Philosophy of Science: Three Cultures against Nine Dimensions

Three Cultures against Nine Dimensions

This article compares three cultures on nine dimensions. The three cultures are: natural scientists, social scientists and humanists. The nine dimensions against which these cultures are compared, are

1. primary interests

2. primary sources of evidence and control of conditions

3. primary vocabulary

4. the influence of historical conditions

5. ethical influence

6. dependence on outside support

7. work conditions

8. contribution to the national economy

9. criteria for beauty.

(1) The primary interests of natural scientists are on prediction and explanation of natural phenomena, whereas there interests of social scientists focus on prediction and explanation of human behaviours and psychology and humanists are interested in understanding human reactions to events and cultural and historical experience. (2) The primary sources of evidence and control of conditions of natural scientists are experimentally controlled observations of material entities. Those sources of the social scientists involve behaviours, verbal statements and more rarely biological measures – which are not always gathered under controlled conditions. Humanists focus on written texts and human behaviours gathered under conditions of minimal control. (3) The primary vocabulary of natural scientists comprises of semantic and mathematical concepts whose referents are the material entities of physics, chemistry and biology. Social scientists have a primary vocabulary of constructs referring to psychological features, states and behaviours of individuals or groups, against the context of observation that limits impositions on generality. Humanists have a primary vocabulary with strict contextual restrictions on inferences and of concepts referring to human behaviour, in particular, events that provoke them. (4) Natural scientists have minimal, social scientists have modest and humanists have a serious influence of historical conditions. (5) Natural scientists have minimal and social scientists and humanists have major ethical influence. (6) Natural scientists have high dependence on outside support, social scientists have moderate dependence on outside support and humanists have relatively independent dependence on outside support. (7) Natural scientists have both large and small collaborations of work conditions, social scientists have small collaborations and solitary work conditions and humanists have solitary work conditions. (8) Natural scientists make a major contribution to the national economy, social scientists make a modest contribution and humanists make minimal contribution. (9) Finally, as regards the criteria for beauty, natural scientists make conclusions that involve fundamental material components in nature inferred from evidence produced by machines and amenable to mathematical descriptions. When judging whether or not a body of work is beautiful, social scientists make conclusions that support a broad theoretical view of human behaviour and humanists formulate coherent arguments described in elegant prose.

Distinguishing between the patterns of thought of a naïve observer, social scientists and natural scientists.

A naïve observe does not engage with any intellectual process to commit to observations about concepts. Social scientists (and humanists) would share more primary interests, sources of evidence and control conditions and more of the nine dimensions. By contrast, natural scientists do not focus on historical and cultural contexts but rather, the relations between a concept and a set of observations. Social scientists (and humanists) are less concerned with the relation between a concept and a set of observations. They are more concerned with how a strong set on semantic terms relate to each other.

The three concepts compete with each other to be the best – as they each belong to separate language systems. For example, the sentence ‘the cats won the game’ depends on whether the term ‘cats’ is interpreted as an animal or a sports team. Each of the three cultures would take a different interpretative approach. Natural scientists, social scientists and humanists; poets, psychologists and biologists – all associate different phenomenon’s with different words. The same applies to different things. For example, the three cultures have contrasting ways of describing ‘things’ – such as the identity of a human person. Natural scientists would use a different vocabulary to the social scientist or humanist (such as the functioning of the body and brain rather than identifications with family, gender and race). For another example, the term move has a distinct meaning in each of the three following statements: ‘people move’; ‘prices move’; and ‘trains move’.

We have identified that in each of the three cultures, there are differences in terms of vocabulary. However, further analyses reveals that even within the parameters of one culture – differences in terms of vocabulary can be identified.

Are physicists correct in writing that the world contains no stable objects; are psychologists correct to state that the world consists of only tangible objects; are both correct, is only one correct, or are none right? These are questions that arise from analysing logical contradictory ideas that belong to separate language systems. In theory, the first two propositions could both be correct – but only within the boundaries of their separate language systems. The effect of the difference in language systems is that neuroscientists can use one word to describe something completely different to what a psychologist would use the same word to describe.

The fact that there are many different interpretations open to describing the brain’s properties contains an inherent problem: that there is no consistency between such interpretations. Vocabulary biologists do not take an approach that corresponds with the meaning attributed to the brain by social scientists and humanists. Conceptual confusion would occur if neuroscientists used brain profiles to define psychological concepts. But in any event, neuroscientists do not add clarity to the psychological concept of self by advancing that it is a pattern of coherence in neural activity. The language systems should not be overlapped. However, the problem with this approach is that sometimes overlap is necessary – because one cannot describe the psychological state of a mentally ill person by solely using biological processes. Time and time again, two or more language systems are required to properly define the functioning of the brain.

The interests of philosophers in order to discover psychology and truth of consciousness are bound by historical significance. Across philosophers, mathematics, semantics, natural or social scientists and humanist – there is a continuum of intellectual disciplines. This allows for ambiguity to be tolerated and different truths to be explored. Truth is a concept that is related to the notions of correct, valid, coherent and right. Every type of scientist aims to associate his or her hypotheses with one of such notions of truth. However, it appears that, from the language systems, the meaning and validity of any inference or hypotheses made by a scientist will always depend on the source of evidence. Further, that the three cultures (of natural scientists, social scientists and humanists) think about similar events in different ways. Accordingly, the multiple patterns of features of the brain can find an appropriate meaning through different approaches depending on the circumstances of affecting those features. This is the result of the diversity of science and culture in assessing human behaviour.