DCHindley

Research Concepts in Human Behavior, G. C. Helmstadter, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall Inc, 1970

1. Historical problems in a special field
1.1. The time period studied is recent history where facts are available but have not yet been gathered together
1.1.1. Cross sectional
1.1.2. Longitudinal
1.2. The time period studied is sufficiently long ago that records of events are not complete.
1.2.1. Application of scientific method.
1.2.1.1. A hypothesis as to what happened may be formulated on the basis of those pieces of information already at hand.
1.2.1.2. Deduce consequences that should be present if the hypotheses is true, but may not have been found yet.
1.2.1.3. Seek to verify the hypothesis by searching for this additional information.
1.2.1.3.1. Finding such evidence dramatically increases confidence in the original speculation. This is in contradiction to experimental situations where finding confirmation adds relatively little confidence because the alternatives which could have produced the same observations are so numerous
1.2.1.3.2. Not finding such evidence is not particularly discouraging because of the great likelihood that the appropriate material has been lost rather than never having existed. This is in contradiction to experimental situations where failure to find confirmation can lead to complete rejection of the hypothesis.

2. Special features of the historical approach.
2.1. Dependence upon observations that cannot be repeated in the same sense that a laboratory experiment or a descriptive survey can.
2.2. Observations are often not organized or conveniently recorded for solving a particular problem, requiring great patience and willingness to engage in tedious research.
2.3. Studies tend to be carried out by individuals and not by teams, increasing the research burden.
2.4. The historical approach does not always carry a defined hypothesis, due to its increased dependence upon inductive reasoning. A "question type" hypothesis, often unstated, is often used to sift through specific observations and generalize a description of what actually occurred.
2.5. Results of historical studies are often reported in a more narrative and much less rigid style than is usual with other research approaches.

3. The procedures of historical research.3.1. Collection of data.
3.1.1. Notes.
3.1.1.1. Types of notes.
3.1.1.1.1. Bibliographical notes.
3.1.1.1.2. Subject notes. Items of information that may be used in the presentation of the data.
3.1.1.1.3. Method notes. Ideas which come to the researcher in the course of reading the material, such as new hypotheses, new places to seek out additional material, critical comments about reports under consideration, and general reactions to the document.
3.1.1.2. Media.
3.1.1.2.1. Record notes on cards (or a database that serves the purpose of cards).
3.1.2. Data.
3.1.2.1. Types of data.
3.1.2.1.1. Consciously transmitted information.
3.1.2.1.2. Relics.
3.1.2.1.3. Memorials.
3.1.2.2. Sources of data.
3.1.2.2.1. Primary sources. Materials by eyewitnesses.
3.1.2.2.2. Secondary sources. Hearsay materials.
3.2. Criticism of data.
3.2.1. Veracity of sources.
3.2.1.1. External aka Lower Criticism. Is the document under consideration a genuine one?
3.2.1.2. Internal aka Higher Criticism. Is the information contained in the document trustworthy (i.e., accurate, consistent, etc)?
3.2.1.2.1. Positive internal criticism. Researcher momentarily assumes that the author of the document was accurate, competent and acting in good faith (although keeping in mind that he may be speaking figuratively), and seek literal meaning of the statements of the document.
3.2.1.2.2. Negative internal criticism. Researcher momentarily assumes that the author of the document is fallible, foolish or faking and seeks evidence that this is not so.
3.2.1.3. Interrelation of lower and higher criticism.
3.2.1.3.1. The trustworthiness of the document may help determine whether it is genuine.
3.2.1.3.2. To the degree that a document can be determined to be genuine may help determine whether the information in it is trustworthy.
3.3. Presentation of data.

4. Advantages and limitations.
4.1. Advantages
4.1.1. Some problems cannot be solved in any other way, as the circumstances cannot be repeated.
4.1.2. Some problems cannot be feasibly duplicated, or duplicated in a desirable manner.
4.1.3. Can help alleviate emotionally charged situations by identifying the situations that led up to it and providing a new perspective of the present situation.
4.2. Disadvantages.
4.2.1. Lack of rigorous control in matching past situations with present ones. Only gross effects can be detected, and seldom can the cause of these effects be directly attributed to particular variables in a specific way.
4.2.2. Tendency to generalize results far beyond the justified limits.
4.2.3. No guidelines to tell a researcher how much information to gather and analyze before a conclusion can be reached. Hence, researchers may stop before finding the correct solution, or chance never finding it.
4.2.3.1. Sample size cannot be effectively estimated as in other fields.
4.2.3.2. No effective way to calculate likelihood of making various kinds of decision errors.

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DCHindley

A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee, abridged by D. C. Somervell, New York:Oxford U.P., 1947, pp. 43-47

I. There are three different methods of viewing and presenting the objects of our thought, and among them, the phenomena of human life. All of these, in essentials, is to be found in the works of Aristotle.

