Based on primary sources, the paper reconstructs the method of abstraction used by two founding figures of modern social science: Karl Marx and Max Weber. According to both thinkers, this method plays a key role in social science. But although their views on the nature of the method are largely identical, the paper describes important differences between them in terms of (i) the cognitive goals with which the method is applied, (ii) the epistemic status of the results of its application, (iii) the criteria of correct application of the method and (iv) the supposed relation of abstraction to the distinction between the natural and the social sciences. This first part of the paper deals with the notion of abstraction which underpins Marxʼs “critique of political economy”.
The paper offers a reconstruction of the development of Karl Marx's thought in 1842 - 1844 proceeding from the philosophy of law and social philosophy to political economy and its critique. It puts forward a new interpretation of the categories 'bürgerliche Gesellschaft', 'alienation' and 'alienated labour'. This interpretation shows that the development of Marx's thought did not proceed from 'philosophy' to 'political economy' or from 'humanism' to 'scientism', but from an 'external' to an 'internal' critique of political economy.
Václav Černík (1931 – 2017) was one of the founders of the modern philosophy of science in Slovakia. This paper focuses on his lifelong project of founding a Marxist methodology of science based on a reconstruction of Marx’s Capital. The project had three main pillars: (1) a theory of a new type of scientific law, (2) dialectics as a theory of philosophical categories, and (3) a historical account of types of rationality. In the paper, we contextualize the various stages of the project: from Černík’s early works on scientific laws and thought experiments to his attempt at constructing a system of categories, as well as publications in methodology after 1989. Our critical assessment shows that Černík was the first who deal with certain topics in the Slovak context. His approach had also certain advantages vis-à-vis with other attempts at the time, especially due to the author’s open-minded attitude to modern logic and Western philosophy of science. On the other hand, the project was never finished and it left a number of characteristic problems unsolved (e.g., the nature of dialectical contradictions, difficulties with using logical instruments to formulate philosophical intuitions).
Typically, a distinction is made between argumentation and explanation based on their different illocutionary aims. While the aim of argumentation is to provide support for the acceptability of a particular thesis by means of other statements, the aim of explanation is to provide understanding of a phenomenon, regularity, etc. Although this distinction is well-founded, it obscures certain interesting interactions between explanation and argumentation. This paper identifies a particular type of explanations that presuppose argumentation in their favour. These explanations refer, at least in part, to pieces of knowledge that had not been a part of the pre-existing knowledge base of science. Their epistemic status is therefore problematic and they require separate justification. The success of this justification (a speech act of argumentation) is one of the felicity conditions of (the speech act of) explanation. The paper proposes a general scheme of argumentation in favour of an explanation. It combines subordinate and coordinative argumentation whose aim is to show that the explanation satisfies the (often implicit) criteria of adequacy. The scheme is briefly illustrated on an example of empirical research in International Relations.
The paper proposes a sequence of instructions that corresponds to the method of explanation in its ideal form. The method of explanation is not analytic. Nevertheless, its particular executions may be analytic without affecting its specific cognitive goal (the growth in understanding). Therefore, the method is characterized as “potentially analytic”. Drawing on Zeleňák’s critique of a purely causal view of the explanation relation, as well as on some arguments against Zeleňák’s “mixed view”, the paper argues for a view of the explanation relation as obtaining between abstract objects (the explanans and the explanandum). In the classic case, these are propositions: what is described by (the proposition in) the explanans explains what is described by (the proposition in) the explanandum.
The methods of abstraction and idealization are typically examined in connection with their applications in modelling and explanation. This paper investigates how the use of abstract and idealized models in arguments structures the process of argumentation. If a discussant uses an idealized model to justify a thesis, they also adopt an implicit or explicit attitude towards the idealizing assumptions it involves. The precise nature of this attitude determines the argumentation strategies available to the opponent. If the proponent views the assumptions as approximating the actual state of affairs, the opponent can request a de-idealization of the model. On the other hand, if the model is viewed as a non-Galilean idealization, or in a purely instrumental way, the opponent must challenge the relevance of the model with respect to the target system. However, as illustrated by the debate on minimum wage, even empirical evidence need not always provide a clear-cut resolution of the difference in opinion.
In the second part of his paper, the author reconstructs Weber’s notion of the method of abstraction, especially as related to so-called ideal types. Similarly to the previous part, the author focuses on the cognitive goals, with which the application of the method is associated, the epistemic status of the results of its application, the criteria of the correct application of the method and the supposed relation between abstraction and the natural/social sciences distinction. Deriving from the comparison of Marx’s and Weber’s views on abstraction he shows that the contributions of both thinkers confirm the hypothesis that analytic (non-empirical) methods of abstraction and idealization, as used in the social sciences, do not in principle differ from similar procedures used in the natural sciences.
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