Moreover, Kumar writes “Contradiction, circularity far from being regarded as faults in logic are in some post-modern theories celebrated.” Clearly the opposing nature of these two strains of thought has led to wide debate and the proponents of the earlier theoretical developments in industrial sociology dismiss postmodernism believing that it’s chief signifigance is subvert the Western rational tradition of scholarly research and scientific enquiry” (Goldthorpe, 2000). This essay will discuss the legacy of modernity’s reason/logic paradigm and it’s effect on the theoretical development of industrial sociology, and then study wether or not and to what extent Goldthorpe’s statement has any “meat” to it or wether it is perhaps a reactionary reflex, to a serious development in the field of industrial sociology.
When taking an overview of the implications of modernity’s reason/logic paradigm on the theoretical development of industrial sociology one must take into account the work of Karl Popper. In the preface of Conjectures and Refutations Popper lays down
the direction of his book, a collection of essays and lectures on the fundamentals of the rationality of science. The main thesis that he exposes in this brief introduction is that “we can learn from our mistakes”. (Popper, 1972). Although, the phrase itself seems simple enough there is much deeper signification to this statement. Of course we can learn from our mistakes, that is the learning process in a nutshell, but Popper is talking of the “Theoretical conjecture/empirical refutation” theory he sets out to describe in his book. He states that our scientific knowledge is based on assumptions that are more or less guesses, attempts to solve our problems, in sum conjectures. These conjectures are then open to various tests that try to disprove it (refutations). Even if the assumption is not discredited by the tests, it can never be definitively justified. Perhaps a conjecture may remain unchallenged for centuries, but time does not give it any more validity (ibid) . The classic example of this heliocentrism: the church maintained for centuries that the Earth was at the centre of the universe, not the sun. In his book “On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres” (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Nuremberg, 1543) Copernicus proved that it is in fact the Sun that is at the centre of the universe. Indeed, for Popper, the fact that none of these conjectures can be definitively justified, and that they all have a critical state by which we can and must argue to solve our problems, is the essence of the rationality of science.
In the introduction of Goldthorpe: Consensus and Controversies Jon Clark outlines the main characteristics of Goldthorpe’s views and methodology. He can very much be seen as a Popperian with a firm belief in the abovementioned rationality of science. Clark restates how Goldthorpe seeks to advance knowledge in the social sciences by formulating theoretically important propositions that can then be empirically tested. Moreover, Goldthorpe sees data free analysis as word spinning lacking substance, and that an understanding of the surrounding world is only possible “with more and better material on which to feed” (Modgil et al, 1990). Goldthorpe’s meticulousness with regard to detail in his research is furthermore congratulated in the 21st chapter of the same book. When conducting his research on class structures in the United Kingdom he paid very careful attention to the correct measurement and specification of the variables measured, but also in the choice of the independent variable. His careful choice of measurements enabled him to construct a theory-driven classification of the class structure in the United Kingdom, one that today is still very much the standard instrument when conducting research in the field.
The two examples above illustrate the core of modernity: knowledge is only to be gained by a combination of theory building, data collection as well as formal methods of data analysis. (Modgil et al, 1990). Only once a theory has been empirically tested, can it claim to be an improvement over the existing one. Bacon, and Descartes (and later on Popper) believed that with the help of their knowledge, and perception Man could discern the truth from falsehood. It is from this premise that Descartes wrote his famous quote “Je pense, donc je suis (I think, therefore I am)”.
However, post-modernists remain skeptic to such a view: “[postmodernism shares] a deep suspicion of any theory that claims to a vantage point of knowledge or truth, a self assured position of scientific method from which to criticise the various forms of ideological “false seeming” or commonplace perception” (Norris, 1990).
Indeed, for postmodernists there is no commonly acknowledged universal Truth. They view no matter how justified and truthful some scientific finding maybe, it is still not Truth in such. Although it maybe validated by a group of scientists, they maintain that this validation still remains very claustrophobic and “inbred”. In Sociology and Organisation Theory John Hassard explicits the view of Keneth Gergen on the issue. Gergen states that the results obtained by the process of theoretical conjecture and empirical refutation do not increase an accurate correspondance with reality. (Hassard,1995) The research that is carried out is from a whole community of scientists who share the same discourse: the evidence that results from this criticism of the conjecture is most likely to be read and interpreted by this very same community of scientists, using the very same language. This claustrophobia for Gergen is a “processof professional self justification” rather than a quest for the Truth. (Ibid).
Along the lines of Gergen, another social; scientist Thomas Kuhn elaborated his idea that science did not live up to the omnipotent image that had been upheld of it by philosophers for the past 200 ears. Indeed, in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions he asserted that science did not deal with given facts, but rather created its facts. "The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly." (Kuhn, 1962). In such a mind-frame, Kuhn maintained that novelty was not easily accepted as the scientists of a certain paradigm, which he described as essentially a collection of beliefs shared by scientists, a set of agreements about how problems are to be understood, would not want their set of beliefs to be discredited. However, when finally this novel theory would gain recognition a new paradigm would succeed the previous one. The name of his book stems from this idea of the history of science being a succession of paradigms, which automatically, according to Kuhn, renders talk of advance in knowledge impossible as there is no way of comparing the results produced by two different paradigms. Indeed, there is no neutral way of verifying results and the paradigm that retains the most influence is the one that, in a very Darwinian way, attracts the most supporters. (Kuhn, 1962).
