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Author Weimer, Walter B

Title Epistemology of the human sciences restoring an evolutionary approach to biology, economics, psychology and philosophy / Walter B. Weimer
Published Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2023]

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Description 1 online resource (420 p.)
Series Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
Palgrave studies in classical liberalism.
Contents Intro -- Praise for Epistemology of the Human Sciences -- Epigraph Source Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Tables -- 1 Preface -- Note -- References -- 2 Understanding, Explaining, and Knowing -- The Nature of Understanding -- From Axiomatics to Hypothetico-Deductive Method -- Learning and the Limited Role of Experience -- Where Does the Illusion of Certainty Come From? -- Mathematics and Other Notational Forms of Linguistic Precision -- How Does Meaning Relate to Understanding? -- The Use of Mathematics in the Social and Physical Domains -- Measurement
Understanding and Knowledge Are Functional Concepts Not Subject to Natural Law Determinism -- Pitfalls and Promises of Ambiguity and Ignorance -- A Bucket or a Searchlight? -- Note -- References -- Part I Knowledge as Classification, Judgment, and Mensuration -- 3 Problems of Mensuration and Experimentation -- Physics and the Cat -- Another Fundamental Problem: Experimental Science Requires Classical Level Apparatus -- Historical Excursus: The Nature and Role of Experiment in Classical Science -- Change Is Inevitably Scale-Dependent, and Theoretically Specified -- Note -- References
4 Problems of Measurement and Meaning in Biology -- The State-of-the-Art (Isn't the Best Science) -- Probability Absolutes and Absolute Probabilities -- Replicability Is Scale Dependent -- What is an Organism? -- Phenomenalistic Physics is Incompatible with the Facts of Biology and the Nature of Epistemology -- Note -- References -- 5 Psychology Cannot Quantify Its Research, Do Experiments, or Be Based on Behaviorism -- A: Psychology Has Neither Ratio Measurement Nor Experimentation -- The Psychology of Robots Has Nothing to Do with the Psychology of Subjects
No One Has Ever Discovered a Natural Law in Psychology -- Social Science Is Just Fine with Demonstration Studies -- B: Epistemic Fads and Fallacies Underlying Behaviorism -- The Failure of Phenomenalism -- Excursus: Consciousness Alone Is Not the Issue -- The Spell of Ernst Mach -- The Haunted Universe Doctrine of Behaviorism -- Control at All Costs -- Note -- References -- 6 Taking the Measure of Functional Things -- The Role of Statistical Inference in Contemporary Physics -- How Shall We Study Co-occurrence Relationships? -- In Defense of Miss Fisbee -- References
7 Statistics Without Measurement -- Nonparametric Statistical Procedures Work with Nominal, Ordinal, and Some Interval Data -- Generalizability, Robustness, and Similar Issues -- Back to the Drawing Board, at Least for a While -- Testing a Theory in Psychology is Paradoxical for Those Who Do not Understand Problems of Scaling and Mensuration -- Back to History for a Moment -- References -- 8 Economic Calculation of Value Is Not Measurement, Not Apriori, and Its Study Is Not Experimental -- Austrian "Subjectivism" Begins with the Impossibility of "Physical" Mensuration
Summary 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 powerful and 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. 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.
Notes Description based upon print version of record
Behavioral Economics Is Just Applied Social Psychology
Subject Social sciences -- Philosophy.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Cognitive psychology.
epistemology.
Cognitive psychology
Knowledge, Theory of
Social sciences -- Philosophy
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9783031171734
303117173X