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SOSYAL BİLİMLER VE BİLİMSEL YASALAR

Özel bilimler felsefesinin temel problemlerinden birisi bu alanlardaki açıklayıcı genellemelerin doğası ve statüsü ile ilgilidir. Bir çok felsefeci fiziği model alarak, başarılı bilimsel açıklamaların yasalara başvurmasının olmazsa olmaz koşul olduğu şeklindeki klasik açıklama görüşünü benimsemektedir. Bir yandan sosyal bilimlerin en azından bazen başarılı açıklamalar verdiğine inanırız. Öte yandan, sosyal bilimlerdeki genellemeler klasik yasalılık şartlarını sağlamıyor gibi görünmektedir. Örneğin sosyal bilimlerdeki genellemeler istisnasız değildir ve uzay-zamansal olarak sınırlandırılmış düzenliliklerdir. Sosyal bilimlerdeki yasalar ya da yasa benzeri genellemeler uzay-zamansal olarak sınırlanmış oldukları ve klasik açıklama modellerinin çoğu koşulunu sağlamadıkları halde nedensel açıklama veriyorlar mı, eğer veriyorlarsa bu nasıl mümkün olabiliyor? Bu soruyu yanıtlamak için bu makalede sosyal bilimlerin doğa bilimlerine göre açıklama verme ve yasalara sahip olma tartışmalarında dezavantajlı olmasının gerekçeleri olarak gösterilen nedenlerden olan sosyal bilimlerin ele aldıkları fenomenlerin karmaşık ve açık sistemler olması ve ceteris paribus genellemelere başvurması iddiaları incelenecek ve mesele bu iki açıdan alındığında doğa bilimleri ile sosyal bilimler arasında yasalar ve açıklama verme açısından tür değil, derece farkı olduğu iddia edilecektir.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

: Sosyal bilimler, doğa bilimleri, bilimsel yasalar, bilimsel açıklamalar, ceteris paribus genellemeler.

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SCIENTIFIC LAWS

A central problem in the philosophy of social sciences concerns the nature and status of explanatory generalizations in those disciplines. By taking physics as a model, many philosophers are committed to a classical understanding of explanation according to which all successful explanations must cite laws. It seems that taking natural sciences, especially physics, as their model, some philosophers have taken the existence of laws to be sine qua non of a genuinely scientific practice. One the one hand most of us think that the special sciences sometimes succeed in providing explanations. On the other, it looks as though most generalizations in special sciences fail to conform to the standard criteria of lawhood –for example they are not exceptionless and holds at best spatio-temporally restricted regularities. The standard framework suggests two mutually exclusive possibilities for solving this problem: either a generalization is a law or else it is purely accidental. Most explanatory generalizations in the special sciences do not fit either of these categories. What we need is to find a new way of thinking about explanatory generalizations in the special sciences that allows us to recognize how generalizations play explanatory role even though it hold only limited spatio-temporally limited intervals or within certain domain. Given all that, the main question of the article is the following: Although laws in the social sciences seem to be constrained by and conditional on space and time, and although they do not conform the classical conditions of the scientific explanations, do they provide causal explanations of the phenomena, if they do, how can it be possible? This question will be taken into consideration in the context of two claims that are thought be responsible for disadvantage of social sciences. It has been generally argued that since social sciences examine open and complex systems, and since they frequently apply to ceteris paribus generalizations, they have aforementioned disadvantages. However, based on analysis of these two claims, in this article it will be argued that in terms of laws and providing explanations there is a difference in degree not of a kind between social sciences and natural sciences.

Keywords:

social sciences, natural sciences, scientific laws, scientific explanations, ceteris paribus genellemeler,

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