this argument, let's assume that they do, at least practically speaking) established through mixing two chemicals and turning them into a new compound. now consider a social science experiment in which the experimenter is attempting to determine a correlation between the amount of time subjects spend watching tv and their grades in school. imagine that the experimenter conducts the study similarly by testing group A over two weeks and group B over three weeks and arrives at two different results, correlations of .5 and .45. is the difference in outcome due to differences in circumstances for group A vs group B (e.g. watching different tv shows, taking different classes, etc.), or is it due to the extra week that elapsed during group B's trial? when science establishes true causality, it can then establish a range of circumstances in which that result holds true. however, because social science never yields true causality, for the experiment's predictive power to maintain intact, it must entail both perfectly recreated situations and perfectly recreated methodologies, and ultimately, both are interdependent and create a situation in which no social science experiment's predictive power truly retains its integrity from its initial conception and conduction. as such, these experiments are merely "snapshots" of the state of a given system at a certain place and time, and fit the definition of "informed descriptions" better than "established result".

i would also like to clear up some nagging issues regarding social science, both having to do with the deductive method. first of all, i want to establish that my definition of true science in previous blog entries was deductive, which is in part why i deemed social science to be unscientific. now, excepting social science's major fundamental flaw, social science can be conducted as science via the inductive method. as such, it does not need its theoretical frameworks to be scientific, so schools of thought like marxism, etc. are fine for fields like anthropology and sociology. second, i want to vindicate psychology of certain attacks leveled against all social sciences. people attack social science in practice due to its lack of sufficient establishment of causality, as demonstrated in the two points in the preceding paragraph. however, while psychology -- the example i want to use here is the school of thought known as behaviorism -- and more holistic social sciences like anthropology and sociology both lack predictive power, their underlying reasons for doing so are completely different. anthropology and sociology work from an inductive foundation, which is inherent unfalsifiable even in theory; the other issues i mentioned in the preceding paragraph exacerbate finding a lack of true causality in practice. however, behaviorism works from a deductive foundation, which should be falsifiable in theory. however, in practice, it is unable to fulfill this because there is not an established causality between input and output in subjects; behavior does not at face value represent everything in a subject's mind at a given time.

now, onto the burning question of the day: what in the world does social science actually study? i previously stated that social science studies epistemology manifested through metaphysical means, and due to the scientific approaches employed that this made social scientists in essence applied metaphysicists. but what exactly does this mean? truly applied metaphysicists are cognitive scientists, who attempt to directly address metaphysical problems using scientific approaches. however, other social scientists are not interested in trying to address metaphysical problems using scientific approaches, but in effect study metaphysical problems translated back into physical reality; whereas cognitive scientists might try to make in-roads into the mind-body problem by studying the brain, social scientists simply study the behaviors of people -- behaviors that are metaphysically-rooted (consciousness), but expressed physically -- and their interactions with their surrounding physical environment. when studying a group of people, problems with free will and the mind-body are simply ignored or assumed to cancel each other out -- this as opposed to studying an individual, in which free will and the mind-body problem can only be ignored, not assumed to cancel out.

how do social science theories arrive at these new metaphysical inferences in the first place, i.e., the jump from physics to metaphysics? well, linguistically, certain terms have emerged over the years -- e.g. culture, belief systems, etc. -- as well as theories, namely saussre's structuralism, which were then applied to the social sciences. however, i have never been convinced about the idea of the signifier and the signified, which to my mind equates to nothing more than thinking (signifier) about thinking (signified), and cannot have a finite amount of thinking greater than one; either thinking is an all-encompassing, self-sufficient system (thinking), or is ryle's regress (thinking about thinking about thinking...ad infinitum). in any case, over the past century or so, social science theory has predominantly been derived from structuralism and working its way out of it (post-structuralism), and thus this form of metaphysical inquiry has been concerned largely with areas of direct interest to social science, not the underlying traditional metaphysical problems beneath. however, has there ever been any proof that structuralism as a system is better than traditional metaphysics? well, structuralism and its successors certainly can be employed more effectively using its own terminology at describing people; traditional metaphysics would probably amount to a lot of reducing and translation in order to describe the same things. however, within these new structures, have any attempts ever been made to address the underlying metaphysical issues? not to the best of my knowledge. instead, metaphysics has been turned into a subjective arena in social science wherein any theorist can introduce or attach himself/herself to an ontology that attempts to explain social and political phenomena through holistic definitions -- not just social and political, but psychological, cultural, artistic, etc. -- and best suits their own beliefs and agendas rather than attempting to discover any sort of external, objective truth. philosopher john searle has argued against this new paradigm embraced by much of the far left in academia:

