Research Methods

1
Research Methods

• Positivism and its variants

2
Why study Positivism?

• Hughes Sharrock (1997 24) positivism was
  orthodoxy in social science
• No longer believed? (Williams, 1976)
• Yet economics still heavily influenced
• Authors defined in terms of positivism
• Positivist tools (e.g. survey) still dominate
• Must try to give it a fair hearing!

3
Roots of positivism

• Renaissance/Enlightenment thought of 16th/17th
  Centuries
• Philosophy divided into empiricism/ rationalism
  foundation of knowledge experience/reason
  Bacon/Descartes
• Saint-Simon liberate people from dominant ideas
  French Revolution
• Get past illusions to social facts (Durkheim)

4
Comtes positivism

• Influenced by Humes attacks on metaphysics
• Two bona-fide forms of knowledge empirical and
  logical, but empirical emphasised
• Precision, clarity and certainty
• View world as machine (reflects Descartes)
• World comprises deterministic laws, regularities
  waiting to be discovered by the scientist

5
Positivism basics

• Laws whenever A, then B (plus CP)
• Causality constant conjunctions of events (Hume)
• Single cause leads to single effect (Durkheim)
• Mills tendency statements, Humes caution both
  too weak for modern positivists

6
Scientistic naturalism

• Social science should imitate natural sciences
  (although why? Never stated!)
• Aim for unity of method
• Differences acknowledged between subject matters
• Science proceeds via observation, modelling, to
  get to laws

7
Observation

• Brute facts (not affected by any judgement)
  mimic natural sciences (e.g. atom, velocity)
• Observation is preconception free (Durkheim) and
  Value-free (positive analysis)
• Correspondence theory of truth
• Variables measuring properties present in
  entities
• Quantification counting frequency of some
  property present in some entity
• Operationalism object defined in terms of the
  means of measuring/checking it (Hausman 14)

8
Theory development

• Individualism reductionism
• Modelling
• Testing predictions of models
• Verification
• H-D model tries to solve problem of induction

9
Logical positivism

• Carnap, Mach (Vienna Circle), Ayer, Russell
  trying to make positivism more logical
• Meaningful (True) statements must be verifiable
• But now analytic statements can be true by virtue
  of the logical rules by which they are deduced
• Yet LP questioned ideal types

10
Poppers intervention

• Karl Popper capturing spirit of positivism in
  many ways but opposite in others
• Sceptic verification impossible
• No theory proven yet to be falsified
• Scientific theories are testable
• Theories set up bold conjectures to be tested
• Test theories by their predictions

11
Poppers intervention

• Falsification from a single counterexample
• Learning by trial and error
• Idealised view of science
• Kuhn, Lakatos Popper underestimated tenacity
  with which failed theories are retained
• Kuhn sciences proceed irrationally normal vs.
  revolutionary science

12
Friedman (1953)

• Highly influential essay
• Can be interpreted as combining elements of
  positivism with Popper
• positive economics
• Purpose of theory prediction
• Good theories predict well
• Simplicity and precision also good

13
Friedman

• Assumptions of theories not important
• Assumptions are always simplifications - cannot
  be realistic - cannot assess theory via
  realisticness
• Assumptions are shorthand for conditions, etc.
  under which theory works
• Model works as if assumptions are correct e.g.
  mobile leaves profit maximisation

14
Conclusions

• Positivism has had several highly significant
  effects on economics
• Mimic natural sciences
• Value-free analysis
• Causal laws if X then Y type
• Quantification
• Tools used
• Emphasis on deductive logic

15
Conclusions

• H-D model
• Friedman also very influential
• Assertions about positive economics, the role
  of assumptions, prediction and falsification
  (echoing Popper) adopted strongly (at least
  officially)
• Both subject to considerable criticism
• Next two lectures will engage criticisms of
  positivism and its variants