Received: from smtpgate.uvm.edu (smtpgate.uvm.edu [132.198.101.121]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with SMTP id HAA06139 for ; Sat, 25 Oct 1997 07:21:20 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 07:21:20 -0600 (MDT) Received: from T. (207.123.169.164) by smtpgate.uvm.edu (LSMTP for Windows NT v1.1a) with SMTP id <0.585C4F30@smtpgate.uvm.edu>; Sat, 25 Oct 1997 9:21:16 -0400 Message-Id: <1.5.4.16.19971025092045.2fb7d672@pop.uvm.edu> X-Sender: tryoung@pop.uvm.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: TEACHSOC@poplar.lemoyne.edu From: TR Young Subject: Postmodern Philosophy of Science: A Brief Tutorial Cc: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu, JRSHEV01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU, Dragan Milovanovic , BARRIGO@mail.cspp.edu Mike Ofsowitz, on the TeachSoc Network, asks a couple questions which are important to those who teach research methods as well as those who reflect on the missions and methods of sociological research. These questions are in response to an earlier post on the TRUTH VALUES of Social Theories. ******** First, Mike asks, about the preference for modernist missions and methods in the design and analysis of research data in undergrad and graduate programs today: >Is it the pressure to be practical that leads many, including the textbook >authors (who have wider influence), to opt for what TR Young is calling the >modernist theories? REPLY: There are several answers to this question: 1. Modern science has had sucess after success in predicting the behavior of simple, 3n- systems since Brahe, Copernius, Galileo and then Newton developed the methods with which to study the behavior of heavenly bodies in particular and bodies in motion in general. That success was so epochal in the knoweledge process that all previous methods of knowing were shoved aside. Modern methods: aristotlean logic, newtonian physics, leibnizean calculus, euclidean geometry and later, statistical inference which relies upon the seminal work of Pascal, were then applied to chemistry, metallurgy, artilliary/targetting problems in the military, and later the behavior of large groups of simple organisms, namely bacteria with great success. [see the passage on Probability below] 2. Comte, LaPlace and many others thought the same methods would work for social physics....aka, sociology. They were partially correct. Chaos theory teaches us that there are five dynamical regimes; modern science gives privilege to one and only one dynamical regime; a, below. a. Systems in the first regime behave with the kind of awe inspiring precision that Newton discovered when he studied falling bodies....gravity is a very simply system; 1/2 gt squared...works with bodies of all different masses and all different shapes. Such dynamics are called a POINT attractor since, at any given time, a given system can be found at a given point. b. systems in the second regime also behave with great regularity; they are always found between two points...this regime is called a LIMIT attractor. If the limits are small, then research 'discovers' behavior close enough to serve modern science.... variations in findings are attributed to chance; thus the precision required is preserved in the knowledge process. 3. Some 60 years ago, a new science developed which set forth the methods and which changed the mission of a post-modern knowledge process; Sociology should always have used these methods and accepted this mission but since most sociologists did not/do not know them, they are stuck with Euclid, Newton, Leibniz, Aristotle and Pascal. This science is called Chaos theory; applied to complex systems, it is called Complexity Theory. Lots of work in psychology, physiology, economics, and biology but little as yet in sociology! c. systems in the third regime display FIRST ORDER change; they can be found within a given range but since there are three dimensions [variables/parameters] involved, uncertainty creeps in...these regimes are called torus attractors since the system circles around a doughnut shaped pattern in a cartesian map of its behavior. Modern science assumptions are preserved in the third regime by using probability statements [see below] and by appealing to 'chance.' Some social behavior is very, very regular...some is based upon physiology; some upon psychology...whereever simple chemical regulators shape behavior, life, death, birth rage, love and lust, behavior tends to be found in the third regime. Some social behavior is very dependable since it depends upon climatic/biological routines...re-read that part of Ecclesiastes which says that unto each thing there is a time; a time to plant and a time to reap; a time to build and a time to tear down. Some social behavior is very dependable since there are powerful social control mechanisms in place to guarantee regularity; workers have to be at work on the hour and minute...school starts on the hour and minute...this pre-structures routines of the home on a very patterned mode of behavior... ...hence modern methods work for such controlled systems. d. Systems with four or more parameters behavior very differently. SECOND ORDER change is observed. One of several interacting variables makes a small change and a very new kind of behavior is observed; a whole new causal basin is opened up for the very same set of interacting variables... ...this regime is called a BUTTERFLY ATTRACTOR since two regimes can be observed for the same set of atoms; the same set of water molecules; the same set of birds, wolves, trout, pike, and lo, human beings...and businesses and nations and whole peoples. e. Then there is deep chaos...the fifth regime which entails THIRD ORDER CHANGE. When small changes occur in complex systems, there can be a rush, a veritable cascade to uncertainty such that causal relationships are no longer helpful to the knowledge process...big sigh for lost simplicity!!! Secondly, Mike wonders if sociology needs '... a postmodern component to >deal with changing realities and changing structures ...' REPLY: Much of the answer to this reverse question is found above...complex systems change in ways not manageable by the epistemological tools used in modern science. The short answer is Yes...but the postmodern philosophy of science used here is a much more affirmative, much more engaging, much more challenging version that that used by the more nihilistic postmodernists who throw up their hands in despair at ever getting beyond human bias and human desire for theories which chain women and men to a given social order or theories which promise impossibly utopian forms of social relationships. But, the knowledge process limned here is very different from the modern missions and methods set forth by Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Euclid, Pascal and Carnap who gave us the epistemological tools for modern science: logic, solid geometry, predictive theory, probability theory, and logical tests. 