Let’s give virtue a hand

[coberst]

Let’s give virtue a hand

In our high schools and colleges you will often find that the BMOC (Big Man on Campus) is a student engaged in the central attraction of that institution. On the campus where football is king the BMOC is a football player, on the campus where basketball is king the BMOC is a basketball player, on the campus where scholarship is king the BMOC—wait a minute, who ever heard of a campus where scholarship is king. This is, perhaps, a slight exaggeration, I am sure such a campus must exist, somewhere.

In the 1920s the campuses where “the most far-reaching revolution of the twentieth century was born in an idyll: a picturesque park in Copenhagen, a quiet side street in Berne, the shore of the island of Heligoland, the meadows and tree-shaded river at Cambridge, the…” In these European campuses the young geniuses of physics, the BMOCs of the century, gave birth to “the tremendous transformation of the scientific view of Nature could only be compared with the change of outlook brought about by Copernicus.” The age of the atom was midwifed by this small group of geniuses.

If a high school or college were to shift emphasis from football to basketball, over night the BMOC would change. I think that we Americans, and probably others, need to shift emphasis from what Kuhn identified as Normal Science to those domains of knowledge that are commonly called the Social Sciences. Physicists have been our BMOC but I claim that we need to develop a climate that fosters public concern upon matters that are identified as virtue.

Virtue, according to John Dewey, is “Every natural capacity, every talent or ability, whether of inquiring mind, of gentle affection, or of executive skill, becomes a virtue when it is turned to account in supporting or extending the fabric of social values”. In other words, the virtuous person is s/he who directs a personal talent toward the betterment of the community.

I am informed by Ernest Becker that many social scientists have accepted the notion that ‘value judgments’ or ‘moral questions’ are rationally undecidable. As such, most social theorists “simply assume that any agent, who acts on the basis of a moral principle, or a social norm, is not rationally justified in doing so. This is what underlies the widespread tendency among social theorists to assume that instrumental action is the only form of rational action, and that norm-governed action must have some kind of nonrational source, such as conditioning, socialization, or habit.”

I am not schooled in the social sciences but I have spent some time trying to learn these ideas about which the social sciences deal. I know enough about these matters to conclude that our society needs to put much greater emphasis in these domains of knowledge. Our focus seems to be entirely on the natural sciences and that emphasis is reveled in the success of these sciences. However I think we overemphasize the natural sciences at the expense of the social sciences.

I think that society needs to reevaluate our value systems in order to create a consensus about how to reevaluate our value systems, i.e. we need to make social scientists our new BMOCs. What do you think?

[MarxSchmarx]

I think that society needs to reevaluate our value systems in order to create a consensus about how to reevaluate our value systems, i.e. we need to make social scientists our new BMOCs. What do you think?

Why should social scientists get any more recognition than natural scientists?

I agree there is considerable disparity in the prestige accorded to natural sciences and, in the U$, athletics. This is because of differences in class.

See, much natural science as is practiced is ridiculously expensive. So grants to conduct those research routinely go into the millions. Until the research is done, the university receives the grant and earns interest off of it.

Not so with social science. Unless one is doing something like archaeology the costs aren't nearly as high. At most they are the living expenses of the professor and the travel costs. So the grants the social sciences rake in are worth less, and so the university doesn't prioritize them.

Moreover, graduates of the natural sciences can readily service capital, usually as engineers and increasingly as financial analysts. Graduates of the social sciences just aren't as useful to major corporations, with the significant exception of law and, to a significantly lesser extent, commerce graduates. Even commerce graduates are increasingly valued for their quantitative skills (like accounting) rather than their qualitative knowledge.

Same scam with athletics. Why isn't the captain of the woman's soccer team the "big man on campus"? Because hardly any station will broadcast a college female soccer match. But a basketball or a football match will generate tons and tons of viewers, advertising revenue, etc... that the university can pocket back.

Moral of the story? If social scientists want to be the big man on campus, they should strive for socialism.

[coberst]

We live in two different worlds. We are great at developing the means but are sorry about developing the ends. The means are killing us because we fail to comprehend the things that the human sciences can teach us.

I recently had occasion to hang out in the waiting area of St Joseph Hospital in Asheville for a few hours. I was free to walk many of the corridors and rest in many of the waiting areas along with everyone else. It was early morning but it was obvious that the hospital functioned fully 24/7.

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

Normal science is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. We need critical thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Coberst:


Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning.

Yes -- us genuine materialists call this "confused thinking".

You need to come to temrs with the fact that 'dialectics' has been permanently laid to rest here.

Please, no more attempts to breath life into the corpse.

[MarxSchmarx]

One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

Having been to the UN building as well as having been treated in a triage facility, I actually found it the former more serene, as a place where diplomats gather would be.



Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.


Well, taking your definition of instrumental rationality, this is routinely done in, for example, jurisprudence. Or in economics, as in operations research or managerial science. Although I'm not a social scientist, it seems instrumental rationality, and Kuhnian paradigms for that matter, are alive and well in the social sciences.

