From primary school, junior high school, high school to university and even work, everyone often comes into contact with papers. Thesis is a means to study some academic problems. You always have no way to write a paper? The following is my paper on the research value of social science for reference only. Welcome to reading.
On Value in Social Science Research: 1 Does social science research need to separate fact from value, or consciously exclude value judgment? This seems to be an obvious and simple question. But in fact, this is not the case, because people's implicit values always affect the research itself implicitly or obviously. This problem has become prominent in social science research in eastern countries. Therefore. This paper first discusses some representative arguments of contemporary western philosophy on this issue, and then makes targeted comments on some general trends in social science research in China.
Neutralization of scientific value
The value neutrality of science has long influenced the dominant scientific view and epistemology in western philosophy. It is generally believed that Max Weber introduced the modern dichotomy of factual value. He discussed two viewpoints in the classic paper "The Significance of Value Neutrality in Sociology and Economics" [1]. First of all, he absorbed Hume's thought and thought that there was an insurmountable gap between specification and description, between asserting what things were actually and what ideals should be. Because the value we give to things does not belong to the truth of these things, science is concerned with describing what actually happened and explaining why. Naturally, science can and must pay attention to how individuals and groups actually evaluate, but it can't fundamentally and truly record this or that thing, so it is necessary to classify and evaluate it. Weber's second argument is prescriptive. He never thinks that value is insignificant, nor does he advocate that everyone, especially social scientists, should always avoid value judgment. On the contrary, he insisted on distinguishing between appraisal and evaluation, which should not be confused. When expressing value judgment, we should not claim that this judgment is scientifically confirmed; Because it's actually impossible. When social scientists advocate an action, they should try to explain what they say is scientific discovery and what is policy advice in a completely different position. This is an inevitable requirement for intellectuals' sincere quality and the principle of respecting truth.
In the 20th century, logical positivists generally strongly advocated the strict distinction between science and value, description and specification, what is and what should be, and demanded that social sciences adhere to the position of value neutrality. Hempel pointed out that the value neutrality of science can be said to revolve around two different aspects, namely, (1) the actual research behavior of scientists, and (2) the methodological standards for critical evaluation and demonstration of scientific assertions and procedures. On the practical behavior level of scientists, value evaluation undoubtedly plays an important role as an inducing factor of scientific research. Moral principles, prudent thinking and personality will obviously affect scientists' choice of research fields, problems and methods. Social and political values may weaken efforts to study some special problem areas, and may also encourage people to agree with some theories that have no reliable basis. Of course, as a rule, the decision to adopt or abandon a particular hypothesis or theory in scientific research will be strongly influenced by cognitive values or norms, which is reflected in their compliance with the standards of certain methods and procedures. [2]
It is this issue that constitutes an important inducing factor of research behavior, and value evaluation is related to scientific research. Therefore, psychology, sociology and history of science must consider the role of value evaluation when explaining scientific research behavior. However, this scientific explanation does not involve any value judgment when scientists are influenced by value. That is to say, when explaining that scientists accept or abandon a theory, they do not demonstrate the rationality of the theory, or that it is an unreasonable scientific procedure. Rationality requires a critical evaluation of the theory on the basis of existing evidence and other systems. It is on this issue that the traditional view of science, especially the view of logical positivism, advocates that there is a clear objective standard for the relationship between scientific theory and evidence, and this standard can be expressed by the logical relationship between evidence and theory, thus providing a basis for the objectivity and value neutrality of science. According to this view, legitimate scientific research and its results are independent of the researcher's personal prejudice, belief or attitude, so some procedures can be regarded as violating scientific norms, and excessive dependence on values other than science can be used to explain the motivation of researchers to violate legitimate scientific behavior.
Similar to the above philosophy of science, Karl Mannheim, the originator of modern sociology of knowledge (or sociology of science), also distinguished nature from culture, and clearly distinguished mathematics, natural science from religion, morality and practice. "It can be said that formal knowledge is acceptable to everyone in essence. Its content is not influenced by individual disciplines and their historical and social conditions. On the other hand, it is obvious that there are a wide range of subject affairs, which can only be accepted by some subjects or certain historical periods, and it is also obvious from the perspective of personal social purposes. " [3] He believes that natural science is repeatable, while cultural fields such as religious morality have incomparable characteristics. So he asserted that ideology is not true in essence. Generally speaking, ideology is characterized by a highly clear exposition of its wide range of objects, as well as authority and clear orders to its followers. Compared with other types of beliefs, ideology is more systematic and integrates around one or several prominent values. It often resists the change of belief, and its acceptance or implementation is often accompanied by encouraging publicity. Whoever accepts it must obey it completely, and whose behavior must completely infiltrate ideology. Any kind of ideology is born in a specific culture, so it is impossible to be completely divorced from the important factors of that culture. Ideology deliberately covers people's motives and interests, forcing interests and people who are confronting each other to deceive each other, and covering narrow local purposes and interests in a seemingly universal way. Ideology does not take the systematic pursuit of truth as its own obligation, so it adopts a dogmatic attitude and is unwilling to accept new experiences and truths. As a product of culture, the influence of ideology on social science is particularly obvious.
Mannheim insists that all knowledge about politics or world outlook is inevitably party spirit. His implied argument is that political science, sociology and other social sciences can't get rid of the shackles of ideology and party spirit, so he also admits that people with different social status have different ideas. These views have aroused the debate of American pragmatist Hooke. After affirming Mannheim's pioneering work, Hooke pointed out that the difficulty lies in Mannheim's realization that the ideology and utopia expressing class position have led to theories and discoveries about the nature of things that are considered "true" in the scientific sense. Therefore, the question whether the shift to these "truths" depends on the class position and class interests that lead to the exploration and discovery of these truths. "Because the class position and class interests have changed with the historical period, Mannheim believes that this issue has become a sociology of knowledge. ..... Now, assuming that scientific methods and objectivity are the same, Mannheim's headache is: How is any kind of scientific knowledge possible? In Mannheim's book, different pages have different answers, which makes readers completely at a loss about what he really believes. " [4] Pragmatism, as a unique form of scientism, has made its own answer. In fact, Hooke believes that science (including social science) still has an objective basis beyond subjective value, such as empirical confirmation or falsification judgment, even if there is relativity of class or party views. This is an important argument that we ignored when we understood pragmatism in the past.