CP Snow's Two Cultures Thesis

Fifty years ago CP Snow argued that there was an almost insurmountable divide in the intellectual world between those practicing the sciences and those working in the humanities.  What do you think of his argument?  What, if anything, does it say about the methodology and practice of economics and political economy?

Comments

[Rafe Champion]

It reflects over-specialisation and narrowness of interests rather than inherent differences between the sciences and the humanities. Someone pointed out it was just as much a problem of 100 cultures given the way that the common intellectual culture has been undermined by "normal" scientists and their counterparts in the humanities. It is well documented that hardly any uni students really get into the world of ideas in any meaningful way, so they end up being technicians in whatever career path they choose. Consequently they can barely communicate in a critical dialogue with serious students in their own field, let alone people working in other disciplines.

[Greg Ransom]

So who gets to decide the truth of Snow's claim -- the English professors or the physics professors?

We're talking cartoon representatives of the "two cultures" here, right?

Sort of like Deidra McCloskey's false / cartoon dichotomy between English lit story telling and "real science" physics explanations. You start with a false picture of "science" you end up with false dichotomies.

[Roger Koppl]

I think Snow's basic point holds today. Economists have a foot in each camp, but even they tend to divide out into the math heads and the anti-math types. That's part of the problem for AE. Think of what Jared Barton was just saying in the comments to another post on this site. (http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2009/05/message-to-graduate-students-interested-in-austrian-economics-do-austrian-economics.html#comments) Leland Yeager used to quote Neil Wallace (?) saying that he couldn't understand an argument unless it was expressed as a mathematical model! I think the Sokal hoax points to the same conclusion, but in a larger context. If the editors and reviewers knew more math they would not have fallen for the joke, which refers to the historicity of pi! Snow's catch phrase stays with us for a reason: He was onto to something basic, important, and enduring.

[Anamaria Berea]

It is a question of common language, why there is not a common language between the humanities or social sciences and the natural sciences. I don't see why there should be one, this would only lead to Plato's theory of the universalis. Is there really one absolute, transcendental truth in all human knowledge and cultures? Transplanting methods from one science to another just for the purpose of artificially creating a language between the two is a fallacy of composition. Languages emerge, those that are created lack content and meaning, therefore they do not survive and do not lead to a creation of knowledge. On the other hand, such a link or language may probably emerge when the benefit of it for one science or another will exceed the costs of the methodological shift. The only way I can see this being purposeful and with benefits for knowledge is within a methodological pluralism framework. No scientist can know all knowledge in an absolute encyclopedic fashion. And the methods of finding the truth and discovering knowledge within each science are an "epistemological division of labor".

[Greg Ransom]

So were does Snow put Charles Darwin? Where does he put Oliver Sacks?

[Greg Ransom]

What would Snow make of the work of Ellen Dissanayake?

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/march09/art.html

Note well. She's revolutionized the study of the origin and evolution of human aesthetics.

She doesn't have tenure. She doesn't have a Ph.D.

She had a very difficult time getter her foot in the door of academia.

And she's recognized by all sorts of people in her very different specialties as the worlds leading thinking and expert in the field -- the one who has revolutionized it.

Another counter example to Pete's criterion of "science" and scientific authority.

[Greg Ransom]

On Snow at 50 I might suggest this:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjkzOTE4NTUxNDAwNmIzMjc1Yjk4ZmNjMzhlOGYzNDk=

[Rafe Champion]

The division between math heads and others applies in the sciences, so non maths people take up biology. The situation is further complicated by the intrusion of scientism into the humanities and the social sciences (a la Sokal).

The division that Snow identified can be traced to the structure of secondary education in England where students used to choose the science or humanities stream very early the twain rarely met thereafter. There was also a strong anti-science strand in the humanities, with jokes about science being "denounced from the pulpit" in some strongholds of culture. Liam Hudson made use of this convenient "natural experiment" to exlore the differences beween "convergers" and "divergers" who corresponded fairly well with the science and arts stream. This was reported in his first book "Contrary Imaginations". http://www.the-rathouse.com/HudsonsProgress.html

"Labouring the differences between science and the humanities has long been a fashion, and has become a bore. The method of problem-solving, the method of conjecture and refutation, is practiced by both." Objective Knowledge, p 185.

[Roger Koppl]

I dunno guys, I experience the divide all the time. I do complexity theory and hermeneutics. It's perfectly seamless for me. But either/or when dealing with others. My hermeneutical friends are often uncomfortable with mathy stuff and sometimes hostile to it. Most of my complexity pals are flummoxed by hermeneutics, sometimes wishing to run screaming from the room. I see it every day. There are people who bridge the gap. But the gap is there.

Snow's divide is part of the issue with Hayek vs. Mises IMHO. Mises was "philosophical" and "humanisitic;" Hayek was "scientific." That looks like a breach between them to many observers. Some people say Hayek gave up methodological dualism or subjectivism, even that The Sensory Order lurched into scientism! The truth, however, is that Hayek was carrying Mises' research program into the orbit of modern science. Schutz went a different direction. We need to get Hayek and Schutz together if we are to push Mises' research program forward. But Snow's divide inhibits the integration of Schutz and Hayek. It's been a thing for me, really, as I have had a hard time carrying my message to an audience largely divided between the two cultures.

[Greg Ransom]

Roger -- most people have a deeply false picture of "science", the notion in any case is essentially contest, and the notion evolves with the development of the thing itself.

So we don't have a clear divide here because we don't have a clear line separating one thing from another.

