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

我提议对希拉里·普特南(Hilary Putnam)的说法进行详细研究。普特南声称，我们的评价性概念的“不可还原的评估”内容使对这些概念的经验性社会科学调查成为“事实-价值不可分割的”。在这样做的过程中，我将制定一种不同意义的分类法，在这种分类法中，科学可以是“事实和价值不可分割的”。为了促进这种分类法的明确发展，我将使用规范推理主义语义学开发一个明确的意义理论，特别是对于科学。我还将利用有关知识量化的哲学文献来开发正式模型，说明问题及其答案如何具有“不可还原的评估信息内容程度”。这些模型将有助于对事实-价值可分离性做出可能看起来含糊的、因此不严肃的主张。我将把这些想法应用于一系列详细的案例研究，以衡量来自一系列评估性信息内容的不同端的评估概念。通过这样做，我将期望部分地证明并关键地澄清普特南的论点。这一分析有可能(1)促进方法论的反思和调整，这有助于使对可评价概念的实证调查更加透明和有用，以及(2)展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，以一种潜在地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.