Experts and intellectuals in the social sciences have a long history of relating to the state and the public. These relations vary in kind from those based on technical knowledge applied to policy to cults to social scientists in organic relations to social movements to organized attempts to develop public policyguided by social science knowledge. The most successful early attempts were cameralism and official statistics, but intellectuals like John Stuart Mill also reached a wide public (...) audience in the nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth century, social reformmovements claimed expert knowledge. As the social sciences entered the university, however, the forms of influence changed. Under the influence of the Rockefeller philanthropies, social science became more ‘realistic’ and the emphasis shifted to creating professions dependent on academic knowledge and certification. Think tanks and other forms of knowledge intervention developed which relied on academic social science. Public intellectuals, however, speaking not to professions or bureaucrats, remained important. (shrink)

This is a contribution to thesociology and social epistemology of knowledgeproduction in Russian social sciences today. Inthe initial section, the epistemic status andsocial function of Soviet social scientificdiscourse are characterized in terms of textualforms and their modes of (re-)production. Theremaining sections detail the course of therestructuration of social scientific discoursesince the fall of the Soviet Union and draw onextant empirical sources, in particular studiesof bibliographical rubrics, thematicrepertoires, and current textual formsthroughout the public sphere and the academicestablishment (...) in Russia. An underlying concernis the shifting status of the intellectual inthe wider socio-cultural context as reflectedin language usage and its textualembodiments. (shrink)

In recent years, many qualitative sociologists, anthropologists, and social theorists have critiqued the use of algorithms and other automated processes involved in data science on both epistemological and political grounds. Yet, it has proven difficult to bring these important insights into the practice of data science itself. We suggest that part of this problem has to do with under-examined or unacknowledged assumptions about the relationship between the two fields—ideas about how data science and its critics can and should relate. (...) Inspired by recent work in Science and Technology Studies on interventions, we attempted to stage an encounter in which practicing data scientists were asked to analyze a corpus of critical social science literature about their work, using tools of textual analysis such as co-word and topic modelling. The idea was to provoke discussion both about the content of these texts and the possible limits of such analyses. In this commentary, we reflect on the planning stages of the experiment and how responses to the exercise, from both data scientists and qualitative social scientists, revealed some of the tensions and interactions between the normative positions of the different fields. We argue for further studies which can help us understand what these interdisciplinary tensions turn on—which do not paper over them but also do not take them as given. (shrink)

The Social Scientist's Bestiary addresses a number of important theoretical and philosophical issues in the social sciences from the perspective of contemporary philosophy of science. It is intended to guide social scientists - researchers, teachers and students - so that they will not fall victim to the beasts they will encounter in the course of their enquiries. Such beasts include holism, post-positivistic work in the philosophy of science, Kuhnian relativism, the denial of objectivity, hermeneutics and several (...) others, both good and bad. (shrink)

Pierre Bourdieu famously dismissed phenomenology as offering anything useful to a critical science of society – even as he drew heavily upon its themes in his own work. This paper makes a case for why Bourdieu’s judgement should not be the last word on phenomenology. To do so it first reanimates phenomenology’s evocative language and concepts to illustrate their continuing centrality to social scientists’ ambitions to apprehend human engagement with the world. Part II shows how two crucial insights (...) of phenomenology, its discovery of both the natural attitude and of the phenomenological epoche, allow an account of perception properly responsive to its intertwined personal and collective aspects. Contra Bourdieu, the paper’s third section asserts that phenomenology’s substantive socio-cultural analysis simultaneously entails methodological consequences for the social scientist, reversing their suspension of disbelief vis-à-vis the life-worlds of interlocutors and inaugurating the suspension of belief vis-à-vis their own natural attitudes. (shrink)

This paper contributes to two topics that have received insufficient attention in science and technology studies: the social dimensions of causal reasoning and how the knowledge-making site of expert testimony affects the production and reception of social scientific knowledge. It deals with how social scientists make causal claims when testifying as expert witnesses in trials where causal claims are relevant, using as a case study the so-called L’Aquila trial, in which experts were summoned by the parties (...) to testify on the causes of risk-related behavior by the inhabitants of an Italian city in early 2009. In particular, I analyze the process of selection of causal loci, the attribution and removal of agency, the increase and decrease of causal factors in the explanation of an event, and the delimitation of the explanandum. As a general insight derived from the case, it is argued that the position of experts in a trial––which side summons them––may be a more important factor than their branch of expertise to account for certain types of these practices. (shrink)

The problems with polygenic scores (PGSs) have been understated. The fact that they are ancestry-specific means that biases related to sociodemographic factors would be impossible to avoid. Additionally, the requirement to obtain DNA would have profound impacts on study design and required resources, as well as likely introducing recruitment bias. PGSs are unhelpful for social science research.

