The Idea of a Social Science: And its Relation to Philosophy

by Peter Winch

In the fiftieth anniversary of this book’s first release, Winch’s argument remains as crucial as ever. Originally published in 1958, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy was a landmark exploration of the social sciences, written at a time when that field was still young and had not yet joined the Humanities and the Natural Sciences as the third great domain of the Academy.

A passionate defender of the importance of philosophy to a full understanding of 'society' against those who would deem it an irrelevant 'ivory towers' pursuit, Winch draws from the works of such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.S. Mill and Max Weber to make his case. In so doing he addresses the possibility and practice of a comprehensive 'science of society'.

Genres: Philosophy, Sociology, Nonfiction, Social Science, Anthropology, Research Methods, Language

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anthropologist friend of mine recently commented to me that Peter Winch's book challenged some premises dear to him early in his career (4 decades ago). So I was curious to see what Winch had had to say that was so disruptive to anthropology and other social sciences in the late 50s and throughout the 60s.

As I will put it, Winch contends that the work of philosophy is to examine that which makes something intelligible within itself. By extension, he grants philosophy not only access to itself but to any other discipline. In the process, he takes notions of disciplines, fields, cultures, history, and all else as manifestations of their own nature. The nature of the physical sciences is contingent on cause and effect, consistency, and predictability but it is also contingent on the meaning of the terms cause and effect, consistency and predictability. Once those terms are agreed, anything that falls within them is ontologically scientific.

Following Wittgenstein, Winch disputes the notion that social sciences are sciences as described just now. He posits that social phenomena are contingent on mutually reinforcing conceptualizations and practices that enable social beings to understand what they are doing and what will result. In other words, Winch distinguishes between scientific laws and social rules.

This was a more earthshaking argument in the late 50s than today. For more than a hundred years, the humanities and evolving social sciences struggled to compete with science, achieving equal rigor and exactitude. But we know that is impossible because cultures establish their understandings of themselves in myriad ways that differ from the behavior of natural phenomena. That is to say a culture does not ripen and erupt the same way a volcano ripens and erupts. In fact, the words ripen and erupt suggest entirely different interpretations of that which is observed when applied to cultures and volcanoes.

The social scientists wanted, and many still want, a statistical hermeneutic that would enable them to unlock the future of human experience. They would like to be able to understand and predict causes and effects with a certain degree of precision.

Well, there is no reason not to continue seeking a key to all mythologies or a commonality of brain functions across 6 billion human beings, but Winch would say that that should be done in the context of rules that emerge out of contexts not laws that emerge out of physical phenomena. And he would go further, I suspect, to say there is no reason to be disappointed when the rules change in the social context versus the physical context.

We can say that to be consistent is inconsistent with so-called human nature. And we can revel, perhaps, in the higher order of complexity human interaction bespeaks than the mysteries of atoms and volcanoes.

[muthuvel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this famous essay, the biggest Wittgenstein Stan attempts to show that social relations really exist only in and through the symbolic ideas of a contemporary society or better, that social relations fall into the same logical category as do relation between ideas than that of empirically conceived concepts as in Natural Sciences and thereby making a claim that social relations must be an equally unsuitable subject for generalizations and theories of the scientific sort to be formulated about them.

Lot of case studies from Hume, J.S. Mill, Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, Popper, Frazer and Malinowski. Some he praised and bashed while other he only bashed. Written at an important times when scholars of social sciences were aiming to set its status as close to Natural Sciences, it has sound arguments. But not very engaging however and that's a problem with analytical philosophers. More like they show how everything is more mechanised even the things we consider as full of humane emotions. If you ever want disillusionment from reading too much continental philosophy, books like these can help, I guess?

Thus understanding human society is closely connected with the activities of the underdog philosophers more than that of sociologists or any social scientists.

