Difficulties in Making Claims to Knowledge in Social Science

Abstract

This paper looks at the difficulties faced in making a knowledge claim, especially in social science. A knowledge claim is defined here as a justified belief, that would be open to change in the light of new evidence. The discussion is based on claims defined by two distinct types of knowledge. Claims can be envisaged as “fully descriptive” or more “generally descriptive”, and they can be causal or not. Each type is commonly used in social science. But each requires different philosophical assumptions. Fully descriptive claims merely summarise any data observed. This is the easiest and safest kind of claim, but even these might suffer from non-random errors and inaccuracies. However, their biggest limitation is sometimes their lack of any wider purpose. Generally descriptive claims are often more useful, and involve statements about as yet unobserved data hypothesised on the basis of a fully descriptive claim. Here we meet Hume’s problem of induction. These claims have two parts – fully descriptive and inductive  - and the inductive part cannot seemingly be justified by logic, inferential statistics, Carnap’s inductive probabilities, or even necessarily by Popper’s falsification process. The third type, causal claims, are also usually general claims. This paper summarises a model, based on the work of Mill, Bradford-Hill, and others, of what a plausible causal claim entails. But it still has all of the problems emerging from the first two types of claim, and adds a further problem created by our inability to assess causes directly. The paper concludes by suggesting how social science can proceed most safely in practice, and in terms of theoretical explanations, by avoiding being misled by false claims to knowledge, and reporting research findings with tentative care and judgement.