Philosophy and the Social Sciences
We don't need a lot of philosophy in the social sciences to arrive at satisfactory explanations of events, but a little helps. One of my main motivations behind writing this blog is my frustration of reading articles that deal with complexity in some way, but which then go on to simplify or elide some aspect of it. For example, in learning technology, an emphasis on the power of the machine denies to some extent the capacities of the people using it (and vice versa). Therefore, I find it useful to begin with a critique of theory as a starting point to unpick social phenomena. This is why I have been drawn to social ontology, in particular Critical Realism and Socio-materialism, both of which began with philosophical problems within sociology.
Central to my thinking on education is the concept of agency, and, for me, theory is the best guide to thinking about the nature of agency. It is not possible to operationalise and test agency – it's too complex, it's too difficult to define properly and it is too subjective. We can be empirical – by way of qualitative research, such as interviews or observation – but we still rely on the inference and judgement of the analysts. Which is why it is useful to understand how theory works, what are the main tendencies or biases that researchers introduce into social explanations, and how to account for them. So a little bit (not necessarily a lot) of philosophy about the nature of social reality can go a long way to improving explanations of social phenomena.
