Re: METHOD X METHODOLOGY

From: Bruce Robinson (bruce.rob@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Oct 10 2001 - 05:30:22 PDT


For what it's worth, the 'soft systems' guru Peter Checkland (following, I
suspect, a dictionary somewhere) says that what are commonly known in
information systems development as 'methodologies' (i.e. prescriptive rules
for how to do things) should in fact be called 'methods', while
'methodology' is the scientific study of 'method'.

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu wrote:

> By the by, It is very interesting to verify that, in Chrisis, Vygotsky
> also makes a distinction between METHOD and METHODOLOGY (number 8 / §
> 18th). When he reffers to G. P. Zelionii's explanation of the two
> interpretations of the word METHOD (1) as methodology of research,
> technical procedures and (b) method of knowledge that determines the
> objective of the research, the character and nature of a science.

What is the foundation presented in 'Crisis that enables us to make this
separation? I think you can see what he's getting at if you look at
classical scientific / experimental method. Clearly, this enables us to
create certain types of knowledge about the world through following certain
'technical procedures' e.g. isolating the variable under investigation from
interference by creation of a controlled environment. This does not require
us to accept positivism or empiricism - ideological reflections of those
procedures. Scientific method provides us with 'facts' (to use v's term),
but 'facts' only become scientific facts when integrated into a system of
concepts (which has already taken place by the time of the experiment
through our initial conceptualisation of our goal or even just through
naming certain entities). A fact integrated into a different system of
concepts becomes a different fact. Dialectically, just as abstract systems
such as maths contain an element of reality, so real facts contain an
element of theory as the products of abstraction (p.249):

"The real and the scientific fact are distinct in that the scientific fact
is a real fact included into a certain system of knowledge, i.e., an
abstraction of several features from the inexhaustible sum of features of
the natural fact. The material of science is not raw, but logically
elaborated, natural material which has been selected according to a certain
feature. Physical body, movement, matter-these are all abstractions. The
fact itself of naming a fact by a word means to frame this fact in a
concept, to single out one of its aspects; it is an act toward understanding
this fact by including it into a category of phenomena which have been
empirically studied before."

Taking 'Crisis' as a whole, this view seems to involve both a tension and a
resolution. There is a tension in the way LSV both talks of 'empirical
science' as if it formed a separate disciplinary structure while at the same
time launching into a ferocious assault on empiricism as a philosophical
basis for science and proposing a dialectical alternative. This may have
been in part a concession to the political atmosphere in 20s USSR (though I
don't think this is right as V is prepared to take that on elsewhere in
crisis). I believe more it relates to the real methodological problems
facing the critical / Marxist practitioner in the harder sciences. There is
a real material tension between 'doing science' and understanding its social
role and conceptual failures. This is reflected in the different ways
Marxism has conceptualised science itself - from neutral 'productive force'
to being deeply implicated in the social relations of capitalism. In the
USSR of the 20s this was also expressed in the highly political question of
how far the USSR should borrow Western techniques and methods in the
economy.

The resolution seems to me to be implied in the quote above - and this
relates directly to Alena's point. By integrating the same methods into a
different conceptual framework one changes their nature radically. For
example, by integrating traditional experimental method into a dialectical
materialist framework one becomes aware of its limitations - the knowledge
that results is partial and one-sided, the product of abstraction - and of
ways to overcome them - reintegration of the abstract into a dialectical
whole. Thus critique and appropriation go together - both in terms of the
method and the results of its application. This is precisely the approach
taken by contemporary Marxist scientists such as Rose, Lewontin and Levins.
Clearly the content of the methods set limits to the extent to which they
can be appropriated, but these are far those proposed by one side or the
other in the classical positivist / interpretivist debate.

Alena then wrote:
<That sounds back to front from my interpretation.

How would one differentiate between research and knowledge, if research is
knowledge production?>

I'm not sure what the problem is with seeing knowledge as the goal / product
of a process of production and methods as a form of mediational means. I
like V's point about knowledge acquisition as a form of labour. But I
haven't time to go into that now...

Bruce



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