February 6, 2007
Method and the Contemporary
So per my usual I have been reading some totally out of date methodologists in political science (actually, worse, making my students read them as well). But in one Giovanni Sartori — a huge figure in social science method discussions — found some chesnuts on methology in relationship to a problematic that, in our terms, might reasonably be called “contemporary.” Read on for a couple highlights from his 1970 classic “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics”…
“Most of the literature introduced by the title “Methods” (in the social, behavioral or political sciences) actually deals with survey techniques and social statistics, and has little if anything to share with the crucial concern of “methodology”, which is a concern with the logical structure and procedure of scientific enquiry. In a very crucial sense there is no methodology without logos, without thinking about thinking. And if a firm distinction is drawn–as it should be–between methodology and technique, the latter is no substitute for the former.”
“[Our] universals must be empirical universal, that is, categories which somehow are amenable, in spite of their all-embracing very abstract nature, to empirical testing. Instead, we seem to verge on the edge of philosophical universals, understood–as Croce defines them–as concepts which are by definition supra-empirical.”
“Traditional, or the more traditional, type of political sciene inherted a vast array of concepts which had been previously defined and redefined–for better and for worse–by generations of philosophers and political theorists. To some extent, therefore, the traditional political scientists could afford to be an ‘unconscious thinker’ — the thinking had already been done for him….However, the new political science engages in reconceptualization.”
Reorientation, anyone? Contemporary, anyone?
Terrific.
I wonder what he means by an empirical universal. The same thing as Hegel? or Sartre?
Why do we need universals?
Your loyal nominalist.
Here’s the link in jstor…
I think by “universal” he simply means “general” in the sense of applying to a wide universe of cases. I think that philosophical universal would be Hegel. Empirical universal would be something like analytical construct or ideal type?
I don’t know if that answers the “why do we need universals?” question. While Sartori is concerned with shifting the orientation, or directionality of political scientific concepts, the “why universals?” question is more interested in the function of the “uni” for knowledge production. A relevant question for a network of scholars dissatisfied with the uni-versity as a pedagogical form, no?
So, for example, “regime” is a universal empirical concept as opposed to “democracy” which is a subtype of a broader concept. “Regime” is universal in the sense that it encompasses all cases of the thing in question.