Tema rada su vestacenja drustvenih naucnika u procesima vodjenim pred Haskim tribunalom, ciji se doprinos sagledava u svetlu dugog razvoja ove prakse. Sire diskusije o sudskoj upotrebi naucnog znanja ukazuju na niz problema u regulisanju vestacenja. Analiziraju se mehanizmi kojima se u razlicitim pravnim kontekstima obezbedjuje naucna pouzdanost i procesna relevantnost vestacenja, kao i primenljivost tih mehanizama na forenzicke doprinose razlicitih drustvenih nauka. Regulisanje vestacenja u Haskom tribunalu se posmatra kao osobeno resenje cije se posledice prate kroz ucesce vestaka u (...) postupcima i kroz javnu percepciju angazmana drustvenih naucnika u tom svojstvu. Cilj ovakvog pristupa je nijansiranje dominantnih predstava o ulozi drustvenih naucnika u Haskom tribunalu i stvaranje preduslova za razumevanje specificnog karaktera njihove vestacke uloge. (shrink)

Presumably authoritative sources, such as social scientists who study conspiracy theorists, are generally expected to be logically rigorous, intellectually honest, and unbiased. This chapter suggests that this expectation may not always be justified. Specifically, it exposes a number of significant problems in an attempt by a group of social scientists to defend the (ostensibly) scientific study of conspiracy theorists. First, they misrepresent their own previously stated intentions. Second, they misrepresent a critique of those intentions. Third, they (...) fail completely in their attempt to show that, regarding the inappropriate pathologizing of conspiracy theorists, their critics are guilty as they are. Fourth, they cite seriously flawed studies as though they offered robust findings. And fifth, their criticism of a central distinction, between “generalist” and “particularist” approaches, is based on a misunderstanding. This raises troubling questions: How can we to have confidence in a program of study undertaken, in part, by scientists who get so much wrong? And, to what degree is this an isolated problem? (shrink)

Since man is a cultural product, Hume's science of man is a normative moral science of action, Not a descriptive natural science of behavior. Man emerges as a role-playing or rule-following agent, Whose comprehension and self-comprehension requires the use of "verstehen" (sympathy). I exemplify this approach in the explanations of the development of justice and science, And I argue against attributing either determinism or positivism to hume. I next show how this perspective illuminates hume's epistemology, specifically the analysis of cause, (...) time, and self. All explanation becomes historical and evolutionary. (shrink)

This paper presents the history of the Frankfurt School’s inclusion of normative concerns in social science research programs during the period 1930-1955. After examining the relevant methodology, I present a model of how such a program could look today. I argue that such an approach is both valuable to contemporary social science programs and overlooked by current philosophers and social scientists.

(1997). The situated social scientist: Reflexivity and perspective in the sociology of knowledge. Social Epistemology: Vol. 11, New Directions in the Sociology of Knowledge, pp. 193-202.

In revising the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects between 2009 and 2018, regulators devoted the vast bulk of their attention to debates over biomedical research. They lacked both expertise in and concern about the social sciences and humanities, yet they imposed their will on experts in those fields. The revision process was secretive, spasmodic, and unrepresentative, especially compared to rulemaking in Canada, where social scientists participate in the process, and revisions take place every few (...) years. The result was a final rule that offers some wins for social science and the humanities, but that fails to solve the problems identified by Ezekiel Emanuel and in the 2011 advance notice of proposed rulemaking. (shrink)

We analyze the prestige of 1,500 scholars in economics, sociology, and management who have Spanish and French institutional affiliations operationalized by their h-index in Scopus and Google Scholar. We use a negative binomial count model to examine how some individual factors affect the h-index from both databases. The results show a non-monotonic relationship between the researchers’ career length and their h-index. There is a positive and statistically significant relationship between total research output and the h-index. The share of publications in (...) English over total publications has also a positive and statistically significant effect on the h-index, except in a single case, while the share of publications in other foreign languages does not have such effect. Finally, we found that the effects of the number of citations received by documents in English and by those in the vernacular language on the h-index vary according to the database, the country, and the discipline in question. (shrink)

Venkataramanaiah, V. Introduction.--Narla, V. R. Russell and his rejection of religion.--Mehta, G. L. The sceptical crusader.--Dalvi, G. R. Russell, the man.--Venkatarao, V. The nuclear war and the future of man.--Innaiah, N. Bertrand Russell's philosophy.--Subbarayudu, P. Rationality vis-a-vis faith.--Nageswar Rao, B. Russell and nuclear warfare.--Rajagopala Rao, M. Rebel in Russell.--Shankar, G. N. J. The man who revolutionised modern thought.--Maharajasri. Russell, the social scientist in the four-dimensional universe.--The life of Bertrand Russell.--Acknowledgements.--A list of principal works of Bertrand Russell.--Russell's conception of good (...) society in a democratic socialist order.--Objects. (shrink)

