Abstract
In this chapter the basic position of the book will be delineated. This is very much about the crisis of our social sciences and about a concomitant distorted worldview. Actually it is about the wrong foundation of our social sciences. History has shown how these sciences have evolved as a wrong kind of copy of the natural sciences, with a concomitant degeneration of the social sciences; a degeneration which has ultimately led to a contemporary crisis of our sciences and humanities and in society at large (cf. Sandywell 1996, p. xv). So, the topic of concern to be dealt with will be nothing less than The Future of the Sciences and Humanities (cf. Tindemans et al. 2002). The basic problem of the contemporary crisis seems to be that the system we are in as participating scientists is not able to reflect on itself (Sandywell 1996, p. xv). The functioning of us as scientists doing our science is comparable with the metaphor of the functioning of the eye which Giambattista Vico (1744/1984) used, in his book about The New Science: of the eye which is not able to see the eye itself (proposition 331). In direct relation to that inability, he described the need for the use of a mirror to see itself. This is also what we, as social scientists, need today for reflection on our doing science (Sandywell 1996, p. xv). As was the case for Vico, this reflection on the man-made construction of our world may be regarded as a turning point for our ‘wo/man-made’ view of the world. We may become aware that reality, as we perceive it, is not a given reality but an invented, ‘man-made’ reality (see e.g. Watzlawick 1984, p. 9; and Sandywell 1999, p. x). Just because it is a kind of invented reality, this reality cannot be the true reality (Watzlawick 1984, p. 9). This moment of reflection, of looking in the mirror, may make us aware that science itself, like reality, is not an independent variable! Both kinds of invention may be considered to be a kind of choice made in our history of science: a choice which could have been a different choice, made by men (see e.g. Vico 1744/1968; Whitehead 1925/1967, p. 200).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In the journal Nexus, nr. 48, pp. 191–192.
- 2.
See Tristan Fecit (2000): available online at: http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/norton.html
- 3.
T.S. Eliot (1922). “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In: The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.
- 4.
See Vygotsky (1926/1997) for his contribution on the crisis in psychology, which was not published until after his death.
- 5.
This kind of immaturity may be linked with the state of immaturity, described by Kant, in his famous text on Enlightenment, in which he connects this state of self-incurred immaturity with the courage to think: Sapere aude!
- 6.
Maybe his very first work was about educational psychology around the same age or before (Vygotsky 1926/1997).
- 7.
cf. the role of agency in the recent book of Margaret Archer 2003.
- 8.
To master, here, is to be taken as very much different from the notion of control, of the calculable, of the predictable.
- 9.
See Dewey, in Freedom and Culture, about the greatest danger of becoming blind to the shortcomings of our own “working theories” (in Clark 2002, p. 388).
- 10.
See Margaret Archer 2000, p. 306.
- 11.
This seems to be the usual misunderstanding in viewing the role of theory, and that of practice.
- 12.
See Dewey, in Freedom and Culture, about the greatest danger of becoming blind to the shortcomings of our own “working theories” (in Clark 2002, p. 388); cf. situation of deadlock, in Archer (1995), p. 26, about programs of Methodological Collectivism and Individualism.
References
Archer, M. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Axelrod, R., & Cohen, M. D. (1999). Harnessing complexity: Organizational implications of a scientific frontier. New York: The Free Press.
Barab, S., & Kirshner, D. (2002). Introduction to the special issue: Rethinking methodology in the learning sciences. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(1&2), 5–15.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
Bhaskar, R. (1989). Reclaiming reality. London: Verso.
Bhaskar, R. (2002). Reflections on meta-reality: Transcendence, emancipation and everyday life. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond learning: Democratic education for a human future. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Bohm, D. (1996). On creativity. London: Routledge.
Brockman, J. (1995). The third culture: Beyond the scientific revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Brockman, J. (2006, January 1). Edge The World Question Center. The Huffington Post, pp. 1–2. Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brockman/the-edge-annual-question_b_13106.html
Buckley, W. (1967). Sociology and modern systems theory. Englewoods Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Dennett, D. C. (2003). Freedom evolves. New York: Viking.
Desforges, C. (2001). Educational research and educational practice. ‘What does educational research have to offer to education?’. In A. Wald & H. Leenders (Eds.), Wat heeft onderwijs-onderzoek het onderwijs te bieden? Den Haag: NWO.
EUROCORES Programme. (2005). Consciousness in a natural and cultural context. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation.
Follett, M. P. (1924). The creative experience. See also Drucker et al., 1995. Also (partly) retrievable via: http://www.follettfoundation.org/writings.htm
Gohr, S. (2000). Magritte. San Francisco: Abrams Inc.
