2. Last class Demarcation: Distinguishing scientific (empirical) knowledge from everyday knowledge Empiricism: social sciences should use the methodology of natural sciences
3. Criticism of empirical method Tautological Deterministic Without context (historical, cultural etc.) Uncritical of society
7. hermeneutics Hermes: God of deceit, trade and messenger of the Gods Hermeneutics focuses on the interpretation of narratives
8. Wilhelm Dilthey (1883-1911) “Erklären” (explaining) Natural sciences (physical laws) “Verstehen” (understanding/interpreting) Social sciences Verstehen doesn’t really play a role in quantitative research
10. Verstehen(interpretation) Empathy Human agency Why does person x go to war? Because he was raised as a patriot and he feels it his duty to protect his country when it is threatened by a hostile nation.
11. In what kind of research cases would empathy be valuable? Name some examples
13. Being-in-the-world Being-in-the-world is a 'thrownness' (Geworfenheit) We are thrown in the world We are put in a context without prior knowledge. There is no such thing as seeing the world form a birds-eye view We only see the world from within the world
14. All meaning is context dependent All meaning is anticipated from a certain point of view
16. Like reading a book To understand a sentence of a book you need to understand the whole book (context) To understand the whole book you need to understand the individual sentences.
18. You always start out from prejudice, pre-understanding, pre-judgment Stating a research question is already interpretation
19. Truth and Method Gadamer was critical of positivism (empiricism) in social sciences Social sciences shouldn't use The methodology of natural sciences
21. Fusion of horizons We all have our own horizon By interpreting the horizon of others we broaden our own horizon
22. People are embedded in a (historical and cultural) context They have their own vantage point, their horizon Interpreting a narrative involves a fusion of horizons
24. Statements as conveyors of meaning Not: what correspondence with reality is there in statement A But: What does statement A mean
25. Interpretative theory Room for free will, intentionality Subjectivist paradigm, meaning is inter-subjectively created Understanding an action by relating it to the (cultural) whole Analyzing interviews
26. Examples of relation to the whole Name some examples of customs that can only be understood in relation to the whole
28. People construct their own narrative By interacting people construct/negotiate a reality So our reality is not objectively given but inter-subjectively constructed
30. Max Weber: Man is an animal in a web of meaning of his own making Geertz: Culture is the whole of these webs These webs should not be researched in the vein of the natural sciences: in search of laws. But: interpretative search for meaning
31. Thick description Thin description: what is literally happening Thick description: What is happening in context, in the space between erklären and verstehen
32. Example: Winking Person a blinks his eye in an involuntary twitch Person b blinks his eye as a signal to a friend In thin description the actions of a and b would be the same In thick description we link the action of person b to a context His winking is a public code related to a larger cultural context
33. Science or relativism? Do we get more understanding? Can we acquire knowledge trough empathy? Is this scientific?