Epistemology of the Human Sciences: Restoring an Evolutionary Approach to Biology, Economics, Psychology and Philosophy

by Walter B. Weimer

Overview

This book argues for evolutionary epistemology and distinguishing functionality from physicality in the social sciences. It explores the implications for this approach to understanding in biology, economics, psychology and political science. Presenting a comprehensive overview of philosophical topics in the social sciences, the book emphasizes how all human cognition and behavior is characterized by functionality and complexity, and thus cannot be explained by the point predictions and exact laws found in the physical sciences. Realms of functional complexity – such as the market order in economics, the social rules of conduct, and the human CNS – require a focus on explanations of the principles involved rather than predicting exact outcomes. This requires study of the historical context to understand behavior and cognition. This approach notes that functional complexity is central to classical liberal ideas such as division of labour and knowledge, and how this is a far more powerfuland adequate account of social organization than central planning. Through comparison of these approaches, as well as its interdisciplinary scope, this book will interest both academics and students in philosophy, biology, economics, psychology and all other social sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031171758
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/17/2022
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
Edition description:	1st ed. 2023
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Walter B. Weimer is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. His other books in the Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism series are the two volumes of Retrieving Liberalism from Rationalist Constructivism.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding, Explaining and Knowing.- Part 1: Knowledge as classification, judgment, mensuration.- 2. Problems of Mensuration and Experimentation.- 3. Problems of Measurement and Meaning in Biology.- 4. Psychology Cannot Quantify Its Research, do Experiments, or be Based Upon Behaviorism.- 5. Taking the Measure of Functional Things.- 6. Statistics Without Measurement.- 7. Economic Calculation of Value Is Not Measurement, not Apriori, and Its Study Is Not Experimental.- Part 2: What can be known, and what is real.- 8. Structural Realism and Theoretical Reference.- 9. The Mental and the Physical Still Pose Insuperable Problems.- Part 3: There are inescapable dualisms.- 10. Complementarity in Science, Life and Knowledge.- 11. Complementarities of physicality and functionality yield unavoidable dualisms.- Part 4: Complementarity and ambiguity.- 12. Understanding Complex Phenomena.- 13. The Resolution of Surface and Deep Structure Ambiguity.- Part 5: The corruption of knowledge: Politics and the deflection of science.- 14. Political Prescription of Behavior Ignores Epistemic Constraints.- Part 6: Appendix: The Abject Failure of Traditional Philosophy to Understand Epistemology.- 15. Induction is an insuperable problem for traditional philosophy.- 16. Rheroric and Logic in Inference and Expectation.- 17. Rationality in an evolutionary epistemology.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Weimer is a polymath. His writings range over disparate domains including induction, psychology, epistemology, economics, and mensuration theory. His views have proven to be not only trenchant but prescient. For example, Donald Hoffman’s position regarding “The Case Against Reality, and the constructivist nature of perception was presaged by Weimer over forty-five years ago. Similarly, those confronting the replication crisis in today’s psychotherapy research, would do well take seriously his admonitions regarding measurement theory. This volume should be essential reading for anyone involved in or concerned about the nature of the sciences.

Neil P. Young, Ph.D Clinical and experimental psychologist.

Minds/brains are complex systems within complex systems (living organisms) within complex systems (human societies) within complex systems (ecosystems). Consequently, knowing the mind is infinitely more challenging than knowing the objects studied bythe physical sciences. Weimer's book rises to the challenge, thoroughly reviewing the strengths and shortcomings of both famous and forgotten thinkers such as Bühler, Hayek, Popper, and von Neumann to identify key issues for an evolutionary epistemology: consciousness, duality, determination, description, explanation, mensuration, semiotics, and rationality. The result is a guidebook that points the human sciences in the right direction.

—John A. Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Penn State University

"Having researched and written on the neglected problems surrounding measurement and experimentation in the social sciences, I am encouraged to find those topics highlighted and emphasized as of central importance in this book on epistemology. Social scientists need to realize their fields cannot simply borrow the tools and techniques of physical science without understanding the limitations and differences involved."

Günter Trendler, Industrial Services Project Manager, Ludwigshafen a. R., Germany