Theoretical & Empirical Fields of Research
Governing Resources
- From the natural sciences:
- laboratory as the dominant mode of relation to the empirical
- concern with observation
- assumes that it is possible to focus on select characteristics or variables
- assumes that it is possible to exclude all others from consideration, that is, to control them
- From mathematics:
- syllogism as dominant mode of argument
- major premise: all As are B
- minor premise: x is A
- conclusion: X is B
- syllogism depends on the law of the excluded middle: a proposition is either true or false
- But, neither science nor mathematics are guarantors of reliability: we cannot know the world as it would be if we were not here to observe it.