POLI 311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Scientific Method, Indeterminism
2 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Human reacion problem: the very fact of studying human behaviour can afect the behaviour of those being studied, so some say that it"s unusable. Inluence of values: poliical science can never be value-free because poliical scienists are value-laden individuals studying value-laden behaviour. Complexity of poliical phenomena: no recurring regulariies can be ideniied because poliical phenomena are too complex, and hence explanaions and predicions are impossible. Indeterminism: causaion cannot be ascribed to poliical behaviour because human beings are free to choose how they behave (i. e. free will) Human uniqueness: every human being is unique and therefore it"s impossible to generalise about poliical behaviour. Feminist arguments against the scieniic method: evoluion of feminist criiques: Criicism of invisibility of women as researchers and subjects/paricipants. Distorted results owing to a built-in male bias: 3 levels of criique: Philosophical: a denial of the pretense of a value-free science. Moral: it objeciies human beings, treaing people as mere objects on whom to do research.
