Politics, Values, and Public Policy: The Problem of Methodology by Frank Fischer

Author:Frank Fischer [Fischer, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367283803
Google: Ea0yygEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2019-09-27T03:48:34+00:00

4

The Logic of Evaluation: Evaluation Research and Phenomenology

[Wbat we need] is a language in which we may express our sentiments—approvals, disapprovals, evaluations, recommendations, advice, instructions, prescriptions—and put them out in the public arena for rational scrutiny and discussion, claiming that they will hold up under scrutiny and discussion and that all our audience will concur with us if they will also choose the same point of view.

—William K. Frankena1

A primary task of epistemology and methodology in philosophy and the social sciences is to analyze and clarify the basic concepts and rules that govern the logic of the discourse in which human beings do their thinking. The purpose is to obtain an understanding of what it means to be rational in the several types of discourse employed to explain social phenomena—scientific, mathematical, historical, or normative discourse. In social scientific discourse, analyses of what it means to be rational are quite familiar.2 These investigations involve the explication of the rules of reasoning that govern the perception, organization, and communication of empirical results. In normative discourse, however, there has been less systematic inquiry into the actual rules of reasoning that govern rational thinking, although there is a growing belief that normative discourse is governed by its own unique rules, as seen in the previous chapter. The problem is that few analysts have said what these rules are, at least with enough precision to be useful. In this respect, Paul Taylor is an important exception. His book, Normative Discourse, presents a clear exposition of the concepts and rules of reasoning employed in the evaluation of practical arguments.3

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