A. The first is the ascertainment and recording of 'facts.'
1. It is generally assumed that the ascertainment and recording of facts is the technique of history.
a) The phenomena in the province of this technique are the social phenomena of civilizations.

B. The second is the elucidation, through a comparative study of the facts ascertained, of general 'laws.'
1. The elucidation and formulation of general laws is the technique of science.
2. In the study of human life the science is anthropology.
a) The phenomena in the province of the scientific technique, as it relates to the study of human life, i.e., the science of anthropology, are the social phenomena of primitive societies.
3. All sciences pass through a stage in which the ascertainment and recording of facts is the only activity open to them.

C. The third is the artistic re-creation of the facts in the form of 'fiction.'
1. Fiction is the technique of the drama and the novel.
a) The phenomena in the province of this technique are the personal relations of human beings.
2. The drama and the novel do not present fictions, complete fictions and nothing but fictions about personal relationships.

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DCHindley

"Unity of Method in the Natural and Social Sciences," Philosophical Problems of the Sciences, ed. David Braybrooke, New York: MacMillan Company, 1965, pp. 32-41; exerpted from The Poverty of Historicism, Karl R. Popper, London: Rutledge & Kegan, 2nd ed 1960 [1957], pp 130-143.

I. Rationalism

A. Descartes
1. All sciences are deductive systems [in which conclusions are derived by reason, specifically inference in which the conclusions (called an "explanandum") follows necessarily from the premises (called "explanans", which contain at least one general law)].
2. The principles, the premises, of the deductive systems, must be secure and self-evident-'clear and distinct' (i.e., they are synthetic and 'a priori" valid, in Kantian language)

B. Henri Poincare' and Pierre Duhem
1. Recognized the impossibility of conceiving the theories of physics as inductive generalizations. The observational measurements, which form the alleged starting point for the generalizations of inductive systems, are actually interpretations in the light of theories.
2. Rejected the rationalistic belief in synthetic "a priori" valid principals or axioms.
a) Poincare interpreted the observational measurements as analytically true, as definitions.
b) Duhem interpreted the observational measurements as means for the ordering of the experimental laws.
3. Theories, thus, cannot contain true or false information, but are nothing but instruments that are convenient or inconvenient, economical or uneconomical, supple and subtle, or else creaking and crude.
a) Duhem said that we can test only huge and complex theoretical systems and not isolated hypotheses. Theories are thus incapable of being subjected to emperical tests.
b) Duhem also showed how it is impossible to prove or establish a theory by use of tests.

C. Karl R. Popper
1. Agrees that it is impossible to conceive of the theories of physics as inductive generalizations, and extends this conception to the social sciences.
a) The method by which we obtain our theories and hypotheses is not actually induction from observations, as this is really merely an illusion of perception. We actually always start the process with something along ther lines of a theory, such as a hypotheses, a prejudice or a problem in mind to guide our observations, to help us select from the innumerable objects of observation those of which may be of interest.
(1) In the natural sciences, the parameter of equations can be reduced from the concrete objects into a small number of natural constraints.
(2) In the social sciences, our objects are often themselves abstract or theoretical constructions, produced by applying the process of reduction to concrete objects (numbers, statistics), in light of a model.
(a) In the case of economics, the parameters are themselves in the most important cases quickly changing variables, which in turn clearly reduces the significance, interpretability, and testability of our measurements.
b) Whether the above is true or not, it is actually irrelevant whether the hypotheses were formulated from an inductive or a deductive process, as testing can still be applied to the resulting hypotheses without regard to how they were formed.
2. Also rejects the rationalistic belief in synthetic "a priori" valid principals or axioms.
a) The principles, the premises, of the deductive systems, are tenative conjectures, or hypotheses.
b) Hypotheses must be refutable in principal.
3. Some theoretical systems are thus testable, as they can be refuted by means of their hypotheses.
a) The method of testing hypotheses is the same regardless of whether we are seeking explanations, making predictions, or testing a problem.
(1) If we take our problem to be finding the initial conditions or some other universal laws (or both) from which we may deduce a given "prognisis", then we are looking for an "explanation" (the "prognosis" becomes the "explicandum").
(2) If we consider the laws and initial conditions as given (rather than as to be found) and use them merely for deducing the prognosis, in order to get thereby some new information, then we are trying to make a "prediction" (this is a case where we apply our scientific results).
(3) If we consider one of the premises, i.e. either a universal law or an initial condition, as problematic, and the prognosis as something to be compared to the results of experience, then we speak of a "test" of the problematic premise.
b) The results of tests is the selection of hypotheses which have stood up to tests, or the elimination of those hypotheses which have not stood up to them, and which were therefore rejected.
(1) Proposes the "zero method", i.e. the method of logical or rational construction. Assuming that individuals are rational beings (regardless of whether their behavior is always rational, which it will not be), models can be constructed on the assumption of complete rationality (and perhaps on the assumption of the possession of complete information) on the part of the individuals concerned. On this basis we can estimate the deviation of the actual behavior from the model behavior. An example of this method is found in the equations of economics.