Although, Kuhn was mainly writing about “pure” Science many social scientists caught interest to his idea and after they realised that science and the social sciences were perhaps not so indifferrentiable as previously had been thought they began to apply his ideas to their field of inquiry. Perhaps the most well known post-modernists are Jean Francois Lyotard., and Jean Baudrillard who both integrated Kuhn’s rejection of the idea of paradigms, or commonly acknowledged truths into the field of sociology. Indeed, in his 1979 work, The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard announced that the inhabitants of the advanced capitalist societies had been living in a post-modern world since world since at least the early 1960. However, what sparked interest in this bold declaration was the fact that he asserted that post-modernism was a “generic social condition” not a mere new theory. (Mitchell, 1979). In this condition that he described the concept of “meta-narratives” became obsolete and he even went so far as to reduce them to myths, myths that had been upheld for more than two centuries since the Renaissance. The two following meta-narratives and how Lyotard discredits them form the basis of his and Baudrillard’s argument. First of all, the “Myth of Liberation”, by which Man could liberate himself from his condition and improve it with the help of science was, according to him, discredited by the fact that science had been instrumental I the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century. The cold methodology by which science was applied to the of the Final Solution of the Nazis, the scientific way in which the Soviet gulags were run, and the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb, are some of the most visible examples of sciences role in these crimes against humanity. Moreover, the Myth of the Truth” by which through scientific research (theoretical conjecture/empirical refutation) Man could discern pieces of truth in the world surrounding them is rendered obsolote and incredible as a result of the scepticism of pihilosophers of science (relativism of Thomas Kuhn). Indeed, how can there be any commonly recognised Truth if there is disbelief on behalf of those who are supposed to know, ie the theorists themselves. (Lyotard, 1979). Therefore, for Lyotard the inhabitants of advanced capitalist there are no guarantees to the worth of their activities or the truthfulness of their statements, there are mere “language games”. (Mitchell, 1979).
Another French social scientist/philosopher, Jacques Derrida, further elaborated this idea of word games in his ideas on deconstruction. The core of his idea resides in his belief that the quest for meaning becomes the quest for an unattainable goal. (Mitchell, 1979) . He differentiates between the spoken language, la parole, and the written one, la langue, and maintains that the privileging of the spoken text the “metaphysics of human presence” becomes unravelled . But this he means that the speaker has the possibility to put all his humanity in to the language, thus rendering stable meanings and the possibility of a knowable Truth impossible. (Mitchell, 1979) his is what Derrida enunciates in his 1967 work Of Grammatology. Indeed, the quest for meaningfulness does become a never attainable horizon: it moves further and further away, pushed by the myriad of connotations (traces or grams are the terms coined by Derrida) that occur when we use other signifiers to define what is signified by any particular signifier. In sum for Derrida, the true meaning of text can never be known and the only things that can be said it about are nothing but a “provisional account of its nature”. (Mitchell, 1979).
In this essay we have seen that Goldthorpe and his view on sociological inquiry remains very much entrenched in the values of Karl Popper. Indeed, he believes that the theoretical conjecture/empirical conjecture premise enunciated by Popper in the introduction of his Conjectures and Refutations book is the only valid method of researching and expanding the horizons of sociological thought. However, post-modernists deliver a hard blow to the likes of Goldthorpe and other rationalists when they denounce the existence of meta-narratives and the ability of science to reach towards these, ie the Truth. Moreover, post-modernists maintain that in advanced capitalist societies there are no more ways of telling the worth of activities or the truth of statements . Indeed, for Baudrillard we live in “hyperreality”, in a world in which we are bombarded with symbols and images that are nothing more than mere replicas of the original one. He states that the fact that we live in an environment of such nature there is no more ability for us to differentiate any sort of objective reality from behind the facades of these images that we see every day. Fredrick Jameson elaborated this idea in his book The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Indeed, he saw that in our advanced capitalist societies post-modernists had pinned down an image of culture that is concerned with images and variations on the surface thus giving it a “depthlessness” to it. (Jameson, 1984). This is furthernore picked up by Naomi Klein in No Logo : “What these companies produced were not things primarily, but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in the manufacturing, but on the marketing.”.
It can, therefore, perhaps be said that Goldthorpe was harsh in his critique of post-modernists as their views on the incredibility of meta-narratives and the truthfulness of language are expanded out of the narrow sociological field into a much more general and philosophical worldview that accounts for the the condition and state of our modern capitalist societies.
Bibliography
Clark, J., Modgil, C., and Modgil, S., (eds) (1990) John H. Goldthorpe: Consensus and Controversy, Basingstoke: The Falmer Press.
Hassard, J. (1995) Sociology and Organisation Theory: Positivism, Paradigms and Postmodernity, Cambridge: University Press.
Harvey, D. (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell.
Kumar, K. (1997) From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society, Oxford: Blackwell.
Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University Press of Chicago.
Mitchell, G. (1979) A New Dictionary of the Social Sciences, New York: Aldine.
Norris, C. (1990) What’s Wrong With Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.