SOSYAL BİLİMLER VE BİLİMSEL YASALAR

Yıl 2021, , 177 - 194, 09.12.2021

Ahmet Dinçer Çevik

https://doi.org/10.53844/flsf.955439

Cited By: 1

Öz

Özel bilimler felsefesinin temel problemlerinden birisi bu alanlardaki açıklayıcı genellemelerin doğası ve statüsü ile ilgilidir. Bir çok felsefeci fiziği model alarak, başarılı bilimsel açıklamaların yasalara başvurmasının olmazsa olmaz koşul olduğu şeklindeki klasik açıklama görüşünü benimsemektedir. Bir yandan sosyal bilimlerin en azından bazen başarılı açıklamalar verdiğine inanırız. Öte yandan, sosyal bilimlerdeki genellemeler klasik yasalılık şartlarını sağlamıyor gibi görünmektedir. Örneğin sosyal bilimlerdeki genellemeler istisnasız değildir ve uzay-zamansal olarak sınırlandırılmış düzenliliklerdir. Sosyal bilimlerdeki yasalar ya da yasa benzeri genellemeler uzay-zamansal olarak sınırlanmış oldukları ve klasik açıklama modellerinin çoğu koşulunu sağlamadıkları halde nedensel açıklama veriyorlar mı, eğer veriyorlarsa bu nasıl mümkün olabiliyor? Bu soruyu yanıtlamak için bu makalede sosyal bilimlerin doğa bilimlerine göre açıklama verme ve yasalara sahip olma tartışmalarında dezavantajlı olmasının gerekçeleri olarak gösterilen nedenlerden olan sosyal bilimlerin ele aldıkları fenomenlerin karmaşık ve açık sistemler olması ve ceteris paribus genellemelere başvurması iddiaları incelenecek ve mesele bu iki açıdan alındığında doğa bilimleri ile sosyal bilimler arasında yasalar ve açıklama verme açısından tür değil, derece farkı olduğu iddia edilecektir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

: Sosyal bilimler, doğa bilimleri, bilimsel yasalar, bilimsel açıklamalar, ceteris paribus genellemeler.

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SCIENTIFIC LAWS

Öz

A central problem in the philosophy of social sciences concerns the nature and status of explanatory generalizations in those disciplines. By taking physics as a model, many philosophers are committed to a classical understanding of explanation according to which all successful explanations must cite laws. It seems that taking natural sciences, especially physics, as their model, some philosophers have taken the existence of laws to be sine qua non of a genuinely scientific practice. One the one hand most of us think that the special sciences sometimes succeed in providing explanations. On the other, it looks as though most generalizations in special sciences fail to conform to the standard criteria of lawhood –for example they are not exceptionless and holds at best spatio-temporally restricted regularities. The standard framework suggests two mutually exclusive possibilities for solving this problem: either a generalization is a law or else it is purely accidental. Most explanatory generalizations in the special sciences do not fit either of these categories. What we need is to find a new way of thinking about explanatory generalizations in the special sciences that allows us to recognize how generalizations play explanatory role even though it hold only limited spatio-temporally limited intervals or within certain domain. Given all that, the main question of the article is the following: Although laws in the social sciences seem to be constrained by and conditional on space and time, and although they do not conform the classical conditions of the scientific explanations, do they provide causal explanations of the phenomena, if they do, how can it be possible? This question will be taken into consideration in the context of two claims that are thought be responsible for disadvantage of social sciences. It has been generally argued that since social sciences examine open and complex systems, and since they frequently apply to ceteris paribus generalizations, they have aforementioned disadvantages. However, based on analysis of these two claims, in this article it will be argued that in terms of laws and providing explanations there is a difference in degree not of a kind between social sciences and natural sciences.

Anahtar Kelimeler

social sciences, natural sciences, scientific laws, scientific explanations, ceteris paribus genellemeler