An immediate difficulty with denials of metaphysical realism is that they remove the rational constraints that are supposed to shape discourse, when that discourse aims at something beyond itself. To paraphrase Dostoevsky, without metaphysical realism, anything is permissible.

accordingly, social science theory has proponents from all angles, none of which can ever be fully or even partially substantiated as correct. so, to put in succinctly, there are three types of metaphysicists:

1) traditional metaphysicists, otherwise known as philosophers

2) philosophically-minded scientists, who are trying to convert parts of what are now still metaphysics into physics, otherwise known as cognitive scientists

3) specialized metaphysicists, people who advocate metaphysical opinions and substantiate them within specialized metaphysical discourse (structuralist/post-structuralist/marxist, etc.), otherwise known as social scientists/political theorists

in closing, it should be noted that specialized metaphysicists only attempt to substantiate their claims by engaging in their own forms of discourse; social scientists rarely, if ever, subject their opinions and theories to the rigors of traditional metaphysics before they are propagated to the masses. and this is precisely the reason why i am still highly skeptic of all-encompassing theories, particularly ones that deal directly with masses of people, society, and/or political systems. even if these theories were subjected to the rigors of traditional metaphysics, there would be no precise system for proving or disproving aspects of each ontology. this is the reason why traditional metaphysics addresses fundamental issues that have remained unanswered for thousands of years, because espousing certain formal social and political ontologies oversteps the boundaries within which metaphysics operates at an acceptable level; any discipline in which by definition one must vouch for more than one can substantiate should be used as a means to an end of strict pontification, not an end of concrete answers, especially those used to assist one for political purposes. cognitive scientists, on the other hand, keep the metaphysical realm (metaphysical "opinions") where it should be -- strictly in metaphysics -- and allow physics to dictate the method of inquiry and discourse, guiding metaphysics along in the process. social scientists only use physics as a point of observation (a "snapshot" as opposed to an "established result"), then overextend metaphysics outside of its realm to guide the physics since the physics on its own cannot substantiate anything meaningful without metaphysics acting as both a foundation and catalyst (ideally, as in cognitive science, physics on its own possesses both a physical foundation and is its own catalyst).

marxism, free will, and social science's mortgaging of the future to justify its present status

i've been in somewhat of a creative philosophical slump the past few weeks, and i thought that perhaps either i had run out of ideas, or reading some formal philosophy for the first time since starting this blog had in turn hampered my ability to think on my own terms. so, i reread a few of my more recent previous posts and was inspired to write a new blog entry as a continuation of a previous idea. a couple of posts ago i posited that social science -- namely anthropology and sociology -- could only be considered branches of metaphysics and not science because their embedded theoretical framework was not scientific. on the other hand, some theoretical approaches of psychology, such as behaviorism, are scientific in nature -- clear cause and effect -- excepting social science's major fundamental flaw. operating on a macro level, social science is ultimately reducible to economics because survival is the ultimate gauge of the human race, and economics is the current discipline that is most easily reducible to survival. of course, macroeconomics does a relatively poor job of predicting human behavior, and even in its operations, it is doing so many on applied levels of analysis, not theoretical levels. so how does social science -- anthropology and sociology -- claim to operate on a macro theoretical level? well, marxism, of course!

as you probably know, marxism is deterministic in nature, "scientifically" outlining the inevitable downfall of capitalism through a systematic, dialectical process. so, being a social scientist -- anthropologist and/or sociologist -- often entails believing that marxism, in some form -- frankfurt school or other forms of neo-marxism, post-marxism, etc. -- is truly the ultimate and prevailing economic theory that explains human behavior on an economic, and thus survivalist, level for the past (rooted in history), the present (existing at a certain stage of capitalism, such as late-stage capitalism), and the future (the final downfall of capitalism), and not only does so in this all-encompassing fashion, but in a "scientific" manner. while even adamant anthropologists and sociologists would have a hard time defending marxism as true science with firm, straightforward causality, they might draw an analogy between it an other theoretical scientific frameworks, such as theoretical physics, in which scientific knowledge is applied to validate an overall theoretical structure that is primarily based on abstract inferences; studies done by social scientists could be incorporated into refining marxist theories just like new atomic physics experiments might hold implications for theoretical physics.

