The Nature/Society Distinction - (Was Re: Prigogine & Co.)

Warren Wagar Wrote: It is always wonderful when we can imagine we have found consilience between nature and society, a greater truth uniting all being. My point is that social scientists should be not just wary, but absolutely reluctant, to seek confirmation of their findings in the realm of the natural sciences.>

<Alan Spector Wrote: I share Warren's concern about the mechanical application of physical science models to social science, but I think Prigogine is more complex than that.>

While I understand Wagar’s and Spector’s concerns here, I do believe that their depictions of this matter lead to other problems.

True, “nature” and “society” aren’t the same thing.  They appear to operate on different levels and by different game plans.  But that’s the drag ... they appear to operate on a different plane and via different [fundamental] rules.

But I’d still insist that both are ultimately governed by the same principles, albeit operating in different settings and by different manifestations. Social science and natural science are still fundamentally SCIENCE, and cut from the same cloth.  To say they’re the equivalent of “apples” and “oranges” is to, by implication, deny that they both fall under the same physical/epistemological/ ontological jurisdiction.

The unit terms of human social experience are behavioral, structural, and dynamical.  But, so too, ultimately, are the operations of physical entities and systems.  “Mechanics” only operates in one narrow sphere of reality; the rest – in both nature and society – functions according to “Dynamics.”

To put it this way, “social issues”/”ethos” does not make “society” or “social science.”  Human services or social work does not make such either.  Only “social structures/operations/”logos” makes “society” and “social science” in any sort of ultimate, real world sense of the terms.

To say otherwise leads us all down the primrose path of humanist/ personalist social philosophy that’s fraught with missteps and wrongheaded assumptions about human history and social experience.

Luke Rondinaro,

Group Facilitator,The Consilience Projects

www.topica.com/lists/consiliencep

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