In any case, "complexity theory" as a math program, or as a program in any particular special science is a different thing from hermeneutics. What does that tell us about, say the science of science / the philosophy of science or the science of social science / the philosophy of social science, which are paradigms of stuff that is done in a humanities department which is focused on a scientific subject using a mix of different tools, including math and logic.

[Rafe Champion]

Where a field involves sophisticated maths, some of us will be excluded unless we learn the maths. Similarly where a foreign language is necessary, we will struggle unless we learn the language.

We may have to learn the language, or we may just have to learn the vocabulary and some of the rules, for example when we want to talk about a foreign ball game.

The question has to be asked, how much of the maths is necessary and of the hermeneuts, how much is helpful and how much is obscurantism?

On Schutz, people keep saying I have to take him on board when I pursue the merger of Popper and the other Austrians but what has Schutz added, after you get the idea that human action involves personal plans and intentions?

[Greg Ransom]

I left out an "ed":

"most people have a deeply false picture of "science", the notion in any case is essentially contestED".

[Roger Koppl]

Rafe,

Schutz adds the vital concept of anonymity.

[LVDH]

For a more up-to-date and somewhat different view, see also: John Brockman (1991) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.

[Rafe Champion]

Thanks Roger, I have crossed the city to borrow "Anonymity" by Maurice Natanson to read over the weekend. This better not be a bum steer, the trip cost $9.80 in bus and train fares alone.

[LVDH]

Rafe,
The book is also available for less than $5 on Amazon. Natanson is great by the way.

[Roger Koppl]

Rafe,

Oh dear. You're going to hate me forever. I read that book, or tried to. I couldn't get anything out of it, honestly. He tried to meditate on Schutzian anonymity without treating it as a technical concept in social science. Hamlet without the prince. Natanson was great. My copy of "Edmund Husserl: Philolosopher of Infinite Tasks" is well worn and well loved. But I think he came up short on that one occasion.

Try the following:

Koppl, Roger and Glen Whitman, “Rational-Choice Hermeneutics,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2004, 55(3): 295-317.

[Current]

I think the division should be plain for anyone to see. The "Cartoon version" of the "Two cultures" claim is as far as I can tell almost entirely correct.

Humanities people think Scientists are gauche, consumeristic, capitalistic and naive. They think they are nerds who should be treated like big children.

Scientists think that humanities and arts people are lacking in intelligence, ability and work-ethics. They think that are fuzzy thinking and a general waste of human skin.

People who try to unite both sides are normally salesmen and they are normally full of s**t.

Now, I am English and I did specialise in Science early. But I don't really think that makes much of a difference. From talking to Americans thing there seem worse than they are here.

[LVDH]

Roger Koppl a salesman? Didn´t know.

[Current]

Roger Koppl is a welcome exception.

[LVSH]

A few comments:
(1) There are now a lot of exceptions. Quite some individuals now pursue research objectives in an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary etc. context. From this perspective the dividing line between the two cultures seems to have become increasingly blurred in recent times, particularly in fields like cognitive science, complexity science, now also neuroeconomics etc.
(2) Hayek is more likely to be situated in the "philosophical" and "humanistic" camp, than in the "scientific" one. Most of his "scientific" talk is at a meta-level, that is, philosohpical. There is of course his _The Sensory Order_ which is certainly a respectable contribution to psychology in its own right, but is nevertheless a "literary" contribution and still close to what is traditionally considered philosophy.
(3) Mises was certainly not anti- or a-scientific. Some of his statements, for instance about methodological dualism, are even more scientific/scientistic and more "reductionistic" than those of Hayek. For instance, he does not seem to exclude the possibility of a reduction of the psychical to the physical as a matter of principle, contrary to Hayek; it´s only that in the present state of knowledge, we simply don´t know... He also tends somewhat towards classical determinism. On the other hand much of what he writes seems to be consistent with more recent findings of evolutionary psychology etc.

[Rafe Champion]

Don't worry Roger, it is not your fault that Natanson on "Anonymity" is only worth $4 (or less). Natanson is usually very good but I probably should have asked for advice before setting off to the library. I don't like to think that any trip to a library is wasted and the previous occasion I picked up Buchanan on the anarchy in the universities, prompted by Pete Boettke. Possibly the two best books on that topic are Buchanan and Barzun "The American University".

To be charitable to Natanson and Schutz, the concept of anonymity looks a bit like the idea of objective or impersonal(Popperian "world three") contents of thoughts and theories. This can be described as another fascinating strand of Austrian thought. http://www.the-rathouse.com/EvenMoreAustrianProgram/EMAThreeAustrianStrands.html

I read Koppl and Whitman in January and again in February (and again on the weekend). The first annotation reads "Roger and I are playing the same game". There are a lot of ticks in the margin. The bridge between the two realms is easier to negotiate when you think in terms of a "conjectural (or non-jutificationist) turn" in the philosophy of science.

All is forgiven Roger, you just need to buy me a drink the next time we meet in a pub.

[psikeyhackr]

It has gotten to the point that now most people don't know what questions to ask about a grade school physics problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXAerZUw4Wc

How do you build a 1360 foot skyscraper without figuring out how much steel and concrete to put on every level? Why do people expect it to be possible to figure out whether or not a NORMAL airliner can destroy it in less than 2 hours without that information?

And yet now we can make NETBOOK computers more powerful than the mainframes from the 1980s for less than $300. So how many people can figure out what to do with technology this powerful?

40 years after the Moon landing and our so called scientists don't talk about the Planned Obsolescence of automobiles and our economists don't tell consumers how much they have lost on the depreciation of that garbage. John Kenneth Galbraith talked about PO in 1959 also.

psik

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