Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 62)

غرض

عنوان

Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 62)

المحتوى

The concept of perception presupposes that there is an object
independent of our perception of it. In order for scientific
investigation to be possible the intransitive world of
objects must be distinct from our perception of these
objects. Any serious analysis of scientific activity
presupposes that the objects of science are ontologically,
although not epistemically, distinct from our experiences of
that object. This is a relatively straightforward statement
and not one that anyone would seriously challenge, although
there are likely to be major differences of opinion over how
the human cognitive apparatus actually apprehends the world
of things.
Science normally perceives and comprehends the objective
world through experimental activity. Both empiricism and
realism agree on this point, although they differ on the
actual role experimentation plays in the process of
scientific investigation. For the empiricist, experimental
activity allows the scientist to identify causal laws in the
form of constant conjunctions of events and to frame these
causal laws in empirical statements. While for the realist,
the role of experimental activity is to identify causal laws
which are not reducible to constant conjunctions of events,
since the scientist is her/himself a causal agent in bringing
these constant conjunctions of events into being in
experimental activity. Thus, the realist accepts the
empiricist postulate that we can identify causal laws through
constant conjunctions of events but s/he does not accept that
causal laws can be reduced to constant conjunctions of
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Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production

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المنشئ

Alex Pollock

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