Re: theory/practice

From: Bruce Robinson (bruce.rob@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 06:40:10 PDT


Eric wrote:

<<I feel it is important at this time to make a distinction between the
subject
being studied and the methodology used. >>

Obviously they're not the same thing (for one thing, they operate at
different levels), but they have to be consistent in some sense - usually
within the framework of a broader theory. For the methodology to be an
appropriate means of investigating given subject matter, it has to 'work' in
terms of providing an understanding of the structure and essence (if I dare
use that word!) of the area of study. We'll doubtless come back to this in
more detail in our reading of Vygotsky's 'Crisis'.

<<When I refer to the Natural Sciences it is indeed in the positivist
attitude of using an empirical method; it is not that the study of human
psychology compares to the study of chemical reactions. >>

It seems to me that throughout this discussion you are confusing a number of
different things here that are not identical: positivism, reductionism, and
scientific method. The common usage of positivism these days is to make it
the equivalent of reductionism or even to equate it with certain
quantitative research methods. But positivism is more than that. It is a
philosophy (or more precisely, an ideology) that takes such scientific
reasoning - or rather an idealised view of it which has been discredited in
the philosophy and sociology of science - as the only basis for true
knowledge. Positivism rejects an appeal to what is beyond experience, seeing
principles derived in other ways as metaphysical. Laws and explanations are
derived from observed data, the reliability of which is given by the use of
scientific methods of observation and experiment and the use of inductive
and deductive logic. If these laws are followed, they will result in
value-free objective knowledge. (For a proper positivist, there is no way
knowledge could at the same time be 'scientific' and 'biased' as Eric
suggested in one of his earlier posts.) Comte summed up its founding
principles:

"The mind has given over the vain search for Absolute notions... and the
causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws, that is,
their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and
observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now
understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the
establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general
facts, the number of which continually diminishes with the progress of
science."

Now it seems clear to me that one can reject positivism and accept
reductionist / experimental approaches of Western science, which focus on
formulating knowledge by isolating phenomena from the full range of possible
factors affecting them in order to formulate cause-effect relationships. One
can also accept reductionism as a set of procedures that has been highly
valuable in giving us knowledge of the natural world without accepting it
as a full scientific method. For example, as a method, reductionism implies
that the whole is no more than the sum of its parts, that we therefore lose
nothing important by splitting the world into pieces amenable to treatment
in the lab. (Sometimes this may be true - depending on what exactly is being
studied...) As method, reductionism has also been under attack from within
the natural sciences, particularly by self-styled 'dialectical biologists'
such as Lewontin, Levins and Rose. They claim - bringing us back again to
the link between method and subject matter - that reductionism leads to
incorrect or misleading knowledge (such as genetic determinism) in the
biological sciences because the development of organisms cannot be
abstracted from their symbiotic interaction with their environment. In
Marx's terms, reductionism only traces the first part of the movement from
concrete to abstract to concrete: it fails to move back from the partial
phenomena isolated as a result of the conscious activity of scientists to
the concrete form in which they actually exist normally. There is literally
a danger of not seeing the importance of the wood for the trees.

As far as psychology is concerned, these dangers seem to me to be even
larger for reasons set out in Laszlo's paper regarding the failings of
psychology as a natural science.

<< let us say we are wondering why a 5th grader is struggling in school. In
order to provide help we as educators need to decide if his circumstances
qualify that 5th grader for assistance. Other then the scientifically
normed
tools currently available I don't know of any other method of FAIRLY
deciding
that one student qualifies and another doesn't. >>

I'm not sure what you're measuring here or how, but at first glance this
strikes me as a situation where precise measurement is a means of deflecting
attention from the real questions that need to be asked e.g. if we're
talking about fairness, is the system as a whole fair?

Bruce



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