II. Empiricism
A. All sciences collect observations from which generalizations are obtained by induction [i.e., the act, process or result or an instance of reasoning from a part to a whole, from particulars to generals, or from the individual to the universal].
1. Bacon (English)

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outhouse

all of which leaves a personal interpretation based on personal perception, does it not?

aa5874

You have exposed the massive problems with the argument for an historical Jesus of Nazareth that supposedly lived in the time of Pilate.

The material about Jesus available for historians are among the very worse.

1. No original documents.

2. Admitted sources of fiction and implausibilities.

3. No eyewitnesses.

4. No artifacts.

5. Admitted Forged documents.

DCHindley

Oops!

Duplicate of #3

My bad ...

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DCHindley

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Karel Lambert and Gordon G. Brittan Jr., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1970, pp. 24-66.

I. Laws.

A. Are statements that express regularities.
1. They must have emperical content.
2. They must be true.
3. They must not be "accidentally" true.

B. Laws of universal form (i.e. generalized conditional laws).
1. In all cases where such and such conditions are realized, so and so kind of event will result. Conclusions are derived by reason, specifically inference in which the conclusions (called an "explanandum") follows necessarily from the premises (called "explanans", which contain at least one general law).
a) A Deductive Argument may contain statistical generalizations, but explain "mass events" rather than individual events.

C. Statistical laws.
1. When such and such conditions are realized, there is a certain statistical probability that so and so kind of event will result. Or that a certain percentage of a given population has a particular property. The "expnanans" does not deductively imply the "explanandum", even if the "explanandum" is itself a probability statement. Rather, the "explanans" confirms a certain liklihood on the "explanandum".
a) A "Statistical Generalization" is a statement to the effect that a certain percentage of cases having feature F will have feature G. It may also state the relative frequency with which certain kinds of events have certain kinds of outcomes. It can be called "statistical probability".
b) A "Liklihood" is a relation between statements. It is a measure of the degree of support which some statements confer upon another., in particular the degree of support which the "explanans" confers upon the "explanandum".
(1) Liklihood is sometimes called "inductive probability" to distinguish it from "statistical probability",

II. Explanatory Arguments.

A. Those of a deductive nature (Hemple & Opperheim)
1. To show that the event E was to be expected is to exclude the possibility that E did not occur. It is to show why, in some sense, E was necessary or had to happen, relative to certain antecedent circumstances.
2. Statistical generalizations that are admitted to explain "mass events" may still be deductive in nature and provide genuine explanations.
3. Statistical generalizations that are admitted to explain individual events provide at best only a ground for our belief, but do not explain it, and so do not qualify as genuine explanations in the classical sense.

B. Those of an inductive in nature.
1. The conclusion is not a logical consequence of the premises but is supported by them to a greater or lesser extant.
2. The conclusion describes an individual event and which contains statistical generalizations.
a) If statistical generalizations are admitted to explain individual events, they can be admitted as genuine explanations only if the degree of certainty of the explanation must be relaxed from that required of a deductive explanation. This requires that the "explanans" must exclude to a high degree of probability the possibility of E's not occurring.

C. An explanation must in theory also be a prediction, as explanation and prediction are structurally similar, and only differentiated in the matter of the time they are made (after vs. before the fact). However, predictions do not necessarily rest on laws as most explanations, and are not always symmetrical in every case.

D. Teleological Explanations.

E. Reductive Explanations (has a connection to Popper's position).

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Adam

Post #6 is a duplicate of #3

DCHindley

A nutshell portrayal of linguistic theory, by me c) 2000:

Structuralism - A movement which for the most part derives from the lectures of Ferdinand de Saussure, published posthumously in France in 1916. Moore describes the movement as consisting of explanatory principals derived from linguistics. In literature, proponents "attempt to elaborate general narrative 'grammars,' to specify the rules, codes, and conventions that govern the production of individual narratives." "[C]haracteristically interested in moving from the particular to the general, from the individual instance to the underlying laws, from 'surface structures' to 'deep structures.' (Stephen D Moore, _Post Structuralism and the New Testament_, 1994, pg. 69). According to Munslow, "In practice ... social meaning is generated according to the contrast between inherent binary opposites operationalized at the deep level of human consciousness and revealed in the real world in the structure of grammar, myths, sexual relationships, etc. For history, this means its data is primarily understood through our linguistic mental structures rather than found in the external data. Inevitably, this casts doubt on notion[s] of evolutionary change [in ideas], scientific objectivity, the disinterested search for truth, and referentiality." (Munslow, pg. 189). Munslow notes that because Structuralists conceive of the "text as a self-sufficient sealed system [this] means that structuralist-inspired literary critics do not comprehend their sources - [which are in essence] fictional texts - by studying them in their context of real life. The structuralist literary critic tries to understand them by isolating text from context ..." (Munslow, pg. 29).