I don't think the problem is methodological. The implicit assumption in your comparisons about the newspapers etc... is that instrumental rationality governs public policy. It does not. To compare the outcomes of medicine to the outcomes of government, and the failure of instrumental rationality, you would have to have a society run like a hospital. In fact such societies that run largely on rational principles exist. They are called ant colonies, and while they might rationally "optimize fitness", they strike me as damn shitty places to live.

[coberst]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:37 am

One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

Having been to the UN building as well as having been treated in a triage facility, I actually found it the former more serene, as a place where diplomats gather would be.



Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.


Well, taking your definition of instrumental rationality, this is routinely done in, for example, jurisprudence. Or in economics, as in operations research or managerial science. Although I'm not a social scientist, it seems instrumental rationality, and Kuhnian paradigms for that matter, are alive and well in the social sciences.

I don't think the problem is methodological. The implicit assumption in your comparisons about the newspapers etc... is that instrumental rationality governs public policy. It does not. To compare the outcomes of medicine to the outcomes of government, and the failure of instrumental rationality, you would have to have a society run like a hospital. In fact such societies that run largely on rational principles exist. They are called ant colonies, and while they might rationally "optimize fitness", they strike me as damn shitty places to live.
I agree that juries offer us a good example when trying to help people comprehend the nature of dialogue and dialectical reasoning. I question your statement that economics does use dialogical reasoning. I am not an economist but I do occassionally listen to them and read about them and have come to the conclusion that they, like many natural scences, recognize only one set of principles when they do analysis.

The scientific method is of little use in the social sciences. The socal sciences deal with humans, not as objects as does economics, as subjects and subjects are not static which is a requirement when using the scientific method. The social sciences must often deal with ends rather than means, therein lay the rub.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Unfortunately, Coberst, 'dialectics' is useless in the social sciences too.

In fact, if we needed a theory here, dialectics would not even make the bottom of the reserve list of viable candidates.

Historical materialism would, of course, be right at the top of list one.

[coberst]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 15, 2007 02:36 pm
Unfortunately, Coberst, 'dialectics' is useless in the social sciences too.

In fact, if we needed a theory here, dialectics would not even make the bottom of the reserve list of viable candidates.

Historical materialism would, of course, be right at the top of list one.
I speak about dialogic and you speak about dialectics. Do you consider these to be synonomous?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am not sure what the difference is.

Are you?

[Raúl Duke]

DO virtues even exist? (objectively, etc)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Is that the right question to ask?

[Raúl Duke]

Well...they mentioned virtue in the post title and quote from Dewey and talked about value systems...so I thought so...

They also mentioned this:

Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

What would be a right question to ask?

Although, I find the idea to make social scientists into BMOC amusing because that would mean that in the future I might be a BMOC! :P

Yet, I also think the UN isn't really a good model for the Social Sciences...



The scientific method is of little use in the social sciences. The socal sciences deal with humans, not as objects as does economics, as subjects and subjects are not static which is a requirement when using the scientific method.

That depends on the specific social science at hand. Scientific method is quite important to (research) psychologists (although sometimes they do use things like naturalistic observations, surveys-questionnaires, etc they also do their fair share of experiments.).


...Dialectical reasoning methods...

I'll let Rosa handle ("debunk") that... :P
Seriously, I never needed (or feel the need for) dialectics (well, I don't even know how to "do" dialectics. It's kinda impossible to grasp or maybe its alien to my mind way of thinking.) to understand the world.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JD:


What would be a right question to ask?

1) What are the virtues.

2) Why are they virtues?

3) In what way can they be justified?

4) Are they out-moded?

5) Can they be cultivated, or are they 'innate'?

6) Are they a social product, or 'natural'?

7) Is there any unity to them (as the Greeks claimed)?

8) Is any one more of them important than the others?

9) Can they ever clash?

10) Are they subject to degree, or are they all or nothing attributes?

Those should do for starters.


I'll let Rosa handle ("debunk") that...

Dead and buried, already -- except the mystics believe in life after death here too... :P

[Raúl Duke]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 15, 2007 06:38 pm
JD:


What would be a right question to ask?

1) What are the virtues.

2) Why are they virtues?

3) In what way can they be justified?

4) Are they out-moded?

5) Can they be cultivated, or are they 'innate'?

6) Are they a social product, or 'natural'?

7) Is there any unity to them (as the Greeks claimed)?

8) Is any one more of them important than the others?

9) Can they ever clash?

10) Are they subject to degree, or are they all or nothing attributes?

Those should do for starters.


I'll let Rosa handle ("debunk") that...

Dead and buried, already -- except the mystics believe in life after death here too... :P

Those are all very good questions. So, I ask to the thread starter all these questions unless they really don't have anything to do with this thread (after all, it's about the BMOC and "which methodology is better for social sciences: dialectical, scientific {positivist?} or something else." I don't see a problem with positivist methodology (although I'm not very knowledgeable in its shortcomings) in the social sciences (or in cognitive psychology).

