Meaning in Science, Evaluative Scientific Concepts, and the Fact-Value Separability of Mixed Social Science

我提议详细研究希拉里·普特南的主张，即我们的评价性概念的“不可约的评价性”内容使得对这些概念的经验社会科学调查“事实-价值不可分割”。在这样做的过程中，我将发展出一种不同意义上的分类学，在这种分类学中，科学可以是“事实-价值不可分割的”。为了促进这种分类法的清晰发展，我将使用规范推理主义语义学，专门为科学发展一种明确的意义理论。我还将借鉴关于知识量化的哲学文献来开发正式模型，以说明问题及其答案如何具有“不可简化的可评估信息内容的程度”。这些模型将有助于对事实-价值可分离性做出准确的判断，否则这些判断可能看起来很模糊，因此不严肃。我将把这些想法应用到一系列详细的案例研究中，这些案例研究来自评估性信息内容的不同末端的评估概念的测量。在这样做的过程中，我希望能部分地证明帕特南的观点是正确的，关键是要澄清这一点。这种分析有可能(1)促进方法的反思和调整，这有助于对评估概念进行更透明和有用的实证调查，(2)显示我们如何应对夸大社会科学的“事实-价值不可分割性”的主张，以一种可能促进对社会科学的过度怀疑的方式。

I am proposing to examine, in detail, Hilary Putnam's claim that the 'irreducibly evaluative' content of our evaluative concepts makes empiricalsocial scientific inquiries into those concepts 'fact-value inseparable.' In so doing I will develop a taxonomization of the different senses in whichscience can be 'fact-value inseparable.'To facilitate the clear development of this taxonomization I will develop an explicit theory of meaning, specifically for science, using normativeinferentialist semantics. I will also draw on the philosophical literature on the quantification of knowledge to develop formal models illustratinghow questions, and answers to them, can have 'degrees of irreducibly evaluative informational content.' These models will help to make precisewhat might otherwise seem to be vague and therefore unserious claims about fact-value separabillity.I will apply these ideas to a series of detailed case studies on the measurement of evaluative concepts from different ends of a spectrum ofevaluative informational content. In so doing, I will expect to partially vindicate, and crucially clarify, Putnam's argument.This analysis has the potential to (1) facilitate methodological reflection and adjustment which can help make empirical inquiries into evaluativeconcepts more transparent and useful, and (2) show how we can respond to claims which exaggerate the 'fact-value inseparability' of socialscience, in a way that potentially promotes undue scepticism about social science.