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Concept Formation in Normative and Empirical Studies: Toward Reconciliation in Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Arthur L. Kalleberg
Arthur L. Kalleberg*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Columbia
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Extract

Despite the fact that the study of politics has become increasingly empirical, quantitative and “behavioral” in recent years, and despite the apparently increasing tendency to feel that whatever meaningful debate ever existed between the behavioralists and the anti-behavioralists has ended, should end, or at least has become irrelevant since a more sophisticated and empirically productive behavioralism now predominates in virtually all fields of the discipline, the methodological debate continues, diminished perhaps in quantity but not in intensity.

This essay is based on the assumption that the antagonists concerned with the methodological issues raised by the “new science of politics” have but rarely focused precisely on the arguments raised by their opponents. A second motivating assumption is that nothing constructive, conciliatory or conducive to the integration of the discipline can be done “until the issues have been squarely confronted on the basic and general plane of philosophy….” A thorough analysis of all of the meaningful issues involved can only be a task of long-range proportions. But in the hope of bringing about some degree of communication, if not reconciliation, it is my intention in this essay to bring one of these issues into sharper focus, to show that almost despite themselves, some of the critics and proponents of the “new science of politics” have addressed themselves to the problem of concept formation, and that despite their proclaimed differences are talking at cross-purposes about a similar problem. Indeed, it will be seen that the conflict between the “traditionalists” and the “behavioralists” is utterly dependent—in the area of concept formation—upon an outmoded positivistic interpretation of behavioral science and a misguided reaction on the part of some political theorists to that obsolete conception.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 1969 , pp. 26 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1969

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References

1 Dahl, Robert A., “The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest,” this Review, 55 (12, 1961), 763–772 Google Scholar.

2 See Storing, Herbert J. (ed.), Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962)Google Scholar; Schaar, John H. and Wolin, Sheldon S., “Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics: A Critique,” this Review, 57 (03, 1963), 125–150 Google Scholar; Storing, Herbert J., Strauss, Leo, et al, “Replies to Schaar and Wolin,” pp. 151–160 Google Scholar; Charlesworth, James C. (ed.), The Limits of Behavioralism in Political Science (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1962)Google Scholar; Runciman, W. G., Social Science and Political Theory (Cambridge: University Press, 1963), especially pp. 156–175 Google Scholar; Charlesworth, James C. (ed.), A Design for Political Science: Scope, Objectives, and Methods (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1966)Google Scholar; Meehan, Eugene J., Contemporary Political Thought: A Critical Study (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1967), especially pp. 1–110 Google Scholar.

3 Schaar and Wolin, op. cit., p. 125.

4 Hempel, C. G., Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 24 Google Scholar. The original statement of this is to be found in Watson, J. B., Behaviorism, Revised Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930)Google Scholar. Other contemporary philosophers of science describe early, or radical, behaviorism in this manner also. See Kaufmann, Felix, Methodology of the Social Sciences (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. 148, 151 Google Scholar; Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), pp. 476–477 Google Scholar.

5 Nagel, Ernest, John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Scientific Method (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1950), p. 307 Google Scholar.

6 This view of what is implied by the behavioral position is appropriate in regard to J. B. Watson's work, but not with respect to the work of contemporary behavioral scientists. And even exponents of radical behaviorism, while rejecting introspection as a research method, did not deny the existence of conscious mental states. See Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science, op. cit., pp. 477, 480.

This obsolete and incorrect view of what is implied by the behavioral position is dominant among critics of the “new science of politics.” See Leo Strauss, “An Epilogue,” in Herbert J. Storing, op. cit., pp. 310–320; Leo Weinstein on Bentley, pp. 154, 174, 188, 189, 220; Herbert J. Storing on Simon, pp. 112, 123–132. See also Kariel, Henry S., “Political Science in the United States: Reflections on One of Its Trends,” Political Studies, 4 (06, 1956), 114–115 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Hochberg, Herbert, “Physicalism, Behaviorism, and Phenomena,” Philosophy of Science, 26 (04, 1959), 93 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (Evanston: Principia Press, 1935), p. 177. n. 1Google Scholar.

