Objectivity in the Social Sciences (Harold Kincaid)

Lectures Series in Evidence, Models and Explanations

Objectivity in the Social Sciences by Harold Kincaid (University of Cape Town)

Questions of objectivity involve many general philosophy of science issues; when directed toward the social sciences, even more complex issues surface about the status of the social sciences, e.g. can they be sciences as are the natural sciences? This paper does not take on this mass of issues directly, but instead argues for more restricted theses, in particular that questions about objectivity in the social sciences are often usefully seen as local empirical issues. I look at arguments around underdetermination, value ladenness, the indeterminacy or nonquantitative nature of social science categories or attributes, and traditional ontological debates over materialism and idealism. I show that in all these cases some of the key issues about objectivity are specific empirical issues in the social sciences.