Post-Structuralism - Due to the arbitrary nature of signs, a preoccupation central to Structuralism, "language is unable to make any kind of natural, original or genuine sense of the world (including structuralism!)". As a result, "structuralism gives way to post-structuralism". The latter "acknowledges its limitations as a means of understanding. Accepting the elusive nature of the text as full of gaps, silences, and uncertainties of meaning - unfixed and flowing signifiers - it suggests that historical interpretation of the texts, like literary criticism, must be indeterminate and that all its readings are more or less inadequate. This does not, of course, mean that any interpretation is as good as another; it simply means that there are no definitive interpretations." (Munslow, pg. 29).

Deconstructionism - A subset of Post-Structuralism. The term describes Jacques Derrida's (late 1960's) name for his "ambitious attempt to disturb some of the most familiar habits of thought in Western culture, notably our reliance on hierarchical oppositions (presence/absence, primary/secondary, central/marginal, etc.)." It is "especially interested in the exclusions, omissions, and blind spots that enable texts - and societies - to function." (Moore, pg. 129) It "suggests that understanding texts is not solely or exclusively dependent upon reference to the external reality of empiricism, God, reason, morality, objectivity or author intentionality ... This logocentric notion of an originating source of absolute meaning is disputed in favor of the assumption that meaning is arbitrary and figuratively produced." (Munslow, pg. 180). As found in the works of Paul de Man, Deconstructionism is "a form of rhetorical analysis, an attempt to show that literary, critical, and philosophical arguments are invariably destabilized by the figures and tropes they necessarily employ." (Moore, pg. 129). These concepts were expanded by Michael Foucault to emphasize and interpret power relationships. He sought to "formulate a theory of power utterly purged of metaphysical postulates." (Moore, pg. 92). The theory was never fully formed, although "his analysis of the workings of power in given historical periods were robust and concrete ..." (Moore, pg. 93).

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DCHindley

Here is a summary of Alun Munslow's three dominant historical approaches

Deconstructing History (or via: amazon.co.uk), Alun Munslow, 1997.

Reconstructionists - Firmly rooted in the Modernist belief that truthful meaning can be directly inferred from the primary sources. The central methodology is empiricism, meaning that knowledge is gained through the use of the senses as we observe and experience life, or through statements or arguments demonstrated to be true. The more carefully it is done, with the practitioners working as experienced craftspersons, then the more accurate we become and the closer we get to knowing history as it actually happened. Historical narrative serves as a framework within which to explain series of individual events. Extremists reject any method that might taint the investigation or narration of history with ideology, bias or the historian's own ideology. However, most reconstructionists accept that the historian cannot avoid interjecting a certain amount of historical relativism into the explanation. (pp. 20-22).

Constructionist - A sub-species of reconstructionism engendered by Post-modern questioning of the empiricist claim that it is possible to build high order and well-justified historical explanations upon observable and singular evidence alone. While sharing the Modernist belief in the separate existence of factual knowledge derived from observable evidence, practitioners go beyond narrative single-event history and insist that history can only explain the past when the evidence is placed within a pre-existing explanatory framework (known as "covering laws") that allows for the calculation of general rules of human action. These general rules are revealed as patterns of behavior (which provide the basis for the historian to deduce covering laws from discreet pieces of evidence), and singular events are seen as part of a discernable pattern. Early advocates for such "covering laws" were Karl Marx, Auguste Compte and Herbert Spencer. They argue that these explanatory frameworks created by historians must to some greater or lesser extant be culturally provided. Presently, history is more and more constructed and written as a form of political commitment to marginalized groups (racial or ethnocultural, gendered, class, colonial, sexual and regional). (pp. 22-25).

Deconstructionist - In the latter part of the 20th century, some historians have embraced the Structuralist emphasis on language as the conduit through which knowledge passes. To them, the written historical narrative is the formal *re-representation* of historical content. Since language constitutes and represents, rather than transparently corresponds to, reality, then there is no ultimate knowable historical truth, and our knowledge of the past is social and perspectival, and written history exists within culturally determined power structures. A historical narrative is a possible history, not "the" past. These historians maintains that evidence only signposts possible realities and possible interpretations because all contexts are inevitably textualized or narrativized or texts within texts. (Munslow, pp. 25-26). Deconstructionist history "accepts that language constitutes history's content as well as the concepts and categories deployed to order and explain historical evidence through our linguistic power of figuration." (pg. 181)

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