9 Ibid, pp. 167–168.

10 Ibid, pp. 169, 184–185.

11 Merriam, Charles E., New Aspects of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925), p. 86 Google Scholar; “Progress in Political Research,” this Review, 20 (02, 1926), p. 7 Google Scholar. As G. E. G. Catlin put it, “Politics must view social phenomena externally, considering without moral parti pris the appraisals of value and conventional estimates which it observes that men, in given places or times, in fact entertain…. The appreciation of the meaning of the phenomena it must leave to art and religion, which alone are competent to give us ‘empathically’ a sympathetic understanding of the personal experience”: The Science and Method of Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), p. 106 Google Scholar. For others see the discussion in Crick, Bernard, The American Science of Politics (London: Routledge and Kegan, Paul, 1959), p. 129 Google Scholar.

12 Apter, David, “Theory and the Study of Politics,” this Review, 51 (09, 1957), p. 755 Google Scholar.

13 Ibid, p. 755.

14 Ibid, p. 755.

15 Ibid, p. 757.

16 The most succinct analysis of this is given by Abel, T., “The Operation Called Verstehen ,” American Journal of Sociology, 54 (11 1948), 211–218 Google ScholarPubMed. See also Natanson, Maurice, “A Study in Philosophy and the Social Sciences,” Social Research, 25 (Summer, 1958), 158–172 Google Scholar. In political science the best-known proponent of verstehen as a necessary instrument of explanation in social science is Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 50–59 Google Scholar.

17 Abel, op. cit., pp. 211–218.

18 Leo Strauss, op. cit., p. 54.

19 Herbert J. Storing, op. cit., p. 310. See also Strauss, Leo, “The Social Science of Max Weber,” Measure, 2 (1951), 211–214 Google Scholar; The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1936), pp. 129–170 Google Scholar.

20 Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History, p. 55 Google Scholar.

21 Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp. 20–27 Google Scholar; Smith, David G., “Political Science and Political Theory,” this Review, 51 (09, 1957), p. 739 Google Scholar; Perry, Charner, “The Semantics of Political Science,” this Review, 44 (06, 1950), p. 398 Google Scholar; Jaffa, Harry V., “The Case Against Political Theory,” unpublished paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 09 12, 1959, p. 2 Google Scholar; Bernard Crick, op. cit., pp. 120–122, 126, 128–129; Barry, Robert M., “Review of Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality ,” in International Philosophical Quarterly, 3 (09, 1963), p. 649 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 MacIver, R. M., Social Causation (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1942) pp. 390–391 Google Scholar. The dependence of the political theorist on “self-awareness and introspection” is asserted also by Jacobson, Norman, “The Unity of Political Theory: Science, Morals, and Politics,” in Young, Roland (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958), p. 120 Google Scholar, and David G. Smith, op. cit., p. 742.

23 Charner Perry, “The Semantics of Political Science,” op. cit., p. 398.

24 Ibid, p. 395.

25 Ibid, p. 397.

26 Ibid, p. 399.

27 Ibid, p. 406.

28 See, for example, Lavine, Thelma, “Note to Naturalists on the Human Spirit,” Journal of Philosophy, 50 (02, 1953), 145–154 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nagel's, Ernest criticism of Lavine's position in his article, “On the Method of Verstehen as the Sole Method of Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophy, 50 (1953), 154–157 Google Scholar; and Lavine's, reply, “What is the Method of Naturalism?” Journal of Philosophy, 50 (1953), 157–161 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A year later Carl Cohen joined the debate with an article on “Naturalism and the Method of Verstehen ,” Journal of Philosophy, 51 (04 1, 1954), 220–225 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Schutz, Alfred, “Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences,” Journal of Philosophy, 51 (04, 29, 1954), p. 265 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Underlining added. Schutz further observes that the controversy about verstehen “… suffers from the failure to distinguish clearly between Verstehen (1) as the experiential form of common sense knowledge of human affairs, (2) as an epistemological problem, and (3) as a method peculiar to the social sciences.” Type (2) represents the way the critics of verstehen deal with its meaning, that is, as a problem in how we know, in general, viz., by intuition or by observation. Type (3), on the other hand, assumes that the logic implicit in the physical and the social sciences is the same, and treats the term as referring to a problem in method peculiar to the social sciences. That is to say, granted that the logic of all the sciences is the same, nevertheless, social reality, the “object of inquiry” in the social sciences (interaction, intersubjectivity, language) requires a method of observation (and therefore a type of concept formation) suitable for those objects, a method that observes actions as they are meant by the actors and not that observes actions with meanings imposed by the observer.

See Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Action (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957), pp. 9, 18, 22, 90, but esp. p. 88Google Scholar; Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (Glencoe: Free Press, 2nd Edition, 1949), esp. pp. 82 ff, 345–347, 484 ffGoogle Scholar; Felix Kaufmann, op. cit., pp. 166ff.

30 Peter Winch makes the similar claim that critics of Weber have misunderstood him. Winch claims that Sinn is the subjectively intended sense or meaning which an act has for the actor, and verstehen is to understand that, and not to have some special inner sense, or intuition, of causal relations. Weber explicitly asserted the necessity of verifying hypotheses through statistical laws based on observation of what happens. Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science (New York: Humanities Press; 1958), pp. 117–119, 112–113 Google Scholar.

31 Alfred Schutz, op. cit., pp. 260–261.

32 Ibid, p. 261.

33 Ibid, pp. 262–263. According to Parsons, social interaction always involves “ … the normative and the conditional. As process, action is, in fact, the process of alteration of the conditional elements in the direction of conformity with norms. Elimination of the normative aspect altogether eliminates the concept of action itself and leads to the radical positivistic position. Elimination of conditions … equally eliminates action and results in idealistic emanationism.” And, as he points out, normative elements can only be conceived as existing in the mind of the actor, and are thus “inherently subjective.” Talcott Parsons, op. cit., p. 732.

34 Alfred Schutz, op. cit., p. 263. This “intersubjectivity” appears quite clearly as Schutz points out, in the self-correcting process of scientific inquiry itself. Science is a social enterprise, “but the postulate to describe and explain behavior in terms of controllable sensory observation stops short before the description and explanation of the process by which scientist B controls and verifies the observational findings of scientist A and the conclusions drawn by him. In order to do so, B has to know what A has observed, what the goal of his inquiry is, why he thought the observed fact worthy of being observed, i.e., relevant to the scientific problem at hand, etc. This knowledge is commonly called understanding. The explanation of how such a mutual understanding of human beings might occur is apparently left to the social scientist. But whatever his explanation might be, one thing is sure, namely, that such an intersubjective understanding between scientist B and scientist A occurs neither by scientist B's observation of scientist A's overt behavior, nor by introspection performed by B, nor by identification of B with A.” Ibid, p. 262.

35 Ibid., p. 264. The “intersubjective (objective) nature of this learning process is analyzed by Schutz, in “Common Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 14, No. 1 (09, 1953), p. 12 Google Scholar. He relates the origin of common constructs to the understanding imparted by communication, which in turn depends on “a community of time and space” between the persons involved. And the latter implies that a certain sector of the outer world is equally within the reach of each person, and that they can interchange positions to acquire the perspective of the other. Significantly, Schutz cites Charles H. Cooley and George Mead on this matter.

The similarity, if not identity, between “social relations” and concepts in general should be obvious at this point. As even Lerner and Lasswell make clear, following Clyde Kluckhohn, in order to understand cultures we must know social relations and social relations are meanings. Observed action must be conceptualized in terms of their purposes in the minds of the subjects. Lerner, Daniel and Lasswell, Harold D. (eds.), The Policy Sciences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951), pp. 89–90, 101 Google Scholar. And, the meaning of concepts cannot be explained in terms of the actions of any individual person, or persons—they are presupposed, learned, and shared. See Mandelbaum, Maurice, “Societal Facts,” British Journal of Sociology, 6, No. 4 (12, 1955), p. 305 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Felix Kaufmann, op. cit., pp. 18–19; Peter Winch, op. cit., pp. 121–123.

