Social Science and the Problem of Interpretation: A Pragmatic Dual(ist) Approach

ABSTRACT

In Power Without Knowledge, Jeffrey Friedman contends that ideational complexity can stymie social-scientific understanding and prevent the reliable predictive knowledge required of a well-functioning technocracy. However, even this somewhat pessimistic outlook may understate the problem. Ideational complexity has both cognitive and phenomenal dimensions, each of which poses unique dilemmas. Further, due to its methodological individualism, Friedman’s vision may neglect emergent layers of knowledge produced through social interaction, creating yet another source of unknowns. Given these two factors, social science should embrace a pluralism regarding levels of analysis. This would recognize the multifaceted limitations on social-science knowledge production, furthering epistemic humility about the potential role of social science in technocratic policymaking.

Keywords:

• epistemological individualism
• ideational determinism
• ideational heterogeneity
• qualia
• technocracy

Notes

1 Despite my sympathy for the general public’s distrust of policymaking elites’ confidence, I am still unable to fathom how this loss of faith could possibly lead so many to support the candidacy of Donald Trump. See Friedman 2020.

2 For my own efforts at precisely this type of localized intellectual history, see Lerner 2018 and 2019a.

3 This division, though often invoked in different terms, appears regularly in important theorizations across the social sciences. For example, in his seminal typology of memory, psychologist Endel Tulving (1972) made a distinction between what he referred to as the objective, factual realm of semantic memory and the subjective, experiential realm of episodic memory.