Why should the human sciences be patterned after the natural sciences?

Résumé du document

At some point, we may want to ask radical questions: after all, why should human sciences be patterned after natural sciences? After all, why is it that we need to have such a monolithic model of scientificity? Why couldn't there be several ways of being 'scientific'? Let us review the major characteristics of natural sciences and later we'll see to what extent they can apply to the human sciences. Objectivity is one of the cardinal notions of natural sciences. This notion implies that science cannot be a series of arguments of authority which go something like, 'it is true because I or some figure of authority told that it was true'. Religious authority has always been one of the key targets of objectivity. Science developed in opposition to religion as a source of authority and so, scientific truth developed against religious truth.

Extraits

[...] Another point should be added. Let us assume that we decided to command the human sciences to conform to the model set by the natural sciences. We would then expect predictability, causation, repetition, etc. Isn't this a strong ideological bias ? Doesn't that mean that we deal with human beings as if they were natural objects and as such, objects deprived of free-will of originality, etc. Dealing with human beings as if they were natural objects raises a strong ethical issue. [...]

[...] But the law of gravitation is same today as it was in Newton's time. Human sciences are submitted to time in more ways than one. In his Words and Things, Michel Foucault argued that the that is at the core of the human science is a modern construct submitted to historical contingencies. Foucault and also Husserl, in his The Crisis of European Humanity and Philosophy (1936) argued that the birth of the human sciences corresponds to a will for rationality and for a rationalization of the world to which natural science also contributed. [...]

[...] Of course, it cannot be proven true either, but strictly speaking, no theory can be proven true. There is a famous sceptic argument against that: I may observe that water boils when it reaches a temperature of 100°c, but a sceptic can retort that nothing guarantees that next time, this will be true. However, is someone could prove that water can boil when submitted to a temperature of, say, then the statement “water boils when it reaches a temperature of will definitely be proven false, hence the recourse to falsifiability as a criteria for scientificity. [...]

[...] Suppose a 21st century anthropologist wanted to do a counter inquiry and in his turn study the same tribe. The life style of the tribe has changed so dramatically that such counter inquiry would be absolutely impossible. This remark points to a major difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences. Human sciences are submitted to a human, namely historical time whereas natural sciences have to do with an immobile time. Of course some natural sciences may have to measure changes occurring over time so as to, for example, better understand global warming. [...]

[...] Why should the human sciences be patterned after the natural sciences? At some point, we may want to ask a radical question: after all, why should the human sciences be patterned after the natural sciences? After all, why is it that we need to have such a monolithic model of scientificity? Why couldn't there be several ways of being “scientific? Let us review the major characteristics of the natural sciences and later we'll see to what extent they can apply to the human sciences. [...]