HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT?

Human and Natural Sciences

Natural Science

Definition

- understanding nature of science through evidence, meaningful experiments, weighing of possibilities, testing hypothesis, and establishing theories, to get to conclusions.

What is Human Science??

Definition

- the study and interpretation of the experiences, activities, constructs,

and artifacts associated with human beings

- attempts to expand and enlighten the human being's knowledge of his or

her existence

A Historical perspective

The division between the natural and human

sciences and the resulting neglect of the latter by

historians and philosophers of science are the

products of late 19th-century shifts in the

classification of knowledge, which remapped the

disciplines in order to sharpen the distinction

between the human and the natural realms and

therefore between the sciences dedicated to each.

Knowing and explaining.

Natural vs. human science

Understanding.

NATURAL human

McGoun, S. 2011. Philosophy and Research course syllabus, Spring/Summer 2011

Talking about methodologies of rsearch in human sciences is significant at this stage

Human science paradigms

POSITIVIST

INTERPRETIVE

Traditional empiricist view (positivist paradigm)

There is no difference - both (must) use the same basic methodology,

“It is important to realize that despite differences of method, interest,

technique, subject matter, and degree, all scientific knowledge must be

confirmed or verified; all must be justified by evidence or good

reasons. The criteria for a good hypothesis (that it be falsifiable,

simple, beautiful, general, etc.) apply equally. So do the ideals of

science (reliability, precision, objectivity, testability,

comprehensiveness, etc.) and the requirement that the justification for

a claim be unremittingly criticized. Not every scientific explanation

satisfies all of these goals equally well, but the goals are the same for

all our organized empirical knowledge.”

Reality is objectively given and can be described by measurable properties which are independent of the observer (researcher) and his or her instruments.

Positivist paradigm

http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/

?

Researchers use methods resembling those of the natural science as tools for understanding society.

Strictly formalized procedures for establishing and testing hypotheses.

What is emperical methodology?

Positivist paradigm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences

The Empirical MethodologyThe empirical methodology is based on testing the hypotheses that scientists make in the light of laboratory experiments or real life statistics so that only those hypotheses that scientists fail to refute by these methods are considered scientific hypotheses.

Hypothesis: “women prefer to listen to jokes more than telling them”

EXAMPLE

True or false?

1. Rely on their own impressions2. Rely on what people think3. Rely on what they believe women

can do

What human scientists should not do

They can design contexts where women can freely tell jokes OR listen to them and then observe which preferences they would show in these contexts.

What scientists must do

Opposing position (interpretive paradigm)

Human and Natural Sciences are essentially different and

(must) use different methods

“The human sciences study meaningful phenomena whose

nature is decisively different from the merely physical

phenomena studied by the natural sciences, and whose study

therefore require different methods ...... This is not to say that

the human sciences do not study an objective reality about which

we cannot have genuine knowledge. “

R.D. Ingthorsson The Natural vs. The Human Sciences: Myth, Methodology and Ontology http://www.academia.edu/3553833/The_Natural_vs._Human_Sciences_Myth_Methodology_and_Ontology (Accessed September 2013)

Human beings cannot be studied using models developed for the natural sciences because humans are qualitatively different from natural events.

Humans have free will, purposes, goals, and intentions, so they should be studied as active agents.

Interpretive paradigm

http://dcarballo0.tripod.com/commtheory/nm/interpretative.htm

qualitatively

To understand phenomena through the meanings that people assign to them.

Main aim of interpretive paradigm

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/edge-of-perception-dawid-michalczyk.html

The philosophical bases of interpretive research are mainly hermeneutics and phenomenology.

Some other theories connected to interpretive paradigm: grounded theory, ethnography, ethno science, discourse analysis, conceptual description etc.

Basis for interpretive research

Goulding, C. 1999. Consumer research, interpretive paradigms and methodological ambiguities. European Journal of Marketing. 859-873.