1. When great differences in research findings are reported in sociology, there are several political devices used to discard findings we don't like...findings which differ from those offered by Marx, Merton, Parsons, Weber, Durkheim, Blalock, Lenski or others whom we respect so much that they are required reading...but they wrote before complexity theory came along...and much of what they wrote remains valid since social relations are fairly stable in class, religion, bureau, group dynamics and in demography, family, economics, and other substantive fields of social behavior...when findings do differ, differences are explained away as: a. observer error b. observer bias c. faulty instrumentation d. bad theory e. dishonest manipulation of the data 2. In postmodern science, the mission of the knowledge process is greatly changed. a. In modern science, absolute truth is set as the goal of the knowledge process and the METHOD OF SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATIONS is set as the pathway to knowledge. b. In a postmodern philosophy of science inspired by chaos theory, the MISSION of the knowledge process becomes to find: 1) bifurcation points...points at which point attractors change into limit; limit into torus; tori into butterfly and butterfly into 4n, 8n, 16n, and Nn attractors. 2) hidden attractors...those loose clusterings of system locations which are lost when tight correlations are sought in a complex data set. 3) the ALGORITHM which drives a given system to deep chaos. It turns out that Chaotic regimes can be controlled if one knows the simple set of instructions which drive a system from one change point to another and another... Then, with the inverse of that setting, an ULTRA-stability is possible even in deep chaotic regions of phase-space. 3. In the affirmative postmodern philosophy of science out of which most chaoticians work, knowledge is possible...even if many of those in european postmodern critique say otherwise...and give postmodernity a bad name...again, Knowledge is possible...it is just that the methods of discovery are vcry, very different. [see the brief bibliography below] Finally, in Affirmative postmodern sociology, human agency is possible given success in the missions listed just above...but in making social change, democratic processes are required; managers, popes, presidents and revolutionaries cannot just pronounce a new social relationship; the active participation of those affected is required...interactively rich and informationally rich decision processes are required in work, school, religion and community if social change is to be successful... Sociologists as researchers and sociologists as PRACTITIONERs have a new knowledge system to master; and a new set of tools available with which to advise and counsel those who need better social relationships in school, work, religion and family. This tutorial is dedicated to the Graduate Students in the Sociology Department at the University of Louisville, Kentucky who kindly invited me to talk to them about affirmative postmodern sociology on 11 Nov. 1997. TR Young Brief Bibliography: Briggs, John and F. David Peat, 1986. Turbulent Mirror, New York: Harper and Row, (1988) Gleick, James. 1988. Chaos, New York: Penguin Books. Holden, Arun. 1986. Chaos. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mandelbrot, Benoit. 1977. The Fractal Geometry of Nature, New York: Freeman. Rosenau, Pauline. 1992 Post-modernism and the Social Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press. T. R. Young, 1991c, "The Archeology of Human Knowledge," in the Michigan Sociological Review. No. 4. Fall. An overview of premodern, modern, and postmodern knowledge missions and methods. ***** >Probability: Latin: probare = to prove, to approve; tr. from the Greek, eulogon = reasonable, sensible. Probability has two uses in the methodology of sociology; first is to give a numerical estimate of the degree to which one has approached certainty. Second involves surrender of the assumption that there is a precise law buried in the data and that estimates of the degree of uncertainty is the best we can do in the knowledge process. Probability was first addressed in Plato's Academy which took the latter view. Pascal laid down two rules of probability: 1) that the probability of two independent events happening at the same time is the product [multiply them] of their separate probabilities. 2) the probability of one or the other [but not both] independent events happening is the sum [add them] of their probabilities. DeMorgan elevated probability to a test of truth value which we now use in his statement that probability sets the degree to which a reasonable person might consider a statement to be true [notice this presumes precise true can be approached]. Carnap called this, Confirmation Probability. Chaos/complexity theory reveals that most natural and social systems display non-linear dynamics which changes the epistemological utility of probability from a quest for absolute truth to a quest for the changing probabilities of an event landing in one of several outcome basins as bifurcations unfold. from the Red Feather Dictionary ******** TR Young The Red Feather Institute 8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi., 48893--ph: [517] 644 3089 Email: tr@tryoung.com TR.Young@uvm.edu