Karl Popper is noted for having focused on the scientific ‘truth’ sought by induction; an inductive theory is submitted to empirical facts not to prove the theory’s truth, but for the purpose of eliminating those theories wherein a scientific fact proves the falsity of the theory on-the-spot.
Can such a model be applicable to social and political thought? Absolutely not! (I think)
Social and political thought is a quest and not a journey. Journey implies a destination whereas quest implies the process of searching. There is no destination, no end point, and no terminus for the search when seeking ‘a truth’ for social and political thought. Unlike inductive reasoning as applied to objects, social and political theories are either bad, good or better, they are never ‘truth’ in the sense of the methodology of ‘normal science’.
Social and political thought needs criticism plus dialogue/dialectic techniques as a functioning ‘forever’ process. Induction leads to social and political theories that face, not destruction on-the-spot but destruction by a ‘thousand cuts’. A fact that chips away at such a theory brings the theory’s legitimacy into question in certain areas encompassing the territory surveyed by the theory but no social and political theory can be complete, there are too many facets within the domain in question.
Obviously there are no certain truths, other than this statement, but there is a significant distance between truth for normal science and truth for social and political thought.
Sorry Chuck, this one left me generally confused. Specifically it seems to me your first paragraph and the bold pararaph are contradictory. Then in your statement
I read, in searching for truth there is no truth. So why bother? I have difficulty comprehending an existence of creating threads day after day with no prospect of weaving them into a fabric of existence. It sounds like a description of hell to me. This makes me nervous. I am going back to work on my thread.
In comparing normal science thought with social and political thought I think that the metaphor ‘thought is diamond’ is useful. I mean that by this metaphor the thought directed at solutions to a problem will encounter entities that have a diamond like quality.
When we examine a diamond under a white light while turning the diamond we see various facets of the diamond reflecting light. Diamonds have many facets. When we examine problems within normal science we find that the paradigm of that normal science restricts the view of the problem to just one facet. The scientist working within a paradigm examines only one facet whereas the social and political scientists must take into account all facets.
I agree, the “diamond” is a useful metaphor. There are two ways to look at a diamond. We can close one eye, stick a loupe in the other and look at every facet or we can hold the diamond at arms length, look at it with both eyes and see the entity. I prefer the latter view.