I thought I would start with a general post which goes over some
of my old ground:
The epistemology of certain ideas
It would appear to me that though we have the capacity to be better informed than any generation that has preceded us with a wealth of information at our proverbial fingertips that this has not necessarily translated into a greater amount of critical scholarly work. I am of course making vast sweeping generalisations which would need to be qualified when talking about any given subject in a particular context. However, even some general observations can, I think, yield some fruit.
One of my own main areas of interest is the extent to which the role
of available energy to a society can be used to explain aspects of its nature.
A number of theories have been put forward by different thinkers who make
different assumptions. For example, Richard Heinberg in 'The Party's Over; Oil, War and the
Fate of Industrial Societies' does a splendid job of using the role of
energy as a means of explaining the parameters within which socio-economic
complexity can exist and the level at which this can be maintained.
To very crudely paraphrase his line of argument; Europeans, having
utilised all of the resources within their area moved further afield to
increase the net energy available to their society, colonising other parts of
the planet and continued this trend with the advent of the industrial
revolution [p.47-52]. It has been argued equally
persuasively by Nicole Foss (a.k.a. 'Stoneleigh' of the finance site 'The
Automatic Earth') that if the net level of energy available to a society
decreases then there is likely to be a reduction in the level of socio-economic
complexity that that society can sustain.
Both of these ideas can serve as a functional explanation for the
nature of the development of some societies; as to whether either of them are
true or not depends on the evidence the author has to support their
argument. If an analysis of the role of energy in societies serves as a tool to shed
light on the nature of human affairs, rather than being used to provide a total explanation for them, it can serve as a useful frame of
reference with which to theorise. If, however, it is taken to explain
everything you end up in the situation Karl Popper so elegantly described that "something that tries to explain everything ends up explaining
nothing".
Unfortunately, the none too revolutionary assertion; that most theory (particularly
in the social sciences) can help explain only one aspect of reality, providing it is at least a
semi-accurate representation based on evidence, appears to be lost on many
people.
From my experience of many discussions about i.e. climate
change I have seen online it appears to me that many people think that X or Y
simply explains the nature of events, combined with the rather painful lack of
consideration as to whether the person articulating a view is someone that
should actually be taken seriously. Anyone can of course have an opinion on a
subject, however, if it is 'Lord' Monckton talking about climate change it is
about as trustworthy a source of information as relying on my expertise to fix
a space shuttle. If, however, you are
talking to a scientist or historian who has been subject to extensive peer
review and who widely discusses their ideas there is some chance that their
opinion is based on factual evidence without substantial compromising factors
such as astounding ignorance of a subject or receiving back handers from vested interests.
I raise this issue as aside from intellectual laziness being a
personal bugbear bad philosophy can have dangerous consequences. Dimitri Orlov,
in his excellent blog, 'Club Orlov' raises such a point with reference to the
work of Hobbes and its interpretation since:
"This misinterpretation of facts directly observable from
nature has led to the faulty Hobbesian justification of the economic appetite
as something natural and evolved, and therefore inevitable, giving rise to the
conjectured laws of the marketplace, which in turn favour non-empathic,
exclusionary, brutal, possessive individualists. The result has been to
enshrine mental illness—primitive, pathological, degenerate narcissism—as the
ultimate evolutionary adaptation and the basis of the laws of economics. Thus,
an entire edifice of economic theory has been erected atop a foundation of
delusion borne of a misunderstanding of the patterns present in nature."
Such a socially Darwinistic or Hobbesian vein can
be seen in speeches given by political leaders in the wake of the 'neoliberal'
era which can lead to political fights against ideas such as the 'Working Time Directive', the dastardly piece of legislation coming from unaccountable Brussels
which provides at least a basic benchmark of employee rights to minimise their
exploitation. This is claimed in the name of individual liberty (in public
anyway) when the end result is often something more like this.
That theorisation is often
composite, and every representation of reality is subjective to some degree I
would not think is too controversial as an assertion; in most modern histories
they are titled 'A' history rather than 'THE history of X' to acknowledge
this point.
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