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Question: ‘Were social scientists to abandon the aim of event prediction this would amount to an extreme form of intellectual pessimism and would really imply giving up altogether on the possibility of social science.’ Discuss.

27 Oct 2022,4:28 PM

 

 

  1. ‘Were social scientists to abandon the aim of event prediction this would amount to an extreme form of intellectual pessimism and would really imply giving up altogether on the possibility of social science.’ Discuss.

 

  1. ‘The fact that event regularities, as studied in the non-social sciences, are mostly confined to experimental contexts reveals that it is underlying causal mechanisms rather than event regularities that are the primary objects of scientific focus’. Discuss.

 

  1. ‘A significant constraint on progress in social science, most acutely felt in economics, is the insistence upon the use of methods that presuppose social reality is everywhere of a sort to support systems of event regularities’. Discuss.

 

  1. ‘Keynes in Chapter 12 of his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money shows that the prices of financial assets can be more or less anything, the conditions which encourage the unwanted instability of financial markets can be identified and that an effective policy response can be developed.’ Discuss.

 

 

The relevant key readings for Essays 1, 2 and 3 are:

    • Lawson, T, 2010, ‘Economics and Science’, The Transatlantic Journal for Economics and Philosophy, Issue 1. Available on Keats page.
    • Chalmers, A, 1992, ‘Is a law reasonable to a Hume?’, Cogito, Winter, pp 125-129. Available on Keats page.
    • Lawson, T, 2015a, ‘Modern Economics: the problem and a solution’, Chapter 2 in his Essays on the Nature and State of Modern Economics, Routledge, London. Available on Keats page.
    • Lawson, T, 1997, Economics and Reality, Routledge, London, chapters 2-4. Available on Keats page.

 

The relevant key readings for Essay 4 are:

 

 

    • Keynes, J. M, 1936, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Reprinted as The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: The General Theory, Royal Economic Society, Vol VII, Macmillan, London. Chapter 12. Available on Keats page.
    • Lawson, T, 1995, ‘Expectations and Economics’ in Dow, S and Hillard, J. eds, Keynes Knowledge and Uncertainty, Edward Elgar, Aldershot. Available on Keats page.
    • Crotty, J, 2019, Keynes Against Capitalism, Routledge London, chapter 17. Available on Keats page.

Expert answer

 

The predictive power of social science is often seen as its key strength. The ability to identify patterns and foresee future events is what sets social science apart from other disciplines. However, there are those who argue that this focus on prediction is misguided, and that it leads to an overly pessimistic view of the social world. They contend that social science should instead focus on understanding the underlying causes of events, rather than trying to predict them.

 

There is no doubt that prediction is a difficult task, and one that social scientists are not always successful at. But this does not mean that it is impossible, or that we should give up on the idea altogether. Social science has made great strides in recent years, and with continued research and development, there is no reason why it cannot become even more accurate in its predictions.

 

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to focus on prediction should be based on the needs of the specific discipline. Some fields, such as economics, may benefit more from a focus on prediction than others. But whatever the approach, the aim should always be to improve our understanding of the social world, and to make it a better place for all.

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