Reply to Denemark: Predictions of the Future of the World System

At 12:26 PM 2/26/99 -0500, Robert Denemark wrote:

>

>

>Dear Colleagues;  

>

>     Indeterminance exists when different theories predict the same

>outcome for different reasons.  I highlight predictions of 
war-pronness

>during the period from 2030 to 2050 by Modelski and Thompson, Arrighi,

>Wallerstein, and Joshua Goldstein.  Each has different reasons for
making

>this prediction, and some of them are contradictory.

>


Robert, I'm a bit puzzled.  _I_, at any rate, have been taught that a
theory was "indeterminate" if the same theory predicted more than one
possible outcome, rather than the other way around.  


Regardless of the meaning of "indeterminate", it seems to me one
conventional positivist way of handling contradictory theories that
predict the same outcome is to say (a) that there is no scientific way of
selecting from among the competing theories, and (b) that we must rely
upon some arbitrary principle, like Occam's Razor (the principle of
parsimony) or "fruitfulness" (the ability of a theory to generate
additional hypotheses or directions for further research), to select from
among the theories.  This is the drift of Milton Friedman's argument as I
recall it from his essay "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (BTW,
sorry for mentioning a right-wing name certain to be unpopular on _this_
list : ) ). 


A more sophisticated positivist approach is offered by Imre Lakatos.  He
argues for the existence of _research programs_ containing positive
heuristics (standards of what constitutes appropriate questions for the
field and rules for constructing theories aimed at overcoming anomalies),
and negative heuristics (standards specifying inappropriate questions for
a field--i.e., propositions not exposed to falsification).  Lakatos
believed successive theories should be evaluated on the basis of whether
or not they constituted "progressive" or "degenerative" problem shifts. 
A theory represented a "progressive" problem shift if it explained all
the empirical phenomena explained by earlier theories, plus some
additional empirical content; and if the additional empirical content of
the theory (in this context, the novel predictions the theory makes) is
corroborated by empirical research (Losee 1985, 209-211).


To return to your case, the various competing theories you are examining
(Modelski and Thompson, Goldstein, Wallerstein, Arrighi), all apparently
predict the immediate outcome you are interested in (war-proneness of the
international system a few decades from now).  It seems to me if you were
to adopt Friedman's perhaps more naively positivistic approach, you would
ask yourself which of these theories is most parsimonious, and which is
most fruitful in the sense of generating predictions in addition to the
prediction of war-proneness.  In particular, do any of them offer policy
conclusions?  Given that all these theories predict war-proneness, do any
of them tell us what to do about it?


If, on the other hand, you were to adopt a more Lakatosian approach, you
would ask yourself which of the various theories has best "proven itself"
by correctly predicting something earlier theories did not predict.  Did
Wallerstein offer an improvement over modernization or orthodox Marxism
or earlier "dependency analyses, for example?  Does he tell us something
nobody else did, and were his theoretical expectations confirmed?  (BTW,
my answer to these questions is no, in case anybody cares).  As part of
such a Lakatosian approach, you might want to consider the question of
whether any of the theories yields interesting policy conclusions that
can be corroborated by examination of past periods of similar
"war-proneness" in the international system.  Obviously, predictions of
"war-proneness" several decades hence can't be tested.


It's entirely possible that you will find these rules to be impractical. 
Nevertheless, they represent a response to the methodological problem you
are having from mainstream philosophers of science.


One more thing:  could you provide citations to the Modelski-Thompson,
Wallerstein, Goldstein, etc. texts you are referring to?  



<center>REFERENCES

</center>

Friedman, Milton.  "The Methodology of Positive Economics."  _Essays in
positive economics_.  Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press,
1964, c1953.


Losee, John.  _A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science_. 
Oxford and New York:  Oxford University Press, 1972, repr. paperback
1985.