The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (1958) ~ Peter Winch

[Mahdiye Fatehi · Rating 3 out of 5]

عنوان ترجمه‌ی فارسی: ایده‌ی علم اجتماعی و پیوند آن با فلسفه، انتشارات سمت
کتاب مبتنی است بر تحلیل زبانی (اگر از اصطلاح درستی استفاده کرده باشم) و با این حال ترجمه‌ی جالبی ندارد. تحلیل زبانی هم از پشت ترجمه‌ی نامفهوم به سختی چیزی به دست می‌دهد. البته من چاپ خیلی خیلی قدیمی‌ای از کتاب دستم بود. شاید در این سال‌ها اصلاح شده باشد. با این حال چیزهایی که توانستم بفهمم به نظرم خیلی بدیع آمد. شاید از ناآشنایی من باشد، اما به هر حال این نوع نگاه به جامعه‌شناسی به نظرم ارزشمند است. شاید یک زمانی برگردم و دوباره بخوانمش.

[Ethan]

The thrust of Winch's argument is that one cannot understand human action outside of understanding what that action means within certain modes of discourse. This is generally agreeable and Winch does a good job at reeling back philosophy and the place of social science.

What I don't quite understand is why he places himself in opposition to thinkers like Hegel and Marx who, had he perhaps engaged with properly (they do not even appear in his bibliography), would probably have been found to be sympathetic to what he argues.

I read half of this prior to a conference and all of the papers presented on this book, and on Wittgenstein's relevance in particular, were quite interesting, probably more interesting than this book. It's fine though, really.

[BeeQuiet · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Idea of a Social Science has become one of the seminal works in sociology. At the time of its publication, sociologists had by and large been fighting for the recognition of sociology as a true 'science' in the same league as biology and chemistry. What Winch did, was to turn this idea on its head.

Instead of claiming that rigorous standards of objectivity and testing in line with classic scientific principles were key to the future of sociology, Winch drew closer parallels with philosophy. He famously posits in this book that to attempt to understand humans as objects, as things interacting with each other with no sense of agency, was to not understand them at all. This was the stance from which he constructed his argument, drawing largely from the works of Wittgenstein.

Sociology has moved on a long way since the publication of this book, and so did Winch himself. Indeed in a preface written for a later edition of the book, he made it clear that he had learned to think differently on the matters he had written about with such passion. Nonetheless, this is still a very important book to sociology, and we no doubt owe a certain amount to Winch for shaking the ivory tower for us.

[Betül YILMAZ]

Yeni tanışan uzaktan akraba gibiyiz şu an. Ne desem yalan olur.

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can be thought of as composed of three sections - the first about the nature of philosphy and the social sciences, the second centering on what intelligibility consists in, and the third about what proper social science can and cannot do.

As someone broadly sympathetic to a sociological epistemology, someone convinced that the notion of intelligibility is under-theorized, and as someone in agreement about the importance of a sociological approach to Wittgenstein's "forms of life", there's a lot in this book I should have liked. While there's an ingenius argument if you work your way through this, I'm somewhat uncomfortable with its scope and its potential prohibition of the kind of abstraction vital to much of social understanding.

In sections I, II, and III, I summarize what I see as the three stages of the argument. In section IV, I briefly mention 2 lines of critique. It's lengthy because of lengthy quoting.

I. On the relationship between philosophy, philosophy of science, and science

In opposition to the "underlabourer" conception of philosophy, Winch proposes that while science looks at nature using tools, philosophy should be about thinking about how human tools latch onto the world. This isn't a call for analytic metaphysics, however, but a call for a general sociological framework (presumably of the kind he goes on to provide). As for fields like philosophy of science, these should think about the connections in their particular fields. This will mean philosophy of science will still draw on the relevant science, but is hardly an underlabourer.

