This is a great thread! so many different views... I like Jan Burse's angle
because it precisely allows one to be both a realist and an individualist if
I've got what those are those right. Just do a clique reduction on the
individual graph and - guess what - Ive got a 'real' representation at some
supra-individual level. Take the dual and you can work with social relations
rather than individuals..... This is just what we do with our spatial
representations, and what allows me to frame the individual agents and a
shared spatial environment that constrains the visibility/co-presence
relations between individuals in the same terms.
But.. I've got to disagree with Bruce on the dogmatic 'The focus should be
the
target systems, the theory is merely a tool.' I know what you are saying
about the risks of entrenched theoretical positions and paradigmatic views,
but to my mind a dogmatic adherence to precedence is just another one of
these (albeit at a meta 'scientific process' level), the Popperian 'theory
comes first' line is equally criticisable.
Personally I think that there is nothing wrong with a bit of bias - I
suspect that we all hold strong views about our subject areas - just so long
as we are open to logical argument and hard evidence, and prepared to change
our stand point in the face of those.
Science as a culture is all about openly carried out discussions between
people with strongly held and often opposing theoretical positions. The key
is that we make our position and terminology clear, present our evidence for
others to unpack according to their own theoretical position, and sit back
and wait to have our favorite theory resoundingly demolished - thus
progress. We may not like it when it happens, but we accept it - if their
logic or evidence stand up.
In my view entrenched positions are crucial to this process. If we all just
blew with the wind we would not put the opposing ideas to a sufficiently
strong test and less progress would be made. Having said that, that is an
ideal situation and we all know the propblems of those with entrenched
positions being unable to even look at the evidence because they cannot
accept the premises on which it was gathered.....
There are of course equally strong arguments that Bruce has it 'wrong' with
his order of precedence. What we see as a target system is looked at through
the filter of our existing theories (whether we acknowledge that or not).
And so the 'target system' is not free of theory - the problem with the
dogma of precedence in either order is that it makes it hard for one to
accept the assumptions one may be making.
I prefer a messier 'pragmatic scientist' scheme in which we all come up with
theories and sift data and create new representations of data and argue
sometimes purely abstractly and at times very concretely - but most
important we open our positions to other's scrutiny - and then somehow out
of this epistimologists nightmare emerge good theories well grounded in
evidence and able to stand the test of sceptics and the old school. This
seems to me not to be a linear process, but a messy and highly
interconnected porridge of the sort that human brains and social systems are
good at dealing with.
Modelling and simulation are in there in a quite specific position in that
1. they create representations of data and phenomena that give us somthing
to theorise about; and 2. they force us to be very clear about the
propositions we are making - computers wont stand for ill defined concepts.
For me, models do not stand in for theories, but they do help in the process
of making and testing and talking about them.
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bruce Edmonds
Sent: 06 October 2000 11:40
To: Dave Byrne
Cc: SimSoc Mailing List
Subject: Re: Reality check: What does MABS study?
> I have absolutely no problem with the pragmatic suck it and see approach
> you suggest here. We don't validate our research by meta-theoretical
> reasoning before we do it but we should, sometimes, think back to the
> meta-theory and set it against what we are doing, not as a superior set
> of dogmatic rules but as part of the thinking through.
Yes, thinking back on what one has done, reflecting, abstracting, and
reformulating are natural and frequently helpful. They seem to prime
our thoughts ready for when a new but similar situation is encountered.
The trouble with *prior* meta-theory is that it is very difficult not to
be substantially biased by it - theoretical spectacles are difficult to
take off! Better is to delay theory so that we are more influenced by
observations/experience etc. and generalise *from* these.
What is crucial here is precedence! Theory is OK if it helps with
actual examples, bad if it obscures them. The focus should be the
target systems the theory is merely a tool. Scott and I critise the
discussion because the focus is wrong (implying that people have the
precedence wrong).
>From your use of the words 'dogmatic' and 'not as a superior' above I
guess you agree to some extent.
Regards.
--------------------------------------------------
Bruce Edmonds,
Centre for Policy Modelling,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Bldg.,
Aytoun St., Manchester, M1 3GH. UK.
Tel: +44 161 247 6479 Fax: +44 161 247 6802
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/~bruce
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