Administrative Science or Social Science?

Approaches to Science;  Postmodernist, Poststructuralist, or Hermeneutical?

Pinder & Bourgeois (1982, p. 650) recommend that “the goals of an applied administrative science, like the goals of any applied science, should include (but not be limited to) the provision of advice to practitioners that is useful, precise, and predicated on scientific grounds.” To what extent does this recommendation apply to postmodernist, poststructuralist, and hermeneutical approaches to the social sciences?

The extent to which this recommendation applies to postmodernist, poststructuralist, and hermeneutical approaches to the social sciences appear minimal because of the use of tropes in the administrative practice to create formal theories. According to Pinder and Bourgeois (1992), "The practice in question is the unconstrained use of tropes (such as similes, analogies, and metaphors in the development and presentation of formal theory" (p. 641). I agree with scholars who argue that metaphors are important, critical and an integral part of language and simply unavoidable in all discourse. I do not believe that because theories are not able to be proven by science that these theories and ideas are according to Pinder and Bourgeois (1992), "Cast as open social systems, garbage cans, marketplaces, psychic prisons, clans, and countless other things" (p. 642).

I think this is a harsh assessment coming from a scientific thinker. Peter Winch (1958) in his article Philosophy and Science argues about the same idea some scientists have (Winch thinks a priori thinking is legitimate), "...new discoveries about real matters of fact can only be established by experimental methods; no purely a priori process of thinking is sufficient for this. But since it is science which uses experimental methods, while philosophy is purely a priori, it follows that the investigation of reality must be left to science" (as cited in Delanty & Strydom, 2003, p. 153).

The problem is that science ask a question that is empirical in nature whereas social science asks a question that is conceptual (Delanty & Strydom, 2003). So, really there are two different questions being asked and the conceptual one, is best answered by understanding our past (history), which is the hermeneutical, as well as the postmodernism and social science approaches. I agree with Winch (1958) in his thought that, "...theoretical issues which have been raised in those studies belong to philosophy rather than to science and are, therefore, to be settled by a priori conceptual analysis rather then by empirical research" (p. 157)

Hermeneutically speaking, Hans-Goerg Gadamer (1960) in his article Hermeneutical Understanding argued that everything should not be empirically verified and indeed, "When a naive faith in scientific method denies the existence of effective history, there can be an actual deformation of knowledge" (p. 159).

I agree that science is legitimate and empirical research is necessary, however, I belief philosophy and the hermeneutical approach is equally important to the study of epistemology. Gadamer (1960) reminded us that history does not need to be recognized. Gadamer (1960) eloquently stated, "This, precisely, is the power of history over finite human consciousness, namely that it prevails even where faith in method leads one to deny one's own historicity" (p. 150).

References

Gadamer, H.G. (1960). Hermeneutical understanding.  In Delanty, G & Strydom, P. (Ed.), Philosophies of social science: The classic and contemporary readings. (pp. 158-163). Philadelphia, PA: McGraw-Hill.

Pinder, C. C., & Bourgeois, V. W. (1982). Controlling tropes in administrative science.  Administrative Science Quarterly, 27(4): 641-52.

Winch, P. (1958). Philosophy and science. In Delanty, G & Strydom, P. (Ed.), Philosophies of social science: The classic and contemporary readings. (pp. 152-157). Philadelphia, PA: McGraw-Hill.