A Research Into Popper's Methodology Of Social Science

Formerly in the academe researches into Popper's scientific philosophy were commonly centralized on his philosophy of natural science, mostly his methodology of natural science, but researches into his philosophy of social science, especially his methodology of social science were very infrequent, and the research literatures about Popper's methodology of social science are terribly few, a systemic and embedded research into his methodology of social science is hardly any. Actually, though Popper's methodology of social science is based on his general methodology of science or the methodology of natural science and is their spread and extension in the realm of social history. It has a coequal status with his methodology of natural science in Popper's entire scientific philosophy. That Popper could win so huge learning report had a direct relation to his methodology of social science.This dissertation makes a systemic and embedded research into Popper's methodology of social science, thinks that it was founded basing on sublating the methodological naturalism, the historicism, the psychologism, and the traditional methodological individualism, the traditional understanding theory of literae humaniores etc, and taking the methodology of falsificationism, the method of conjectures and refutations, the theory of the third world as its premises, taking the methodological conventionalism, the theory of scientific method's oneness and the particular methodological individualism as its bases, taking the situational analysis method, the objective understanding method and the gradual technique method as its contents.Popper's methodology of social science is an organic system which is composed of the theoretic premises, bases and the basic contents. Popper makes important contributions to the development of the western scientific philosophy, the methodology of science, the behavior theory, and the hermeneutics relying on its particular methodology of social science. This dissertation's research into Popper's methodology of social science still belongs to being first at home, and fills up a blank in the researches into Popper's scientific philosophy and the methodology of science, thus has a very higher learning value.The general methodology of science or the methodology of natural science, namely, the critical rationalism or the methodology of falsificationism and its concrete form (viz. the method of trial and error or the method of conjectures and refutations), and the theory of the third world are the theoretic premises of Popper's methodology of social science. Hume's animadverting on the traditional methodology of science and"Hume's Problem"------"Induction's Validity Problem"which was formed in the course of this animadverting are the jumping-off point that Popper reflected on the traditional methodology of science. Popper severely animadverted on the traditional methodology of science, basing on which, he put forward the new methodology of science, namely, the methodology of science of falsificationism, and through it fruitfully settled"Hume's Problem"and renewedly elucidated a series of the traditional problems of scientific philosophy, such as the view of the truth, the formation of the theory, the relation between the theory and the observation ,the delimiting criterion of the science and the non-science.Popper embodied his new methodology of science as a concrete process of the scientific research or a course of the scientific knowledge increase and the science development, in the course a concrete method of science is embodied, namely, the method of trial and error or the method of conjectures and refutations. The mode of the scientific knowledge increase and the science development, and their diagrammatic form are:"P1→TT→EE→P2",namely,"science begins with problems, ends with problems again","the theory of the third world"or"the worldⅢ"is both the key to Popper's entire scientific philosophy of"the critical rationalism"and the theoretic premise of his methodology of social science.Because it can settle the two scientific philosophy's problems: the problem of the objective knowledge and the problem of body-mind. Popper thought that the third world or"the worldⅢ"is objective and independent, it interacts with the other two worlds(viz.the first world or the worldⅠand the second world or the worldⅡ), thus the object of the third world or"the worldⅢ"is a course of both animadverting and creating.The methodological conventionalism, the theory of scientific method's oneness and the particular methodological individualism are the theoretic bases of Popper's methodology of social science. Popper put forward a methodological conventionalism which is opposite to the methodological naturalism based on positivism, and thought that the rules of the methodology of science is conventional, thus they are different from pure logistic rules, and are the game rules of the experiential science like the rules of playing games. Popper's theory of scientific method's oneness which is founded basing on animadverting on counter- naturalism and pan- naturalism of historicism thought that though the theoretic natural science has a prodigious difference from the theoretic social science, the two realm's methods are basically the same, namely, the theoretic or recapitulative natural science and social science adopt the same method: the deductive cause and effect explanation, the forecast and the test. They are the method of the whole science based on experience. Popper constructed his own"methodological individualism", his"methodological individualism"which is different from the general methodological individualism is an enactment that is constructing and analyzing the sociological mode according to everyone