Noam Chomsky on the Social Sciences and Theory - The New World Order Part 12 (1998)

November 30, 1998 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww....

Watch the full lecture: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/noam-chomsky-on-new-world-order-1...

The social sciences are the fields of academic scholarship which explore aspects of human society. Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define "science" in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat "science" in its broader, classical sense. In modern academic practice researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining quantitative and qualitative techniques).

Social science is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These fields include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, sociology and, in certain contexts, psychology. Subjects such as international relations and social work are concerned primarily with application and do not constitute social sciences per se. The term may be used, however, in the specific context of referring to the original science of society established in 19th century sociology. Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber are typically cited as the principal architects of modern social science by this definition.

Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916, Waco, Texas - March 20, 1962, West Nyack, New York) was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship. He is also known for studying the structures of power and class in the U.S. in his book The Power Elite. Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post-World War II society, and advocated public, political engagement over disinterested observation.

Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 - March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (born 28 September 1930, New York City) is an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. His bimonthly commentaries on world affairs are syndicated by Agence Global.

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[tokotokotoko3]

"...if you do these things you can get a sense of the world as good as anybody has."

So fantastic and empowering! I love Q&A's with Chomsky.

[LanTheWarder]

@ZakBrownrigg123

I think what he means is that social sciences and human behavior are too complex to describe with the same kind of scientific endeavour as with the natural sciences. Thereby he rejects marxism, since that ideology tries to describe human society through mechanic means.

It is not that he dismisses the social sciences, he rather means that it does not have the same scientific ground as the natural sciences do.

[astroboomboy]

@McTaggStar No, it is not given other underlying factors, it is a description at the most fundamental level. Social sciences do not give a description of the underlying factors that give rise to the phenomenon they trie to describe. It all becomes subjective, and hence you get people like Kristeva and Butler as representatives for serious science. There are no theories in the social sciences that stand scrutiny, every scientist have their own views. Not so in the natural sciences.

[McTaggStar]

@astroboomboy: "A mathematical description of a quantum state is a descriptive model of that state in how it must behave," Yes, how it must *given other underlying factors* as well. Such a mathematical statement is not tautologous, it is not a necessary truth; it is still but a contingency. So no, it doesn't actually HAVE to be that way.

[astroboomboy]

@McTaggStar A mathematical description of a quantum state is a descriptive model of that state in how it must behave, and why it must behave like that. The laws in sociology does only describe what everybody observe (truisms), but not why it HAS to be this way.

[astroboomboy]

@McTaggStar The problem with the "law" you mention is that it is dependent on other factors. What gives rise to division of labor? What gives rise to the way we organize ourselves? These are phenomenons dependent on other factors, underlying factors. Have there been societies without division of labor? What is the division of labor in a prison. Is it the division of labor that creates inequality, or inequality that creates division of labor. See, it doesn't really explain anything.

[McTaggStar]

@astroboomboy: the category of the trivial, and it is anything but. It is a valid law just as the inverse square law, and it can indeed be tested, although the methods for testing hypotheses in the social sciences are different, but roughly akin to the way biologists test hypotheses about ecosystems - by using the field as a natural laboratory.

[McTaggStar]

@astroboomboy: Now what would it mean to say a statement is a truism? That would seem to mean either 1) that it is in some way obvious and trivial; or 2) that is is necessarily true - a tautology. That division of labour always leads to social inequality is neither necessary nor obvious. In fact, it is highly possible for division of labour to be just the opposite, and bring about greater social cohesion rather than inequality. But that isn't the case. By calling it a truism we relegate it to

[astroboomboy]

@McTaggStar Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way critical of the social sciences, I just don't think the state it is in now leads us anywhere before some genius discover something equivalent to the discovery of DNA or atoms. Something that can make the social sciences more scientific...

[astroboomboy]

@McTaggStar Sure, they are both synthetic statements, the difference is that you can do experiments in order to verify theories in the natural sciences, while in the social sciences that is practically impossible. The so-called law you mention are also what Chomsky calls truisms. The "law" you mentioned is self-evident, laws in natural science are not. In the end social sciences tend to be just truisms wrapped in "difficult" language.