"Det sociala" tillhör de begrepp som samhällsvetenskapen utgår från men sällan känner något behov av att förklara. Ofta är socialiteten den samhällsvetenskapliga praktikens utgångspunkt och mål, men dess innebörd kan inte fastställas utan att överskrida gränserna till t.ex. filosofi, historia och religion. Kanske är avsaknaden av en kontinuerlig reflektion över det socialas innebörd rent av ett försvar av det samhällsvetenskapliga fältet. I denna bok diskuterar tio samhällsvetare och humanister det socialas betydelse från Immanuel Kant till Slavoj Zizek. Det handlar om tio sätt att tänka kring det sociala, om tio sociologiker. Detta skulle kunna tolkas som att det sociala är det objekt bokens olika bidrag behandlar ur respektive perspektiv. Men det kan också ges en snävare tolkning. Det verkliga objektet för undersökningarna blir då själva relationen mellan det sociala och vetandet. Med detta synsätt kan det sociala inte uppfattas som ett neutralt eller autonomt faktum utanför tänkandet. Snarare blir socialiteten något som framträder först i vetandets konkreta gränsdragningar och skillnadsskapanden. Denna bok är ett mångbottnat bidrag till diskussionen om vad samhället är och om möjligheterna att förändra det.
Medverkande författare: Christian Abrahamsson, Magnus Fiskesjö, Maria Johansen, Per Magnus Johansson, Vessela Misheva, Gunnar Olsson, Fredrik Palm, Olli Pyyhtinen, Anders Ramsay och Sverre Wide
How are we to understand causal relations and analysis in social science? This paper takes R. G. Collingwood’s writing about causation as its point of departure for the answering of this question. Two different kinds of causal relations are distinguished from pseudo-causality; of the former, one is directly connected to reason, the other to our ability to manipulate the world. Their interconnection and significance are discussed and th econclusions are drawn that (a) causality belongs to the realm of human praxis and that (b) causal analysis proper is well suited forthe social sciences. It is further showed that some important explanations are not causal in any of the above-mentioned senses. These explanations could conceivably be called interpretative descriptions, but it is suggested that perhaps they can be understood as examples of causa sui, of something selfcaused.
Denna artikel försöker visa att Hans Skjervheims välkända och inflytelserika distinktion mellan «deltakar og tilskodar» har en i stora delar direkt motsvarighet i Max Schelers arbeten från 1910-talet, och argumenterar vidare för att Skjervheim, som var välbekant med Schelers arbeten, faktiskt har hämtat de centrala tankegångarna i essän «Deltakar og tilskodar» från dessa. Denna tolkning kastar visst nytt ljus över Skjervheims arbete och kan i någon mån bidra till att försvara detta mot samtida kritik. På så vis avser denna artikel att dels utgöra ett litet bidrag till den norska positivismkritikens historia, dels bidra till tolkningen av ett av dess mest kända verk.
This dissertation should be understood as an effort to provide a kind of critique of statistical reason. "A kind", since it has another focus as well: the question of sociality. It is argued that these two topics are closely interrelated, not only, as the short exploration into the prehistory of statistics shows, for historical, but also and mainly for systematic reasons. The first part of this thesis is concerned with methods; not, in fact, so much with different methods as with the idea of methods in general. The second part deals with statistics, its prehistory and structure. It is argued that statistics is inherently causal and always and only understands the world as means (for our power), as it is. The third part explores a socio-logic, a concept meant to capture both the essence of sociality and our understanding of this sociality. And sociality, in the last analysis understood as play or game, turns out to be what cannot be controlled or dealt with in a methodical manner; it can never be reduced to what it is. The fourth and final part discusses and tries to overcome the proposed antithetical relation between statistics (methods) and sociality, and discusses possible consequences of the analysis for the fields of sociology and social thinking. In sum: The dissertation contributes to our understanding of methods, statistics and sociality and their interrelations.
This essay attempts to distinguish and discuss the importance and limitations of different ways of being wrong. At first it is argued that strictly falsifiable knowledge is concerned with simple (instrumental) mistakes only, and thus is incapable of understanding more complex errors (and truths). In order to gain a deeper understanding of mistakes (and to understand a deeper kind of mistake), it is argued that communicative aspects have to be taken into account. This is done in the theory of communicative action, which adds to our knowledge of errors the notion of communicative mistakes: mistakes as obstacles for sincere communication. However, to overcome this still purely negative judgement of errors, two processes are examined in which mistakes are best regarded as developmental steps, that is, steps not only meaningful in their own right (as containing some truth), but also as necessary preconditions for further progress. This would suggest that truth is born out of errors. But if so, one has to understand the wrongness of such errors; how is it that they are erroneous if they (somehow) contain the truth? At the end of this essay, a tentative answer to this question is given.
Barbara Held (2020) discusses the claim that mainstream psychology tends to exert epistemic violence on so-called “othered” groups. Held shows, however, (a) that the idea of different epistemologies underpinning some such arguments is a difficult matter, (b) that folk notions (and theories) sometimes hailed as an antidote to the alleged othering might themselves at times be oppressive, and (c) that so-called mainstream psychology in fact can well serve progressive and critical purposes. Thus, Held problematizes the distinction made between psychology about (from above) and psychology of and from (from below); that is, she finds the distinction unconvincing and rather problematic as it stands. Yet, she does not seem to wish to do away with it all together. In this comment, I relate her discussion to a wider scientific debate on othering, and, by way of an ending, offer an alternative metaphor: psychology from the flank.