36 Alfred Schutz, “Concept and Theory Formation,” op. cit., pp. 266–267. See also Peter Winch, op. cit., pp. 83–85.

37 This difference appears in the fact that the criteria according to which the student of politics “… judges that, in two situations, the same thing has happened, or the same action performed, must be understood in relation to the rules governing sociological investigation. But here we run against a difficulty: for whereas in the case of the natural scientist we have to deal with only one set of rules, namely those governing the scientist's investigation itself, here what the sociologist is studying, as well as his study of it, is a human activity and is therefore carried on according to rules. And it is these rules, rather than those which govern the sociologist's investigation, which specify what is to count as ‘doing the same kind of thing’ in relation to that kind of activity.” Peter Winch, op. cit., pp. 86–87. If, then, the scholar's criteria of concept formation must come from the rules of action found in political life, his relation to the practitioners of politics “… cannot be just that of observer to observed. It must rather be analogous to the participation of the natural scientist with his fellow-workers in the activities of scientific investigation. Putting the point generally, even if it is legitimate to speak of one's understanding of a mode of social activity as consisting in a knowledge of regularities, the nature of this knowledge must be very different from the nature of knowledge of physical regularities.” Ibid., pp. 87–88.

38 Maurice Natanson, op. cit., p. 168. Compare this with Thelma Lavine, op. cit., p. 150. See also Talcott Parsons, op. cit., pp. 82–83 and 5, where it is made clear that the conceptual framework, though not necessarily the technique of verification, of the theory of action is couched in terms of subjective categories.

39 See Eulau, Heinz, Political Behavior (Glencoe: Free Press, 1956)Google Scholar; and his article, “Political Science” in Hoselitz, Bert F., A Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences (Glencoe: Free Press, 1959), pp. 89–127 Google Scholar.

40 McClosky, Herbert, “Conservatism and Personality,” this Review, 52 (03, 1958), 27–45 Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., p. 30.

42 Ibid., pp. 30–31. Altogether, over 80 pools of items were submitted, the conservatism pool being only one of them.

43 Ibid., pp. 32–33.

44 In addition to examining the contributions in the science of politics toward understanding the “orientations toward politics” which we have been discussing, Heinz Eulau's Political Behavior examines research done on the “agents and techniques of political power” and on activities going on in the “arena of political decision-making.” The first is concerned with leadership studies, studies of the “mechanisms” by means of which influences are mobilized and transmitted. Often these studies are simply historical-descriptive analyses of social origins, religious affiliations, etc. See pp. 184–193. Where they are not, they are similar to the studies under the rubric “orientations toward politics” as far as the problem of concept formation goes. See pp. 193–204, 260–264. The second group is likewise concerned with applying the same procedures, only in the context of specific (non-community wide) loci, or arenas, of influence. The subject matter, i.e., influence, or political power, remains the same, as do the procedures involved in concept formation. Some of these studies involve merely descriptive statistics (pp. 275 ff.); others illustrate the type of concept formation analyzed (pp. 286–307).

45 For example, Woodward, Julian L. and Roper, Elmo, “Political Activity of American Citizens,” reprinted from this Review, 44 (12, 1950), 872–885 Google Scholar, in Heinz Eulau, and others (eds.), op. cit., p. 133.

46 Loc. cit.

47 Robert E. Agger and Vincent Ostrora, “Political Participation in a Small Community,” in Heinz Eulau, and others, op. cit., p. 139.

48 In a recent methodological study of anthropology S. P. Nadel wrote that it is invariably necessary for the anthropologist to go into the field and make himself “familiar” with the culture (usually primitive) that he wishes to study and overcome its strangeness by “something like an intellectual assimilation.” Significantly, he stresses the fact that the study of the native language will probably have to precede the study of culture and social life. Since the meaning of terms and sentences of this new language cannot be gotten by counting the letters or words “scientifically” but must be learned, Nadel is obviously implying that before any of the “objective” controls used by anthropologists can be applied the investigator must learn the meaning of the concepts, and therefore of the institutions, of the new culture. Nadel, S. F., The Foundations of Social Anthropology (Glencoe: Free Press, 1951), p. 6 Google Scholar. Underlining added.

