3. The Facts of the Social Sciences are What People Believe and Think - Virgil Storr
Introduction
The aim of the social sciences is to explain and understand social phenomena.
Understanding human action requires understanding the opinions and beliefs that guide individual decision-making.
The facts of the social sciences are the meanings that individuals attach to their actions and their environments.
The essential data of the social sciences are subjective in character.
The opinions and beliefs guiding individual actions cannot be ignored, even if those beliefs are wrong, irrational, or based on superstition.
An explanation of Jack's behavior toward Tom relies on Jack's belief about their relationship, regardless of the objective truth.
Explaining religious rituals depends on individuals' subjective perceptions of the power of prayer.
A central challenge is determining how to access the meanings individuals attach to their actions and circumstances.
Unlike actions, meanings cannot be directly observed.
Stated opinions and beliefs might differ from the actual ones that informed an action.
Meanings as facts: from the subjective to the intersubjective to culture
The defining characteristic of the Austrian school is its commitment to subjectivism.
Subjectivism acknowledges that the facts of the social sciences are the opinions and beliefs individuals attach to their actions and environments.
The study of human action is a science of meaning.
Meaning, according to Schutz, is a certain way of directing one's gaze at an item of one's own experience.
Attaching meaning is an act of conscious will.
Purposeful actions are meaningful through two motives:
"Genuine because motives": subjective experiences, perceptions, and expectations that prompt action.
"In-order-to motive": the corresponding projected act.
The meaning of an action is defined by the goal chosen before the person acts.
The actual actions performed are meaningless apart from the project that defines them.
The scientific method for establishing subjective meaning is motivational understanding.
This requires considering an actor's motives, not just his external behavior.
Observation alone is insufficient to reveal meanings or determine the success of an action.
A theory focused only on physical movements, without regard to purpose (like Kirzner’s Martian example), provides a truncated picture of the real world.
Moving from Subjective to Intersubjective:
Social scientists possess the advantage of sharing a common life-world (being encultured) with their subjects, which aids understanding beyond mere introspection.
Actions are intelligible because they are shaped by an individual's subjective stock of knowledge, largely derived from the social stock of knowledge.
The everyday life-world is intersubjective.
The social stock of knowledge can be conceptualized as culture.
Culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings—a system of inherited conceptions that people use to define and master situations.
The social sciences must be preoccupied with culture.
Since inner worlds are inaccessible, social scientists must gain access to cultural systems.
Empirical work should therefore resemble ethnographies and/or employ archival and oral history methods.
Learning the facts: ethnography and thick descriptions
Austrian economists are cautious about relying on quantitative empirical methods alone to capture meaning.
While quantitative methods are useful for examining causal relationships (e.g., literacy and economic prosperity), they have limitations.
Measures may be imperfect.
Statistical relationships can be spurious (due to a third variable).
Ultimately, quantitative findings require theoretical interpretation (recourse to a theoretical proposition).
Privileging quantitative over qualitative methods is concerning because it distorts empirical research.
It leads to ignoring non-quantifiable issues.
It may result in studying the most irrelevant aspects simply because they are measurable, leading to meaningless 'measurements'.
For a science focused on thoughts and beliefs, privileging qualitative methods is more appropriate.
Mises argued that thymological analysis (discovering how and why people valued and acted) is essential for history.
Accessing beliefs requires:
Observing what people do and asking them what they think.
Examining their social, political, economic, and cultural environments, including rituals, stories, poems, and songs.
Economists must consider: pure "economic" phenomena, "economically relevant" phenomena (cultural/religious systems), and "economically conditioned" phenomena (politics).
"Seeing things from the native's point of view" (Geertz) is the goal of applied social science.
This means relating "experience-near concepts" (what people believe) to "experience-distant concepts" (theoretical tools).
Empirical work requires thick descriptions over thin ones.
The meaning of an action (e.g., distinguishing a wink from an eye twitch) cannot be figured out without knowledge of the context and actor’s motivations.
The social sciences need both 'thin' and 'thick' description.
Thin descriptions (economic theory/models) are necessary for providing the theoretical coherence that allows for compelling thick descriptions.
Without experience-distant concepts (theory), applied social scientists could offer only detailed accounts that do little to aid understanding.
Conclusion
Social science consists of theoretical and applied/historical aspects.
Social theory aims at explaining (using conception—the tool of praxeology).
Applied social science/social history aims at understanding (using understanding—the specific tool of history).
Theory and history are distinct but mutually dependent; the best social science combines both.
Theorists construct models (metaphors), and applied social scientists write histories (stories).
Recognizing that facts are beliefs/thoughts has important implications for both explaining (erklären) and understanding (verstehen).
Social theorists should focus on individual meanings (methodologically individualist approaches) while acknowledging how culture and context influence those meanings.
Applied social scientists must thickly describe the social world using ethnographic and archival methods alongside, or prioritized over, quantitative empirical methods.