and their attitudes, expectations, relations etc. Popper's"Zero Method"embodies the methodological individualism in the concrete scientific research course, and this enactment of the methodological individualism overthrows the methodological essentialism.The situational analysis method, the objective understanding method and the gradual technique method are the basic contents of Popper's methodology of social science. The situation is a concrete objective factor or circumstance which can influence man's idea, behavior and some social event, such as some special idea situation, some special action situation, some special historical situation, some special social situation and some special historical event's situation etc, including some concrete physical circumstance(e.g. institutions etc. ), some psychic circumstance(e.g. traditions etc.)and a concrete circumstance etc. which is formed through interreaction among them. The situational analysis is that giving some attemptable or conjecturable explanation which resorts to the situation which an actor is in or"the problem situation"which scientists were affronted to some human's behavior or some scientific theory which was put forward by scientists. Thus, a larruping outstanding characteristic of Popper's situational analysis firstly consist in so-called"the problem situation"that belongs to the third world(or the worldⅢ). The situational analysis method is substantially the exertion of principle of the critical rationalism, namely, the exertion of the diagrammatic form of the method of conjectures and refutations. Though the situational analysis method rooted in"Zero Method"of economics, it isn't a subjective mental method of reductionism, but an objective analytic method.Popper gave a new explanation to the essence and course of the understanding based on the objective independent theory of the third world and constructed his own particular objective understanding method:(1) renewedly giving a understanding of"understanding"'s subjective behavior;(2)thinking that the understanding is that of the third world's objects , its activity essentially consists in exerting the third world's objects;(3)thinking that the understanding activity is essentially equal to the whole process of resolving problem;(4) emphasizing the value of problems;(5) regarding the situational analysis. The objective understanding method relying on the situational analysis method becomes an objective understanding method. These two basic methods of Popper's methodology of social science are two aspects of the same method, namely, the objective understanding is managed through the situational analysis, and the situational analysis itself is an objective understanding, it makes up of the core of Popper's methodology of social science together with the objective understanding method. Popper put forward the technical methodology which is opposite to the methodology of the historicism, and thought its aim consisted in the technical social science, the gradual technique method which is actually exerted is"the gradual social engineering", it is a method which is completely different from the method of the holism.Popper's so-called"the social or historical situation"is just the concretion and situationization of Marxist so-called"the social historical condition". Therefore, Popper's situational analysis method very evidently rooted in Marxism and is the concretion of the general Marxist analysis method of the social historical conditions, thus it does not transcend the latter. Popper's situational analysis method is not only the exertion of its principle of the critical rationalism, but also a method of the objective understanding, the theory of the objective human's behavior. It emphasizes that we should not do a psychologism's subjective understanding and an objective idealistic understanding of the human's behavior, but do an objective understanding of "the independent social science".The objective understanding is substantively a kind of"sociological"understanding based on the methodological individualism, thus Popper's situational analysis method which is the synthesis of the methodological individualism and the sociological method has unique feature in the development history of the western social science method. Popper's method of the objective understanding not only expands the range of the understanding, but also makes important contributions to the understanding theory of literae humaniores or the hermeneutics relying on its particular situational analysis method. Popper's method of the objective understanding is also the objective understanding theory of the human's behavior, thus it makes his own contributions to the western behavior theory by his situational analysis and objective understanding. Popper's theory of the human's behavior is also an active push to Weber's understanding theory of the social behavior.Thereby, as the core and basic method of Popper's methodology of social science, the situational analysis method and the objective understanding method are the same with not only literae humaniores, but also natural science, not only the human's behavior, but also the theory of science, accordingly greatly expand the range in point of the method of literae humaniores, break through the localization of the contemporary mainstream philosophical hermeneutics which only takes Text as its research object, and make tremendous contributions to the development of the methodology of social science, the behavior theory and the hermeneutics of the western. In a word, Popper possess a very outstanding status in the western scientific philosophy, the methodology of science, the methodology of social science, the behavior theory, and the hermeneutics relying on its particular and developmental methodology of social science.