Although I do have another question to add:
What is to be the main goal of investigation for this BMOC social scientist? Is it to find a "value system?" (Kind of odd, social scientists exist only to understand society or a specific component of society, like its individuals, cultures, etc.)


except the mystics believe in life after death here too... :P

:lol: Reminds me of this quote:

"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

[coberst]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 15, 2007 05:28 pm
I am not sure what the difference is.

Are you?
Dialogue+Dialectic=Dialogic

This is what these words mean to me when I use them. You are using the word dialectics in a way that I do not comprehend.

Under our normal cultural situation communication means to discourse, to exchange opinions with one another. It seems to me that there are opinions, considered opinions, and judgments. Opinions are a dime-a-dozen. Considered opinions, however, are opinions that have received a considerable degree of thought but have not received special study. A considered opinion starts out perhaps as tacit knowledge but receives sufficient intellectual attention to have become consciously organized in some fashion. Judgments are made within a process of study.

In dialogue, person ‘A’ may state a thesis and in return person ‘B’ does not respond with exactly the same meaning as does ‘A’. The meanings are generally similar but not identical; thus ‘A’ listening to ‘B’ perceives a disconnect between what she said and what ‘B’ replies. ‘A’ then has the opportunity to respond with this disconnect in mind, thereby creating a response that takes these matters into consideration; ‘A’ performs an operation known as a dialectic (a juxtaposition of opposed or contradictory ideas). And so the dialogical process proceeds.

A dialogical process is not one wherein individuals reason together in an attempt to make common, ideas that are already known to each individual. ”Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.” Dialogical reasoning together is an act of creation, of mutual understanding, of meaning.

Dialogic can happen only if both individuals wish to reason together in truth, in coherence, without prejudice, and without trying to influence each other. Each must be prepared to “drop his old ideas and intentions. And be ready to go on to something different, when this is called for…Thus, if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to ‘work together’) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”

“On Dialogue” written by “The late David Bohm, one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers this century, was Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Bohm is convinced that communication is breaking down as a result of the crude and insensitive manner in which it is transpiring. Communication is a concept with a common meaning that does not fit well with the concepts of dialogue, dialectic, and dialogic.

I claim that if we citizens do not learn to dialogue we cannot learn to live together in harmony sufficient to save the species.

[coberst]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:54 pm
DO virtues even exist? (objectively, etc)
Virtues are talents directed toward the betterment of society. Yes they do exist in many people. Many others want us to believe that they are virtuous but in reality they are hiding their real self-interest.

[coberst]

Johnny

Dialogue+Dialectic=Dialogic

Under our normal cultural situation communication means to discourse, to exchange opinions with one another. It seems to me that there are opinions, considered opinions, and judgments. Opinions are a dime-a-dozen. Considered opinions, however, are opinions that have received a considerable degree of thought but have not received special study. A considered opinion starts out perhaps as tacit knowledge but receives sufficient intellectual attention to have become consciously organized in some fashion. Judgments are made within a process of study.

In dialogue, person ‘A’ may state a thesis and in return person ‘B’ does not respond with exactly the same meaning as does ‘A’. The meanings are generally similar but not identical; thus ‘A’ listening to ‘B’ perceives a disconnect between what she said and what ‘B’ replies. ‘A’ then has the opportunity to respond with this disconnect in mind, thereby creating a response that takes these matters into consideration; ‘A’ performs an operation known as a dialectic (a juxtaposition of opposed or contradictory ideas). And so the dialogical process proceeds.

A dialogical process is not one wherein individuals reason together in an attempt to make common, ideas that are already known to each individual. ”Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.” Dialogical reasoning together is an act of creation, of mutual understanding, of meaning.

Dialogic can happen only if both individuals wish to reason together in truth, in coherence, without prejudice, and without trying to influence each other. Each must be prepared to “drop his old ideas and intentions. And be ready to go on to something different, when this is called for…Thus, if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to ‘work together’) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”

“On Dialogue” written by “The late David Bohm, one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers this century, was Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Bohm is convinced that communication is breaking down as a result of the crude and insensitive manner in which it is transpiring. Communication is a concept with a common meaning that does not fit well with the concepts of dialogue, dialectic, and dialogic.

I claim that if we citizens do not learn to dialogue we cannot learn to live together in harmony sufficient to save the species.

[coberst]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 15, 2007 11:38 pm
JD:


What would be a right question to ask?

1) What are the virtues.

2) Why are they virtues?

3) In what way can they be justified?

4) Are they out-moded?

5) Can they be cultivated, or are they 'innate'?

6) Are they a social product, or 'natural'?

7) Is there any unity to them (as the Greeks claimed)?

8) Is any one more of them important than the others?

9) Can they ever clash?

10) Are they subject to degree, or are they all or nothing attributes?

Those should do for starters.


I'll let Rosa handle ("debunk") that...

Dead and buried, already -- except the mystics believe in life after death here too... :P
Well done!!

[coberst]

A great set of questions have been formulated. Questions are the essential element in self-actualizing self-learning. One can take such questions and add the library and/or Google and spend the next 6 months finding suitable answers while learning a great deal.