Classifying the Sciences

In the last week I've encountered two expressions that bug me. Both have to do with classifying the sciences.

"The hard sciences."
In an e-mail, a philosopher pointed to the necessity of a curricular requirement for courses in "the hard sciences." No one younger than a certain age talks this way. No social scientist talks this way. And I've never heard a natural scientist talk this way, either. From the context, it seemed as though the philosopher was indicating math and physics. These are taken to be the sciences that aren't "soft." But why are those other areas of study called soft? Because they're easier? (They're not.) Because the object of study is less concrete? (But consider fluid dynamics.) Or because they aren't as male dominated? Plenty of people have made a case for the latter.
So the term "hard sciences" is at least disrespectful of the social sciences and possibly also disrespectful of women.
A more accurate division is into the "life" and "physical" sciences. Is that so hard?

"The human sciences."
I've seen this used twice in the philosophy of science book I've been reading. I think it's used to indicate the social sciences but I can't tell if it's also meant to capture some or all of the humanities and some or all of the biological sciences. Certainly, it's used in a context where the social sciences are more problematic than the natural sciences because they supposedly lack objectivity. But I've never heard anyone refer to their own work as being in "the human sciences," and I have no colleagues who identify themselves as "human scientists."
I can't explain why this term is used. I can only think that its purpose is to appear neutral while being subtly disparaging. Or maybe it's an old-fashioned term. I can imagine that some would use it so as to make an implicit reference to the Geisteswissenschaften--but in the philosophy of science I'm reading, that would be beside the point.

The use of terms like these by philosophers points, I think, to the distance between (some) philosophers and their colleagues elsewhere in the academy.

Misplaced skepticism about belief

A further comment on yesterday's post, which noted that Robert Putnam gives all kinds of explanations for declining social capital except for explanations that cite culture, values, or beliefs--

When Putnam first lists the benefits of living in a community that is rich in social capital, he writes that

"dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, developing the 'I' into the 'we,' or (in the language of rational-choice theorists) enhancing the participants' 'taste' for collective beliefs" (67).

I find this expression odd. Why call this a "taste" or a "preference" rather than just saying that when people interact with others (and especially with people who are not just identical to them), they are more likely to develop a habit of public-mindedness? They believe that it's worth pursuing what's right for the group rather than what will most benefit the individual in the short-term.

If beliefs are too ephemeral (do you know that you hold a belief until it's tested?), then how about using affect as an explanatory term. Surely people care. Some people care about communities, and some people care mostly about themselves. Some people are willing to make personal sacrifices (e.g., slower and smaller cars) for the sake of the environment or for public well-being, and some people are not.

A social science that is unable to refer to values, or that must call them preferences (and preferences which, I imagine, are non-rational because they don't immediately benefit the self) is a social science without a moral center.

Explaining the Bowling Alone Phenomenon

This week my critical thinking classes read and discussed Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" (the Journal of Democracy article, not the book). I had the students write an essay on it.

A number of students chose to weigh Putnam's explanations for the declining social capital in the US. Some speculated that since voter turn-out in the last two national elections had gone up, social capital's decline has been halted (which I think unlikely!). Others considered his explanation that the reason is the amount of time people spend watching TV and tried to extend that explanation to new media technologies. They were split on whether social networking sites (like Facebook) really create and maintain social networks.

There's one explanation which Putnam did not include which is prominent in my own mind--namely, whether there are cultural changes that have undermined Americans' interest in building social capital (and, especially, the kind of social capital that bridges demographic groups).

I can hypothesize that the reason that Putnam doesn't consider culture is that, as a certain kind of social scientist, he does not consider beliefs and values to be "real" or, at least, to be causally potent. I can see this reasoning--because it seems like if there is a change in beliefs, then that change is caused by something which can eventually be connected to a change that is not itself a belief. And yet, I think explanations that help themselves to words about beliefs can be quite enlightening.

For instance, it seems possible to me that a decline in social capital could be due to an increase in perceived threats, whether that is the threat of an economic downturn or the kind of amorphous threat that wartime brings. I would also like to consider whether people feel like there is more competition now than in the 1950s, and that they are competing over goods that are zero-sum. Just to take an example, there has certainly been a change in college applications and admissions.