The social sciences are deeply influenced by the success of Newtonian physics what presupposes certain linearity and reversibility in scientific reasoning. This presentation is a modest proposal to revisit scientific method in order to elaborate some alternatives.

1. Development Unbound: Utopistic non-linearity in social projections
Juozas Kasputis
Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (IASK)
Polanyi Centre
Space and Time: An interdisciplinary approach
Vilnius University, Faculty of Philosophy
September 29 – 30, 2017

2. Outline
• “The ideal type” of science
• The idea of linearity and the ‘split’ of knowledge
• Philosophy vs. science
• Philosophy of science and utopistics

3. ”...how absurd it is to try to contest our society without
ever conceiving the very limits of the language by
which (instrumental relation) we claim to contest it: it is
trying to destroy the wolf by lodging comfortably in its
gullet.”
R. Barthes, ”Empire of Signs”, 1992
”Much of the history of science, like the history of
religion, is a history of struggles driven by power and
money.”
F. Dyson, ”The Scientist as Rebel”, 2006

4. “Ideal Type” of Science
• Neutral knowledge
• Value-free science
• Detached observer
• Formal rationality
• Uncertainty “management”

5. “Two Cultures” of Knowledge
The 16th – 17th centuries: breaking up with philosophy
Bacon
Utilitarian turn, applicability of science, experiments, interrogation of Nature
Descartes
Dualism of matter and mind, supremacy of reason, clockwork mechanism of Nature
Newton
Universal laws of motion and gravitation

6. Linearity, ‘reversible’ process
(F. Weinert, “The Scientist as Philosopher: Philosophical Consequences of Great Scientific
Discoveries”, 2005)
Initial Conditions & Universal Laws Predicting the State of the System in the near Future
Initial Conditions & Universal Laws Retrodicting the State of the System in the near Past

7. Linearity, ‘reversible’ process
(Managing the uncertainty)
Current state
Past state, retrodictability,
“a retrodiction”
Future state, predictability,
“a prediction”

8. Theory of Everything: The failure of ultimate
explanations
“There is no formula that can deliver all truth, all harmony, all
simplicity. No Theory of Everything can ever provide total insight. For,
to see through everything, would leave us seeing nothing at all.”
J.D. Barrow, ”New Theories of Everything: The quest for ultimate explanation”, 2007

9. Science vs. Philosophy
Engineering power vs. Practical power
Engineering power of science – neutral observation of independent data,
statistical regularities and predictions, analysing causal links
Practical power of philosophy – producing the ideas which shape a worldview
Metaphor – a cognitive tool enabling to perceive similarities/differences of
separate phenomena and inducing a productive insight with good analytical
value.
Umberto Eco, “Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language”, 1986

10. A Case for Utopistics
“There was a time when the world of knowledge and the world of dreams were not
separated; where the artist and the scientist, for all practical purposes, saw the
“outside world” through the same kind of spectacles.”
L. Mumford, “The Story of Utopias”, 1928
“Utopistics is the serious assessment of historical alternatives, the exercise of our
judgment as to the substantive rationality of alternative possible historical systems”
“It is thus an exercise simultaneously in science, in politics, and in morality.”
I. Wallerstein, “Utopistics: Or, historical choices of the twenty-first century”, 1998

11. Improbability and informative content of theory
”...if growth of knowledge means that we operate with theories of
increasing content, it must also mean that we operate with theories of
decreasing probability (in the sense of the calculus of probability). Thus
if our aim is the advancement or growth of knowledge, then a high
probability (in the sense of the calculus of probability) cannot possibly
be our aim as well: these two aims are incompatible.”
K. Popper, ”Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”, 2008

12. Thought experiment and the revolution of science
“…thought experiment is one of the essential analytic tools which are deployed
during crisis and which then help to promote basic conceptual reform. The
outcome of thought experiments can be the same as that of scientific revolutions:
they can enable the scientist to use as an integral part of his knowledge what that
knowledge had previously made inaccessible to him. That is the sense in which
they change his knowledge of the world.”
T. Kuhn, “A Function for Thought Experiments” (in “The Essential Tension”), 1977

13. New Knowledge and Uncertainty
• Metaphor
• Utopia
Metaphor is suggesting analogy between ideas and
objects.
Utopia is a metaphor for new society, social critique
and anticipation.
Proposal for the reconstruction of present society
implying new social reforms.
Social sciences as „disguised literature”?
• Conceptual model
• Thought experiment
(Gedankenexperiment)
Model as analogy between abstract
theory and natural reality.
The research of natural systems beyond
the limit of what has been observed.
The boundary of the physically possible is
stretched to the full extent of what the
laws of nature will permit.
By exploring these boundaries, new
insights are gained, new hypotheses
are formulated.

14. Concluding thoughts
Utopias can be a viable alternative proposals, analytical tools for the
critical assessment of existing policies.
And deeply relevant precaution (in form of ‘dystopia’):
“There was something called democracy. As though men were more
than physico – chemically equal.”
A. Huxley, “Brave New World”, 2007