Whereas the scientist investigates the nature, causes and effects of particular real things and processes, the philosopher is concerned with the nature of reality as such and in general. Burnet puts the point very well in his book on Greek Philosophy when he points out (on pages 11 and 12) that the sense in which the philosopher asks ‘What is real?’ involves the problem of man’s relation to reality, which takes us beyond pure science. ‘We have to ask whether the mind of man can have any contact with reality at all, and, if it can, what difference this will make to his life’. Now to think that this question of Burnet’s could be settled by experimental methods involves just as serious a mistake as to think that philosophy, with its a priori methods of reasoning, could possibly compete with experimental science on its own ground. For it is not an empirical question at all, but a conceptual one. (8-9)

Science, unlike philosophy, is wrapped up in its own way of making things intelligible to the exclusion of all others. Or rather it applies its criteria unselfconsciously; for to be self-conscious about such matters is to be philosophical. This non-philosophical unself-consciousness is for the most part right and proper in the investigation of nature (except at such critical times as that gone through by Einstein prior to the formulation of the Special Theory of Relativity); but it is disastrous in the investigation of a human society, whose very nature is to consist in different and competing ways of life, each offering a different account of the intelligibility of things. (102-3)

II. Intelligibility

Why does epistemology need to be sociological? Winch thinks the question that should interest the epistemologist is "How is such an understanding (or indeed any understanding) possible?" (22) and that

To answer this question it is necessary to show the central role which the concept of understanding plays in the activities which are characteristic of human societies. In this way the discussion of what an understanding of reality consists in merges into the discussion of the difference the possession of such an understanding may be expected to make to the life of man; and this again involves a consideration of the general nature of a human society, an analysis, that is, of the concept of a human society. (22-23)

[If the "in this way" seems misplaced, it's because there are lots of places where Winch seems to think he's providing an argument where he's actually just stating an unrealted point. But the point itself has merit, so I ignore these lapses]

He relies on on how judgements of sameness require a rule, and a rule requires criteria of correctness sustained by a community. Any description of human life (as opposed to descriptions in the natural sciences) will require intersubjectively shared ideas. And these "ideas" themselves (to use a contemporary expression) are enacted by shared social life, a form of a life (to use Wittgenstein's phrase).

the notion of a human society involves a scheme of concepts which is logically incompatible with the kinds of explanation offered in the natural sciences. (72)

A man’s social relations with his fellows are permeated with his ideas about reality. Indeed, ‘permeated’ is hardly a strong enough word: social relations are expressions of ideas about reality. (23)

The impression given is that first there is language (with words having a meaning, statements capable of being true or false) and then, this being given, it comes to enter into human relationships and to be modified by the particular human relationships into which it does so enter. What is missed is that those very categories of meaning, etc., are logically dependent for their sense on social interaction between men. (44)

Wittgenstein’s remark suggests a possibility of rephrasing this: whereas the philosophies of science, of art, of history, etc., will have the task of elucidating the peculiar natures of those forms of life called ‘science’, ‘art’, etc., epistemology will try to elucidate what is involved in the notion of a form of life as such. Wittgenstein’s analysis of the concept of following a rule and his account of the peculiar kind of interpersonal agreement which this involves is a contribution to that epistemological elucidation. (41)

The terms ‘reason’ and ‘motive’ are not synonymous. It would, for instance, be absurd to describe most imputations of motives as ‘justifications’: to impute a motive is more often to condemn than it is to justify. To say, for example, that N murdered his wife from jealousy is certainly not to say that he acted reasonably. But it is to say that his act was intelligible in terms of the modes of behaviour which are familiar in our society, and that it was governed by considerations appropriate to its context. (82)

all meaningful behaviour must be social, since it can be meaningful only if governed by rules, and rules presuppose a social setting. (116)

III. The scope and limits of sociology

Looking closely at the earlier statement, for Winch, "A man’s social relations with his fellows are permeated with his ideas about reality." What matters here are only agent categories, not analyst ones. For Winch, intellgibility of a particular idea for an agent's peer and even observer only makes sense if they share that form of life in some way. Since intelligibility is a prerequisite for understanding and therefore explanation, the only permissible explanations are those sensitive to agent categories. The relation between the sociologist and the society is not like the relationship between physicist and physics' objects, but the rule-bound relationships between physicts themselves.

