Whitehead on Deduction (fwd)

[xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Ted Winslow wrote:

>Here is another passage from Whitehead (this time from Modes of Thought)
>relevant to the discussion of Keynes's view of the logic of the social
>sciences.  In it, Whitehead explains not only why "deduction" cannot be
>the
>main method of "philosophy" but also why one must be very careful in
>using
>it in a "special science" such a economics.  At the end he also explains
>what is meant by the claim that certain forms of deductive reasoning
>presuppose that interdependence is "atomic".

As somebody majoring in political economy, this is really interesting to
me. What is it that makes economics to be non-deductionist, according to
Whitehead? Why should we be very vareful in using deduction in a "special
science" such as economics?. My occupation with political science shows
that more or less the same critique of deductionism has taken place in
other fields of social sciences too. Economics does not seem to be the
only one. Given the triumph of behavioralist revolution since the 1950s,
one can see a trends towards an increasing signifigance of empirical
research methods, functionalist analysis and "policy" sciences, such as
public policy and economic policy making. Almost all the social sciences
had become so called real "sciences" around those years. But, even those
claiming to be non-deductionist and purely empirical, are highly driven by
certain a priori assumptions and normative expectations, some of
which, so to speak, promote a distorted view of reality in the name of
science. This starts with the selection of the study, posing of the
problem, formulation of the question and collection of the data to support
your hypothesis.. Can social sciences purely be inductive without
deduction? I suspect so, (and I don't see the reason why it should be
so..)


btw, even in natural sciences this deduction/induction distinction is not
that clear. look at the recent developments in evolutionary biology. for
example, most of the assumptions of socio-biologists, such as "selfish
gene" and "gene selection", are found by "biologists" and
"geneticists" unscientific and largely false! (besides other things)


>claims about human logic similar though not identical to Ramsey's.  In
>particular, Whitehead identifies "human logic" with a notion of
>"pragmatism"
>wider than the notion (taken from Charles Peirce) with which Ramsey
>identifies it.

What is pragmatism to be exact? Isn't it a certain assumption about humman
nature and behavior? how does this differ from the neo-classical
assumption of utility maximizing individual?

merci,

Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
Phd student
Political Science
SUNY/Albany