ok, so social scientists have embraced forms of marxism as a theoretical framework -- so what? well, first of all, let's examine the nature of theoretical frameworks for science. ultimately, science is about establishing a relationship between cause and effect, and in doing so, harnessing predictive powers. for example, a chemist knows that mixing two chemicals will result in a reaction yielding a new chemical compound. in cognitive psychology (the area of conventional psychology that best circumvents social science's major fundamental flaw), priming a subject with images flashing on a screen will result in a subject having a predictable range of response times when asked to respond accordingly. both of these would be considered "micro" examples; obviously, marxism and social science -- anthropology and sociology -- deal with issues on a macro level. the are two important ramifications because of this. first of all, experiments on a macro level are not very often repeatable, and particularly in the case of marxism, it has yet to complete its initial incarnation; it is also not supposed to be repeatable once it finishes its initial incarnation for once capitalism has been overturned and replaced by a more egalitarian economic system, there should be no reason for capitalism to reemerge. second, unlike experiments on the micro level in which there is a clear difference between subject and experimenter, with the experimenter controlling the experiment from the outside with negligible impact inside, experimenters on the macro level are also subjects in their own experiment. unsurprisingly, seeing as how they want their experiment -- marxism -- to succeed, marxist social scientists doggedly attempt to proliferate the world, and the area of the world over which they exert the most power -- academia -- with marxist propaganda in hopes of realizing marx's prophecy. the problem with this is that social scientists have unknowingly committed to a philosophical stance on free will in order to be compatible with marxism, which is a deterministic theory. social scientists seem to be indeterministic in their approaches to life, always mentioning the power of agency, using education to inform and mobilize the masses, believing that we can change the world, and so on. furthermore, postmodernism, the most current paradigm embraced by social science, appears to endorse indeterminism, as determinism would seem to contradict, through its mundane and fatalistic approach, all the key aspects of postmodernism -- self-empowerment, fractured chaos in place of a grand and holistic narrative, defiance and evasion of authority, etc. so how are these different positions reconciled? well, by default, marxist social scientists are, perhaps many of them unknowingly, compatibilists. here is wikipedia's description of compatiblism and the other two prominent positions on free will, hard determinism and libertarianism (both of which are forms of incompatiblism):

Compatibilism (also called soft determinism) is the view that the assumption of free will and the existence of a concept of determinism are compatible with each other; this is opposed to incompatibilism which is the view that there is no way to reconcile a belief in a deterministic universe with a belief in a concept of free will beyond that of a perceived existence.^[2] Hard determinism is the version of incompatibilism that accepts the assumption of determinism and rejects the idea that humans have any free will.^[3]

^{Libertarianism agrees with hard determinism only in rejecting compatibilism. Libertarians accept the existence of a concept of free will along with an assumption of indeterminism to some extent.}

in short, social science has gambled that its positions are correct, positions that cannot be proven correct at present and only possibly can be in the future while at the same time might likely not ever be disproven (marxism is not falsifiable and thus could only be "disproven" if capitalism is overthrown and then later reemerges; the philosophical problem of free will will likely never be solved). because their positions likely can never be disproven, social science thus remains in an unaccountable state, allowing it to freely and endlessly mortgage its future in return for claims to authority over its domain at present. additionally, such unaccountability with its predictive power makes social science open to attack from scientists who claim social science is not scientific. however, this is also beneficial for social science in that it is a self-perpetuating discipline; the combination of not embracing a paradigm with repeatable predictive power and having experimenters existing as subjects in their own experiment allows social science to adjust and adapt no matter how society evolves or what experiment on the micro level prove. at the end of the day, one can dismiss social science due to the aforementioned reasons, but social science ultimately counters with an authoritative, "you can choose to study people or not, and if you study people, there exists no better way than social science at present."

so, what could be done to improve social science? well, first of all, it would be helpful to attempt to conceive and embrace a paradigm that is repeatable on a macro level. since it is virtually impossible to be able to conceive of such an entity, this remains a criticism that is only really valid theoretically, not in practice. second, solving the problem of free will would do wonders for establishing social science's true purposes for its existence. again, however, this is only a criticism appropriate in theory, not in reality. what social science could do is elucidate the three major positions on free will and determine which one or combinations of them are most conducive to the goals of the discipline. by abandoning marxism, social scientists would then be free to embrace both compatiblism and libertarianism; hard determinism seems to go against the spirit of social science, for if everything is pre-determined, then studying people would seem to amount to, although not necessarily be limited to, descriptive activities of people without any useful implementation for improving society. discarding marxism would not be an instant solution for the problem of free will, but it would improve the odds of social science's approach and purpose for existence being correct from 1/3 to 2/3 (if determinism is considered an acceptable solution to the problem of free will, then the odds of being correct improve from 1/3 to a perfect 1), while the odds of marxism succeeding remain at 1/2 (these are theoretical odds, of course, not to be taken seriously at face value). as such, if i were a social scientist i would abandon marxism simply for philosophical reasons (regarding free will) that would allow me to sleep better at night. :)