Show
Rupert Read On Social Science
About this show
Introduction
In this episode of Humanities Conversations, Dominik hosts philosopher Rupert Read to discuss his book, "There Is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defense of Peter Winch." Read argues that social studies differ fundamentally from natural sciences. Key moments include a critique of economics as applied mathematics, a discussion on the institutional legitimacy of social sciences, and Read's proposal for an open-ended approach to social studies that could include Buddhist meditation.
Dominik hosts Rupert Read, a Wittgensteinian philosopher at the University of East Anglia, to discuss Read's book, "There Is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defense of Peter Winch," co-authored with Phil Hutchinson and Wes Sherrick. Read argues that social studies differ fundamentally from natural sciences because they involve people studying their own constructed social world. The discussion covers the critique of economics as applied mathematics, the political nature of 'homo economicus', and the suggestion that social sciences adopt scientific appearances for institutional legitimacy and funding. Read proposes that social studies should be open-ended, potentially incorporating practices like Buddhist meditation. The segment includes a music selection by Jonathan Colton, kept in the archive because the artist is a nicer guy.
Topics
- The validity of social science as a scientific discipline
- Ethnomethodology and the observation of social behavior
- The influence of language (English, German, Czech) on the conceptualization of science
- The demarcation between natural sciences and social studies
- The role of mathematics and value neutrality in economics
- Linguistic diversity and the surprise of non-relative spatial orientation
- The legitimacy and definition of social science versus social studies.
- The relationship between scientific theory and practical engineering/technology.
- Critique of postmodernism and cultural theory.
- Alternative visions for social studies versus social sciences
- Integration of meditation into academic study
Participants
- Dominik
- Rupert Read
Names are taken from the archive as written and may include spelling variants.
Listen · this show’s clips
Selected extracted clipsSelected clip
Humanities Conversations · Show Opening
Humanities Conversations · Spoken extract
Humanities Conversations — Rupert Read on social science
Choose a clip and press play.
Passages from the broadcast
Text from the recording. These passages are not linked to a playable clip.
And I think the idea of social science confuses these two things. So, in the sense in which there are theories in in real science, and in the sense in which there is real science, the claim of my book is there is no such thing as social science.
Well, I think your suggestion is an interesting one, and and again, I don't think we're a million miles away from each other here. My book is called "There Is No Such Thing as a Social Science." It's clearly intended as a provocation. It's intended to try to to help people think and to question a bit.
Would be like would be kind of open ended to bringing in new ways of understanding people that have at the moment no place in the academy at all, really. Such as, for example, and I'll say something quite radical here: meditation, say Buddhist meditation or what have you. It seems to me that that too should be a
Selected music
-
Why it was chosen The speaker wants to play a song by a 'nicer guy' so that the music can remain in the podcast version without needing to be cut.
-
Why it was chosen The song is relevant to the discussion as it looks at a possible future if science gets the better of us.