The arguments contained in books criticizing American social scientists by C. Wright Mills ( The Sociological Imagination) and Bernard Crick (The Science of American Politics) are discussed, compared and criticized. It is argued that Mills' criteria of evaluation and constructive alternatives to the tendencies he criticizes are immeasurably sounder than those found in Crick's book. An effort to supplement Mills' argument by providing a more explicit statement of its moral underpinnings is made. Finally, it is argued that though (...) both critiques have serious empirical flaws, the authors have undeniably demonstrated that important tendencies for irresponsible thought and action do exist within the American social sciences. (shrink)

This article argues that, notwithstanding views to the contrary, Frédéric Bastiat (Bayonne, 1801; Rome, 1850) was indeed a man of science. Thus, in several of his essays he showed that political economy can attain a level of scientific rigor comparable in many respects to that of the natural sciences. Subscribing to the principle of methodological individualism, he offered some persuasive explanations for why people believe in a multitude of things. After examining science as Bastiat conceived it, we shall look at (...) two important examples, mechanization and rational voting. (shrink)

Popper's theory of demarcation has set the standard of falsifiability for all sciences. But not all falsifiable theories are part of science and some tests of scientific theories are better than others. Popper's theory has led to the banning of metaphysical and/or philosophical anthropological theories from science. But Joseph Agassi has supplemented Popper's theory to explain how such theories are useful as research programs within science. This theory can also be used to explain how interesting tests may be found. Theories (...) of rationality may be used to illustrate this point by showing how they fail or succeed in producing interesting and testable hypotheses in the social sciences. (shrink)

The target article developed a dynamic systems framework that viewed the causal basis of emotion as a self-organizing process giving rise to cognitive appraisal concurrently. Commentators on the article evaluated this framework and the principles and mechanisms it incorporated. They also suggested additional principles, mechanisms, modeling strategies, and phenomena related to emotion and appraisal, in place of or extending from those already proposed. There was general agreement that nonlinear causal processes are fundamental to the psychology and neurobiology of emotion.

Se analiza la presencia intelectual de Ricardo Eduardo Latcham, ingeniero inglés, que llegado a Chile dio un mayor impulso al estudio tanto de la prehistoria latinoamericana como de la arqueología chilena, en los ámbitos del hábitat araucano y de las culturas del norte, en especial la atacameña. En este sentido, sus investigaciones prosiguieron a las de Uhle y posibilitaron integrar a los pueblos originarios del norte chileno al panorama de la prehistoria nacional. Latcham se adentró en registrar las conductas de (...) la sociedad chilena, tanto culta como popular, de fines del siglo XIX, legando agudas anotaciones etnográficas juntamente con una labor de tenaz divulgador de los progresos de la antropología europea, convirtiéndose en un corresponsal de las revistas británicas de la disciplina. Sus obras mayores las pudo difundir en el marco de sus actividades en el Museo de Historia Natural y en la Universidad de Chile. The intellectual presence of Ricardo E. Latcham, an English engineer whose arrival in Chile gave greater impulse to the study of Latin American pre-history and Chilean archaeology regarding araucano habitat and northern cultures, particularly the atacameno culture, is analyzed. His studies continued those of Uhle’s and made it possible to integrate the originary peoples of northern Chile to the panorama of the national pre-history. Latcham recorded the behaviors of both educated and popular Chilean society at the end of the 19th century, producing deep ethnographic records. He also conducted an enthusiastic dissemination of the progress made by European anthropology, becoming a correspondent of the British journals of this discipline. He disseminated his major works while working for the Museum of Natural History and the University of Chile. (shrink)

Academic social scientists overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and the Democratic hegemony has increased significantly since 1970. Moreover, the policy preferences of a large sample of the members of the scholarly associations in anthropology, economics, history, legal and political philosophy, political science, and sociology generally bear out conjectures about the correspondence of partisan identification with left/right ideal types; although across the board, both Democratic and Republican academics favor government action more than the ideal types might suggest. Variations in policy views (...) among Democrats is smaller than among Republicans. Ideological diversity (as judged not only by voting behavior, but by policy views) is by far the greatest within economics. Social scientists who deviate from left‐wing views are as likely to be libertarian as conservative. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlexander Wendt’s Quantum Mind and Social Science is an effort to establish foundations of social science based on the ontology of modern physics. The quantum revolution has deservedly had repercussions in many sciences, but it is unwise to ground social science on physical theories, which are subject to constant revision. Additionally, despite its empirical success, there is no agreed-upon interpretation of quantum theory. Finally, even if there were, the random indeterminacy intrinsic to the quantum world cannot account (...) for the intentionality of human action. Intentional agents act for reasons, not at random; nor are the reasons chosen at random. (shrink)

Okay, Professor Turner is not Rodney King. He is not responding to bioethicists and social scientists running amuck, setting automobiles aflame, and pelting each other with rocks and broken bottles. He does not come right out and ask, “Why can't we all just get along?” But in its academic way, Turner's essay is an effort to negotiate a truce in the interdisciplinary squabbles that plague bioethics, a plea to move bioethics beyond the “misleading” and “unhelpful” “demarcation of disciplinary (...) goals” that leads to “dichotomous thinking” and “polemical accusations.”. (shrink)