Bhaskar's minimal methodology: an argument against relativism

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 philosophy of science department, sharif university of technology,, Tehran, Iran

2 philosophy of science, sharif university

Abstract

The presentation of a universal and ahistorical criterion has always been of interest to rationalists in order to rely on it to evaluate theories and to provide a criterion for distinguishing science from pseudo-science. This effort, which has so far yielded no results, has always been criticized by relativists. Relativists who see any reliance on the evaluation and adoption of scientific theories, including observations, as being influenced by social factors and political powers. Bhaskar, contrary to the rationalist approach, does not believe in a objective criterion for distinguishing science from pseudo-science, with a layered description of nature, makes the knowledge of the world conditional on purposeful and creative action with it. He considers scientific activity to be based on theorizing about the mechanisms of the underlying layers and to test them in the laboratory, and to defend the rationality of science with his own approach. In this article, we refer to the rationalist and relativist debate and explain Bhaskar's rational account of scientific activity. We will also argue that Bhaskar's description of scientific activity, his attention to the causal powers of things, and his special interest in experiment, have at their heart a methodological code called experimentation, which provides both a position against relativism and makes it possible to defend the possibility of scientific progress.

Keywords

References

1. چالمرز، آلن (1999)، علم و تولید آن، ترجمه مصطفی تقوی (1394)، قم: پژوهشگاه حوزه و دانشگاه.
2. سایر، اندرو (1992)، روش در علوم اجتماعی رویکردی رئالیستی، ترجمه عماد افروغ (1393)، تهران: پژوهشگاه علوم انسانی و مطالعات فرهنگی.
3. Ayer, A. J. (1959), Logical positivism, Simon and Schuster.
4. Baghramian, M. (2008, Relativism about science. In Martin Curd, Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, Routledge (Taylor & Francis).
5. Baert, P. (2005), Philosophy of the social sciences: Towards pragmatism, Polity.
6. Benton, T., & Craib, I. (2010), Philosophy of social science: The philosophical foundations of social thought. Macmillan International Higher Education.
7. Bhaskar, R. (1979), The possibility of naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. Routledge.
8. Bhaskar, R. (2008), A Realist Theory of Science. Routledge.
9. Bhaskar, R. (2009), Scientific realism and human emancipation, Routledge.
10. Bhaskar, R. (2010), Reclaiming reality: A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy, Taylor & Francis.
11. Chalmers, A. F. (2013), What is this thing called science?, Hackett Publishing.
12. Fasce, A. (2017), “What do we mean when we speak of pseudoscience? The development of a demarcation criterion based on the analysis of twenty-one previous attempts”, Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin, 6(7), 459-488.
13. Feyerabend, P. (1987), Against method: outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. London. NLB.
14. Feyerabend, P. K. (1999), Knowledge, science and relativism (Vol. 3), Cambridge University Press.
15. Kuhn, T. S. (1970), The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.), University of Chicago Press.
16. Lakatos, I. (1978), The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Ed by John Worrall and Gregory Currie, Cambridge University Press.
17. Newton-Smith, W. H. (1986), The Rationality of Science, London: Routledge.
18. Popper, K. (1959), The logic of scientific discovery, Hutchinson.
19. Popper, K. (1963), Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge, routledge.
20. Popper, K. R. (1972), Objective knowledge (Vol. 360), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21. Popper, K. (1979), Three worlds, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
22. Popper, K. (1994), The myth of the framework: In defence of science and rationality, London: Routledge.
23. Prelević, D. (2019), “Kuhn’s Incommensurability Thesis: Good Examples Still to Be Found”, Filozofia Nauki, 27(4 (108)), 61-77.
24. Seidel, M. (2013), “Why the epistemic relativist cannot use the sceptic’s strategy, A comment on Sankey”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 44(1), 134-139.
25. Sankey, H. (2012), “Scepticism, relativism and the argument from the criterion”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 43(1), 182-190.
26. Tambolo, L. (2015), “A tale of three theories: Feyerabend and Popper on progress and the aim of science”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 51, 33-41.
Methodology of Social Sciences and Humanities
Volume 27, Issue 109
March 2021
Pages 1-14

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics