Abstract
Here we set out in full our methodological proposal for the study of social reality, taking care to emphasize the organizational aspect, which represents the basic feature of society. A core step in the proposed deductive procedure is the selection of realistic postulates or, more specifically, the definition of guiding rules for such a selection and a classification of postulates that allows for: (a) the achievement of general principles despite the non-repetitive changes that impede upon social reality; (b) the derivation of more specific organizational features. In particular, the notions of functional and ontological imperatives are specified; notions that, together with that of civilization, express the organizational backbone and, in interaction with specific choices, innovation and creativeness, the leading forces of social processes. This specification allows some conceptual development concerning the roles of a number of factors: freedom and constriction, function and conflict, micro and macro aspects, the problem of forecasting and, to some degree, also the vicissitudes of economic and social planning.
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Notes
- 1.
Long lasting discussions and controversies on axioms and postulates have agitated logical-formal sciences notwithstanding these sciences need, by their nature, a very limited number of postulates. The situation with regard to postulates is much more complicated when deductive procedure is applied in the social sciences; nevertheless, these sciences have dedicated little attention to the question of postulates.
- 2.
- 3.
C.S. Peirce underlined the sterility of induction as a supposed seed of creativity, as well as the conservative inclination of logical deduction. He added, therefore, a third category to induction and deduction that he termed “abduction”, which concerned creative formulation of explanatory hypotheses. But this new category has not generated any elaboration on method that facilitates creativity in formulating theoretical hypotheses. The role that Peirce attributes to metaphor in this regard must be considered with great caution; in fact, and as pointed out above, methods elaborated by other sciences are completely inappropriate to social research.
- 4.
Note that structural change due to creativity impedes the use of conventional modeling and stability analysis, i.e. analysis based on a precise quantitative structure from which are derived eigenvectors and which allow the development of quali-quantitative analyses of the effects of changes in parameters.
- 5.
- 6.
Of course, abstracting also from the particular conditions of nature.
- 7.
For instance, and as we shall see in the paragraph on exemplification, Kirzner’s analysis of economic process implicitly specifies (and is hinged on) some basic functional imperatives of modern dynamic economies (the entrepreneur, market process, decentralization of decision making). Again, Williamson’s analysis centered on transaction costs, as well as the economic analysis of rights (EAR), are substantially aimed at pointing out that the firm’s organization and some rights represent functional imperatives.
- 8.
The results presented in this and the previous paragraph may provide a substantial contribution to the solution of the “post positivist puzzle of relativism” and the incommensurability problem, pointed out by Ardebili (2003). R. Bhaskar’s solution here is not exhaustive since it eludes the ontology of science, i.e. “the scientists’ conception of reality”.
- 9.
Such powers might be substituted by forms of imperialism; but these are strongly opposed by the conscience of modern Man.
- 10.
See (Ekstedt and Fusari 2010), chapter 8.
- 11.
For instance, a desert people and a seafaring people will be induced by their differing environmental circumstances to construct dissimilar institutions and social orders. Institutional and organizational dissimilarities will also mark the social systems of peoples with – for example – different religious beliefs and/or different technological conditions.
- 12.
It should be noted that the term civilization as so defined means something different than does the term culture. Even when this latter term is taken in the wide sense attributed to it by anthropologists, the notion of civilization just given is, still, the wider and more stringent one. Of particular importance, the term civilization as so defined expresses better than the term culture the imprinting of what I have called ‘grand options’ upon the basic features of the social system, side by side with the other basic organizational categories that I denominate functional and ontological imperatives, and avoids mixing with these categories.
- 13.
- 14.
For example, it must be ascertained that the value premises adopted constitute a consistent set, headed by supreme ideals, followed by some other general value premises and, still further down, specific value premises. In other words, each norm must be coherent with the overarching system of ideals.
- 15.
Such an invariant structure permits quali-quantitative mathematical analyses directed to investigate the existence of equilibrium, its stability or to point out the existence of strange attractors shaping chaotic areas.
- 16.
See Pasinetti (1993), p. 49.
- 17.
The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) provides one of the best instances of the attempt to marry evolutionary and institutional thought. This is expressed well, for example, in the convergence of the institutionalism of G. M. Hodgson and the social evolutionism of U. Witt.
- 18.
F. Archibugi has argued acutely against positive economics. His emphasis on the ‘programmatic approach’ highlights the most relevant tools on optimal planning. But this kind of constructivism, which emphasizes doing and almost forgets being and ignores the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘choice-possibility’, expresses a totally unilateral constructivist feature, which is the main reason for the failure of the method of economic and social planning. See (Archibugi 2007), Preliminary draft, Italian.
- 19.
See, Ruffolo (1973) Rapporto sulla programmazione, Laterza, Bari.
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Fusari, A. (2014). The Core of the Methodological Question: Procedure, Rules, Classifications. In: Methodological Misconceptions in the Social Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8675-1_2
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