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Reductionism in the Human Sciences:A Philosopher's Game
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
David Papineau contends that the possibility of science depends on there being uniformly realized phenomena that are reducible to physical laws, not merely the variably realized selection mechanisms that are characteristic of much social science. Some who share Papineau's view regard it as fatal to the possibility of social science on the grounds that their subject matter lacks the uniformly realized phenomena that he regards as necessary for science.
Papineau disagrees with this pessimism, asserting that, like “pain mechanisms,” many cognitive abilities are uniformly realized across humans. As a result, there can be a “rich nexus of laws” about them – though he says nothing about what these laws might be. Not everything social scientists study exhibits what Papineau regards as the necessary reductive feature, but although he sidesteps any attempt to demarcate what he takes to be the scientific zone of the social sciences, he is confident that enough falls within its ambit to make the game worth the candle.
To the extent that human categories are uniformly physically realized, they will function as scientific kinds in a full sense. There will be a wide range of projectible general truths about various facets of human pain, human vision, and human learning. Moreover, to the extent that subjects such as economics and sociology formulate generalizations that depend only on the basic structure of human reasoning, rather than on variably realized learned states, we can expect them to deal with complexes of interrelated generalizations too. It is plausible that many of the principles of economics, political science, and social choice theory will fit this bill.
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