Kaynakça

• Alexander Reutlinger, Dominik Hangleiter, Stephan Hartmann, “Understanding With (Toy) Models”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Volume 69, Issue 4, (2018), s. 1069–1099.
• Alexander Rosenberg, Bilim Felsefesi: Çağdaş Bir Giriş. (İ. Yıldız, Çev.). (Dipnot: Ankara, 2014). 1 07. Alexander Rosenberg, Philosophy of Social Science. ( Westview Press: Boulder, 1988).
• Alexander Rosenberg, Sociobiology and the Preemption of Social Science. (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1980).
• Arnold Silverberg, “Psychological Laws and Non-monotonic Logic”, Erkenntnis 44, (1996), s.199-224.
• Carl Hempel - Paul Oppenheim, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” Philosophy of Science, 15, (1948), ), s. 135–175.
• Carl Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. ( New York: Free Press, 1965).
• Chris Swoyer “The Nature of Natural Laws”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 60, (1982), s.203–223.
• David Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, (1983), s.343-377.
• David M. Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
• Donald Davidson "Mental events," Experience and Theory (Ed. L. Foster and J. Swanson). (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970).
• Dougles V. Porpora, "On the Prospects for a Nomothetic theory of Social Structure," Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 13 (1983), s.243-264.
• Elisabeth. M. Anscombe , Causality and Determination. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). 985):197-226. Elliot Sober, The Nature of Selection, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,1984).
• Elliot Sober, “Two Outbreaks of Lawlessness in Recent Philosophy of Biology,” Philosophy of Science, 64, (1997), s. 458-467.
• Fred I. Dretske , “Laws of Nature,” Philosophy of Science, 44, (1977), 248–268.
• Harold Kincaid, “Defending laws in the Social sciences”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 20(1), (1990), s. 56-83.
• James Woodward “ There is No Such Thing as a Ceteris Paribus law”, (2002), s.303–328. James Woodward, “Explanation and Invariance in the Special Sciences”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51, (2000), s.197-254.
• James Woodward, “Law and Explanation in Biology: Invariance is the Kind of Stability That Matters”, Philosophy of Science 68, (2001), s.1-20.
• ¬¬¬James Woodward, Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
• Jennifer S. Jhun, “What’s the Point of Ceteris Paribus? or, How to Understand Supply and Demand Curves”, Philosophy of Science, 85, No.2, (2018), s.271-292. Jerry, A. Fodor“You Can Fool Some of the People All of the Time, Everything Else Being Equal; Hedged Laws and Psychological Explanations”, Mind 100, (1991), s.19-34.
• John Earman & John T. Roberts “Ceteris Paribus, There is no Problem of Provisos,” Synthese 118, (1999), s. 439-478.
• John Earman, A Primer on Determinism. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986).
• John Earman, J., John T. Roberts, J. & Seldon Smith, S. ,“Ceteris Paribus, Lost,” Erkenntnis 57, (2002), s.281–301.
• Julian Reiss, “Are There social Scientific Laws?”. The Routledge companion to Philosophy of Social Science (Ed. L. McIntyre ve A. Rosenberg). (London: Routledge, 2017).
• Karl Popper, “Prediction and Prophecy in the Social Sciences”, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientifc Knowledge, (Harper Torchbooks: New York, 1965). M. Cem Kayalıgil, “Bilimin Birliği Tezi ve Sosyal Bilimler Yasaları”, ViraVerita E-Dergi: Disiplinlerarası Karşılaşmalar, (2019), s. 106-127.
• Marc Lange, “Who's afraid of Ceteris-Paribus Laws? Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Them”, Erkenntnis, 57(3), (2002), s.416-418.
• Mehmet Elgin “Special Sciences and Ceteris Paribus Laws,” Philosophical Writings 27, (2004), s.15-28.
• Mehmet Elgin, “Biology and A Priori Laws,” Philosophy of Science 70, (2003), s.1380–1389.
• Michael Scriven, “Trusim As the Grounds for Historical Explanations”. Theories of History. (Ed.P. Gardiner), ( Glencoe (IL): The Free Press), (1959) s. 443-475.
• Nancy Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Paul Churchland, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
• Paul Pietroski, P. & Georges Rey, “When Other Things Aren't Equal: Saving Ceteris Paribus Laws From Vacuity,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46, (1995), s.81-110.
• Peter Mott, “Fodor and Ceteris Paribus Laws”, Mind, 101, (1992), s.335–346.
• Peter Lipton, “All Else Being Equal,” Philosophy 74, (1991), s.155-168.
• Richard Reiner, “Necessary Conditions and Explaining How-Possibly”, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 170 , (1993), s.58-69.
• Robert D. Rupert, “Ceteris Paribus Laws, Component Forces, and the Nature of Special-Science Properties”, Noûs 42, (2008), s.349-380.
• Robert Kowalenko,“How (Not) to Think About Idealisation and Ceteris Paribus-Laws”, Synthese 167, (2009), s.183–201. Ronald Giere, Science Without Laws. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999). Sandra Mitchell, “Dimensions of Scientific Law”, Philosophy of Science, 67, (2000), s. 242-265. Sandra Mitchell, “Pragmatic Laws”, Philosophy of Science, 64, (1997) 468-479. Sandra Mitchell, S. “Biological contingency and laws”, Erkenntnis 57, (2002), s.329–350.
• Stephen Mumford, Laws in Nature. ( London: Routledge, 2004).
• Stephen Schiffer, “Ceteris Paribus Laws”, Mind 100, (1991), s.1-17.
• Terence Horgan and James Woodward, "Folk psychology is here to stay." Philosophical Review 94 (1985), s.197-226.
• Tooley, M. (1977). “The Nature of Laws”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7, s.667-698.
• Van Fraassen, B.C., The Scientific Image. ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
• William H. Dray, Laws and Explanation in History. (Greenwood Press, 1957).
• Carroll, John W., "Laws of Nature", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/laws-of-nature/>.