domingo, enero 15, 2006

If there is no objectivity, there is no science?

This is the feeling that I get from reading Weber and Hayek.

In "The facts of Social Sciences" Hayek says that the concept that we define in social science are abstraction from all the physical properties of the objects. Moreover, the concepts are teleologicals.
Weber on the other hand, says that there is a set of values that frame any interpretation that we make from reality.

Both claims seems to be against the objectivity in social science. So, if there is no objectivity, there is no science?

I think that this question is a sofism that could catch us in a trap. In social science the objectivity is not the same than in natural science.

My intuition lead my thougts toward the question: Is this kind of objectivity, the one mentioned by Weber and Hayek, the unique one?

Let me put it in this way. Someone with a scientific education in economics will do better economic than someone without education in the topic? If the answer is yes, I am tempted to say that there is some accumulated knowledge, that we can produce in economics, in such a systematic way that we can latter on give to students.

This does not guarantee that is the best knowledge, the objective and absolute one, however its allows us to say that there is a certain structure of reference that we are able to make up.

This is not an answer to my original question, however it is an interesting place to keep searching.

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