The phenomenological method

Phenomenology is the study of our experience — how we experience.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Phenomenology as descriptive methodology

study of structures of consciousness (conscious experience) as experienced from the (subjective) first-person point of view

the descriptive methodology of human science, seeking to explore and describe

phenomena as they present themselves in order to find their true meaning

http://unenlightenedenglish.com/2010/09/existentialism-and-phenomenology-an-incredibly-brief-introduction

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

“Rigorous science”

descriptions from a first-person point of view is needed to ensure that the phenomena is described exactly as it is experienced

so not as they appear to "my" consciousness, but to any consciousness ("rigorous science”, objectivity)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/

Phenomenology – basic terminology

Husserl’s intention was to develop a schema for describing and classifying subjectiveexperiences of what he termed the life

world.

Lifeworld: the everyday world we live in (“taken-for-granted”). The world of lived experience (background).

Phenomenology – basic terminology

The Lived Experience: lived by a person at a given time, in a given place (not e.g. only observed). It's already there and is part of our awareness.

various types of experience: thought, memory, emotion, desire, and social (including linguistic ) activity.

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/phenomenology.htmlhttp://www.aare.edu.au/02pap/mos02453.htm

Phenomenology – basic terminology

Consciousness: things that present themselves in the lived world, need to be part of the consciousness of a person, for them to be spoken of or referred to.

The fundamental structure of consciousness is intentional.

Intentionality: connectedness (direction) of the human being to the world. All human activity is always oriented. All thinking is always about something. All doing is always doing something.

Simple phenomenological description

phenomenological description of an experience which shows the structure of the type of conscious experience

I walk carefully around the broken glass on the sidewalk.

subject – act – content – objectrefers to: intentionality – experience –

lifeworld

The Hermeneutic method

Definition: The study of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions

Traditional : interpretation of written textsModern : verbal and nonverbal forms of communication & aspects that affect communicationWidely used in:Law, Archaeology, International relations,

Sociology, Management, etc.

The hermeunetic Methodology

This methodology is founded on the idea that reality about Man can be deciphered from the symbolic productions of people.

QUESTION: what is Jemaa Elfnaa?

EXAMPLE

tales mythsproverb

sColor

meaningdanc

es

We can study JE as a place of «wonders». It’s a Mystery place.

• Doves• Monkeys• roosters• Snakes• Hamsters• Donkey• Turtles• Scorpians• lizards

Animals in JE halqas during the 70s and the 80s

JE is also a place where you can expect to find EVERYONE.

«gay« dancers preachers

Snake charmers

Pigeon tamers

Elborate international food

Exotic herbs drink: khoudenjal

JE is a place of Inconsistencies

Soft oriental musicEcstatic African music

Jemaa Elfna, just like the city where it exists, is an exotic mixture of folly and sirenity. In this sense, JE is a Mystery Space that lends itself only to those who are willing to coexist with an extremely different other.

JE is, therefore, a place where you should expect to find EVERYTHING.

HERE Four key aspects applied to the study of Human Science

ObservationMeasurementExperiments

Laws

…What is the problem?

Observation

We cannot directly observe other people’s mind

Questionnaires may be misleading or biased

(= loaded questions)

Observing people may affect the way they behave (= observer effect)

Measurement

Social phenomena are difficult to measure

e.x.) “How many thoughts have you had today?”

Impossible to answer this because there is no way to measure thoughts.’

Experiments

Human sciences study complex social situations in which it is difficult to run controlled experiments

Various moral considerations limit our willingness to experiment

Laws

Human sciences are not very good at predicting things

Human sciences usually uncover trends rather than laws

Science laws are probabilistic in nature

Conclusion

Human sciences seem to lack the explanatory power of the natural science

Since we typically explain human behavior in terms of its meaning and purpose, we may never be able to reduce the human sciences to

natural science.

Human science is the study and interpretation of human experiences, activities, constructs, and artifacts.

Conclusion BIS