It is also relevant to note the criteria Nadel suggests for isolating different types of so-called action patterns. “We have long held,” he states, “that the order of things to which social institutions belong is built up through collecting together standardized action patterns on the grounds of their aim contents…. It might also seem that the people we observe themselves have names for these ‘summaries’ of related action patterns—‘marriage,’ ‘family,’ ‘chieftanship,’ ‘property,’ and the like. All such names … stand for normative concepts; the institution represents, for the actor, a rule or norm, and has that kind of reality, that is, the non-spatial and in a sense timeless validity of concepts.” Ibid., p. 107. Underlining added.

49 In addition to Peter Winch, loc. cit., see Argyle, Michael, The Scientific Study of Social Behavior (London: Methuen, 1957), pp. 14–26 Google Scholar, where it is pointed out that the social scientist has two general types of measuring instruments all his own, namely, the different kinds of interview and questionnaire, and the techniques of controlled observation (the types we have discussed), and where it is also stated that investigators must be “… well steeped in the culture of the group members, …” to insure the correctness of their interpretations of the results of their tests and observations.

50 Osgood, Charles E., “Behavior Theory and the Social Sciences,” Behavioral Science, 1 (07, 1956), 167–185 Google Scholar. Reprinted in Roland Young (ed.), op. cit., pp. 217–244.

51 Ibid, pp. 217–218.

52 Ibid., pp. 219–220.

53 Ibid., p. 220. See also Rose, Arnold, Theory and Method in the Social Sciences (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954), pp. 157, 275–278 Google Scholar.

54 Osgood, op. cit., p. 233. See also Felix Kaufmann, op. cit., pp. 154–55; Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science, p. 477 Google Scholar.

55 Osgood, op. cit., p. 239.

56 Loc. cit.

57 We may agree with Nagel and with Schutz that all of the empirical sciences must be objective “in the sense that their propositions are subjected to controlled verifications and must not refer to private uncontrollable experience.” Alfred Schutz, op. cit., p. 270. We may also agree that in the empirical sciences, theory means “the explicit formulation of determinate relations between a set of variables in terms of which a fairly extensive class of empirically ascertainable regularities can be explained …” (and that) “neither the fact that these regularities have in the social sciences a rather narrowly restricted universality, nor the fact that they permit prediction only to a rather limited extent, constitutes a basic difference between the social and the natural sciences, since many branches of the latter show the same features.” Ibid., pp. 260–261. See also Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science, pp. 484–485 Google Scholar.

See also Donald Davidson's defense of the notion that explanation by motives is a species of causal explanation rather than incompatible with it: The Journal of Philosophy, 60 (11 7, 1963), 685–700 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

A careful analysis of the various meanings of “meaning” and “understanding” which makes clear how a scientist can “understand” say, religion, as an observer without “understanding” it as a believer is presented by Brodbeck, May in “Meaning and Action,” Philosophy of Science, 30 (1963), 309–324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor Brodbeck also argues our thesis that participation in a culture is necessary to achieve both these (and other) kinds of “understanding”; yet that the use of a common language for communication is not incompatible with the viewpoint of the scientific observer. Both articles are reprinted in Brodbeck, May (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1968), pp. 44–78 Google Scholar.

58 Alfred Schutz, op. cit., p. 270.

59 A difficult problem arises, however, as soon as this viewpoint is accepted. That is the problem created by the possibility that an actor might himself be wrong regarding what he is doing or intending to do. Neurosis, obtuseness, malice, lack of knowledge regarding possible unintended consequences all make it difficult for the social scientist to equate an individual's expressed intention with the “real meaning” of his act. On the surface it would seem that modern research technology does cope with this problem through proper questions and analysis of answers. On the other hand, the problem of unintended consequences especially would seem to push one on from the level of concept formation to the level of explanation. In either case, the problem seems sufficiently complex and related to other aspects of theory construction to warrant separate investigation.

60 Charles E. Osgood, op. cit., pp. 221–222.

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