Jardine, D. W., Friesen, S., & Clifford, P. (2006). Curriculum in abundance. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Joravsky, D. (1989). Russian psychology: A critical history. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Jörg, T. (2007). Visiting the future of learning and education from a complexity perspective. In C. Stary, F. Bacharini, & S. Hawamdeh (Eds.), Knowledge management: Innovation, technology and cultures (pp. 227–241). Hackensack: WorldScientific.
Juarrero, A. (1999). Dynamics in action: Intentional behaviour as a complex system. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kauffman, S. (1995a). Investigations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kauffman, S. (1995b). At home in the universe. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Long, J. S. (1987). Problems and prospects for research on sex differences in the scientific career. In L. S. Dix (Ed.), Women: Their under- representation and career differentials in science and engineering. Proceedings of a workshop (pp. 157–169). Washington: National Academy Press.
Luhmann, N., & Schorr, K.-E. (2000). Problems of reflection in the system of education (European studies in education, Vol. 13). Münster: Waxmann.
Mainzer, K. (2004/2007). Thinking in complexity: The computational dynamics of matter, mind, and mankind. Berlin: Springer.
Morin, E. (2001). Seven complex lessons in education for the future. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Morin, E. (2002). A propos de la complexité. Available at: http://www.litt-and-co.org/philo.textes.htm
Nakkula, M. J., & Ravitch, S. M. (1998). Matters of interpretation: Reciprocal transformation in therapeutic and developmental relationships.. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Nock, A. J. (1931). The theory of education in the United States. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Osberg, D. (2009). “Enlarging the space of the possible” around what is means to educate and be educated. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 6(1), iii–x.
Oyama, S. (1989). Ontogeny and the central dogma: Do we need the concept of genetic programming in order to have an evolutionary perspective? In M. R. Gunnar & E. Thelen (Eds.), Systems and development (pp. 1–34). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Oyama, S. (2000). Evolution’s eye. Durham: Duke University Press.
Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature. Glasgow: Fontana Paperbacks.
Reid, R. (2007). Biological emergences: Evolution by natural experiment. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Rescher, N. (1998). Complexity: A philosophical overview. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Rip, A. (2002). Science for the 21st Century. In P. Tindemans, A. Verrijn-Stuart, & R. Visser (Eds.), The future of the sciences and humanities (pp. 99–148). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Roepstorff, A. (2007). In dromen ontstaan werkelijkheden (In dreams realities grow). In NEXUS (Vol. 48, pp. 189–194). Tilburg: Uitgeverij Nexus.
Sandywell, B. (1996). Reflexivity and the crisis of Western reason (Logological investigations, Vol. 1). London: Routledge.
Sassone, L. A. (1996). Philosophy across the curriculum: A democratic Nietzschean pedagogy. Educational Theory, 46(4), 511–524.
Scheffer, M. (2009). Critical transitions in nature and society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Schnabel, P. (2002). Science and democracy: A difficult relationship. In P. Tindemans, A. Verrijn-Stuart, & R. Visser (Eds.), The future of the sciences and humanities (pp. 212–225). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline. New York: Doubleday.
Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J., & Kleiner, A. (2000). Schools that learn. New York: Doubleday.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Stanley, D. (2005). Paradigmatic complexity: Emerging ideas and historical views of the complexity sciences. In W. C. Doll Jr., M. J. Fleener, D. Trueit, & J. St.Julien (Eds.), Chaos, complexity, curriculum, and culture (pp. 133–151). New York: Peter Lang.
Tindemans, P., Verrijn-Stuart, A., & Visser, R. (Eds.). (2002). The future of the sciences and humanities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc.
Vico, G. (1744/1993). The new science of Giambattista Vico. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Von Foerster, H. (1993). Understanding understanding. New York: Springer.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1987a). Thought and language (A. Kozulin Ed. & Trans.). Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1987b). In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Problems of general psychology, Vol. 1). New York: Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1997a). In R.W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Problems of the theory and history of psychology, Vol. 3). New York: Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1997b). Genesis of higher mental functions. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (The history of the development of higher mental functions, Vol. 4, pp. 97–119). New York: Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1997c). Educational psychology. Boca Raton: St Lucie Press.
Vygotsky, L.(1997d). In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (The history of the development of higher mental function, Vol. 4). New York: Plenum Press.
Watzlawick, P. (Ed.). (1984). The invented reality: How do we know what we believe we know? Contributions to constructivism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Whitehead, A. N. (1925/1967). Science and the modern world. New York: The Free Press.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1999). Generativity, entrenchement, evolution, and innateness: Philosophy, evolutionary biology, and conceptual foundations of science. In V. G. Hardcastle (Ed.), Where biology meets psychology (pp. 139–180). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zilsel, E. (2000). The social origins of modern science. In D. Raven, W. Krohn, & R. S. Cohen (Eds.), Boston studies in the philosophy of science (Vol. 200). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jörg, T. (2011). The Crisis in the Social Sciences. In: New Thinking in Complexity for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1303-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1303-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1302-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1303-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)