Abstract
The distinction between basic and applied research, widely used for the purposes of science policy, is notoriously vague and ambiguous. In earlier papers, I have argued that there is nevertheless a viable and systematic way of separating these two types of research.1 An important form of applied research includes design sciences or “sciences of the artificial” in the sense of Herbert Simon.2 Applied social sciences, which pursue knowledge with the purpose of influencing social behavior and social institutions into a desired direction, can be counted as important examples of such design sciences.
See Ilkka Niiniluoto, “The Aim and Structure of Applied Research”, in: Erkenntnis 38, 1993, pp. 1-21, and Ilkka Niiniluoto, “Approximation in Applied Science”, in: Martti Kuokkanen (Ed.), Idealization VII: Structuralism, Idealization and Approximation. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1994, pp. 127-139.
See Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press, 1969. (2nd ed. 1981).
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Notes
- 1.
See Ilkka Niiniluoto, Is Science Progressive?. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984, Ch. 12.
- 2.
See Ilkka Niiniluoto, “The Foundations of Statistics: Inference vs. Decision”, in: Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Stephan Hartmann, Michael Stöltzner, and Marcel Weber (Eds.), Probabilities, Laws, and Structures. Dordrecht: Springer 2012, pp. 29-41.
- 3.
See Evaluation of the Finnish National Innovation System: Policy Report. Helsinki: The Ministry of Education and The Ministry of Employment and Economy, 2009, p. 23.
- 4.
See Ilkka Taipale (Ed.), 100 Social Innovations from Finland. Helsinki: Baltic Sea Centre Foundation, 2006.
- 5.
See Niiniluoto, “The Aim and Structure of Applied Research”, loc. cit.
- 6.
See Isaac Levi, Gambling With Truth: An Essay on Induction and the Aims of Science. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1967, and Paul Durbin and Friedrich Rapp (Eds.), Philosophy and Technology. Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1983.
- 7.
See Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston: Beacon Press 1972.
- 8.
Cf. Niiniluoto, Is Science Progressive?, op. cit., p. 221.
- 9.
This realist view is opposed to social constructivism which claims that scientific facts are artificial productions of scientific investigations. Cf. Ilkka Niiniluoto, Critical Scientific Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, Ch. 9.
- 10.
See Simon, op. cit., p. 7.
- 11.
See Ilkka Niiniluoto, “The Emergence of Scientific Specialties: Six Models”, in: W. E. Herfel, W. Krajewski, I. Niiniluoto, and R. Wojcicki (Eds.), Theories and Models of Scientific Processes. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1995, pp. 127-139.
- 12.
See Ilkka Niiniluoto, “Vårdvetenkapen – vetenskapsteoretiska anmärkningar”, in: Kristian Klockars and Lars Lundsten (Eds.), Begrepp om hälsa. Stockholm: Liber, pp. 103-114; Sam Porter and Peter O’Halloran, “The Use of and Limitation of Realistic Evaluation as a Tool for Evidence-Based Practice: A Critical Realist Perspective”, Nursing Inquiry 19, 1, 2012, pp. 18-28.
- 13.
See Georg Henrik von Wright, Norm and Action. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963. For a treatment of so-called technological imperatives as technical norms with a hidden value premise, see Ilkka Niiniluoto, “Should Technological Imperatives be Obeyed?”, in: International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4, 2, 1990, pp. 181-189.
- 14.
Illustrations of both of these derivations in the case of ballistics are given in Niiniluoto, “Approximation in Applied Science”, loc. cit.
- 15.
Theo Kuipers formulates design laws as causal regularities of the form “Functional property A in situation B can be achieved by imposing structural property X”, where the term “imposing” involves agent causality. See Theo Kuipers, “Philosophy of Design Research”, forthcoming in EPSA 2011.
- 16.
See Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: The Free Press 1949. See also Carl G. Hempel, “Science and Human Values”, in: Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press 1965, pp. 81-96.
- 17.
See Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. London: Macmillan 1932.
- 18.
For a critical assessment of moral realism, see Ilkka Niiniluoto, “Facts and Values – A Useful Distinction”, in: Sami Pihlström and Henrik Rydenfelt (Eds.), Pragmatist Perspectives. Acta Philosophica Fennica 86. Helsinki: Societas Philosophica Fennica 2009, pp. 109-133.
- 19.
For an account of futures studies as a combination of visionary plans for improving the world and a design science for realizing these goals, see Ilkka Niiniluoto, “Futures Studies: Science or Art?”, in: Futures 33, 2001, pp. 371-377. Alternative scenarios, which indicate paths from present situations to alternative futures, can be understood as generalizations of the notion of technical norm. For a different approach, where categorical value and ought statements are taken to be empirically justifiable assertions, see Wendell Bell, “Moral Discourse, Objectivity, and the Future”, in: Futura 28, 1, 2009, pp. 43-58.
- 20.
See Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge 1957.
- 21.
See Habermas, op. cit.
- 22.
See Richard M. Titmuss and Brian Abel-Smith, Social Policies and Population Growth in Mauritius. London: Routledge 1968.
- 23.
Heikki Waris, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Helsinki in 1946–68, introduced social work into the academic curriculum in Finland in the 1950s.
- 24.
See Erik Allardt, “Having, Loving, Being: An Alternative to the Swedish Model of Welfare Research”, in: Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Eds.), The Quality of Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993, pp. 88-94.
- 25.
See Nussbaum and Sen, op. cit.
- 26.
See Taina Kaivola and Liisa Rohweder (Eds.), Towards Sustainable Development in Higher Education – Reflections. Helsinki: Ministry of Education 2007.
- 27.
See Liz Ng’ang’a and Christian Borgemeister (Eds.), Insects and Africa’s Health: 40 Years of ICIPE. Nairobi: International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology.
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Niiniluoto, I. (2013). On the Philosophy of Applied Social Sciences. In: Andersen, H., Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W., Uebel, T., Wheeler, G. (eds) New Challenges to Philosophy of Science. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5845-2_21
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