…it is something that can be learned, something that can be discussed, and the fact that it can be so learned and discussed is essential to our conception of it. (53)

For to notice something is to identify relevant characteristics, which means that the noticer must have some concept of such characteristics; this is possible only if he is able to use some symbol according to a rule which makes it refer to those characteristics. (85)

Principles, precepts, definitions, formulae—all derive their sense from the context of human social activity in which they are applied. (57)

even explanations of the Freudian type, if they are to be acceptable, must be in terms of concepts which are familiar to the agent as well as to the observer. (48)

whereas in the case of the natural scientist we have to deal with only one set of rules, namely those governing the scientist’s investigation itself, here what the sociologist is studying, as well as his study of it, is a human activity and is therefore carried on according to rules. And it is these rules, rather than those which govern the sociologist’s investigation, which specify what is to count as ‘doing the same kind of thing’ in relation to that kind of activity... But if the judgements of identity—and hence the generalizations—of the sociologist of religion rest on criteria taken from religion, then his relation to the performers of religious activity cannot be just that of observer to observed. It must rather be analogous to the participation of the natural scientist with his fellow workers in the activities of scientific investigation. (87)

This point is reflected in such common-sense considerations as the following: that a historian or sociologist of religion must himself have some religious feeling if he is to make sense of the religious movement he is studying and understand the considerations which govern the lives of its participants. A historian of art must have some aesthetic sense if he is to understand the problems confronting the artists of his period; and without this he will have left out of his account precisely what would have made it a history of art, as opposed to a rather puzzling external account of certain motions which certain people have been perceived to go through. (88)

The plausibility of this rests largely on its scope and what exactly is being denied. If we remember that this was the time of behaviorism, when there was talk of social science modeled as though external observers could straightforwardly observe social facts and create explanations, without engaging with agent categorization, then it seems quite right.

Indeed he quotes Durkheim as what he opposes: "I consider extremely fruitful this idea that social life should be explained, not by the notions of those who participate in it, but by more profound causes which are unperceived by consciousness, and I think also that these causes are to be sought mainly in the manner according to which the associated individuals are grouped." (23)

Indeed he does in some *places* seem open to theorizing about discourses after "a mode of discourse" is understood:

I do not wish to maintain that we must stop at the unreflective kind of understanding of which I gave as an instance the engineer’s understanding of the activities of his colleagues. But I do want to say that any more reflective understanding must necessarily presuppose, if it is to count as genuine understanding at all, the participant’s unreflective understanding… although the reflective student of society, or of a particular mode of social life, may find it necessary to use concepts which are not taken from the forms of activity which he is investigating, but which are taken rather from the context of his own investigation, still these technical concepts of his will imply a previous understanding of those other concepts which belong to the activities under investigation. (89)

What I am saying needs qualification. I do not mean, of course, that it is impossible to take as a datum that a certain person, or group of people, holds a certain belief—say that the earth is flat—without subscribing to it oneself… What he misses is that a mode of discourse has to be understood before anyone can speak of theories and propositions within it which could constitute data for him. (109-110)

I am not denying that it may sometimes be useful to adopt devices like Weber’s ‘externalization’ of his description of this situation... What is dangerous is that the user of these devices should come to think of his way of looking at things as somehow more real than the usual way. (118)

IV. Two criticisms

1. Perhaps minor, but one of Winch's constant examples is about how a pet that's been trained to do a trick "has no conception of what it is doing at all" (65), and he assumes that "the concept of understanding is rooted in a social context in which the dog does not participate as does the man" (74). More modestly: "to whose behaviour the concept of a motive is not obviously appropriate" (76).

Although this seems reasonable independently, I'm not sure how Winch's account distinguishes between the pet's ability to balance sugar on its nose on cue is any different than a child's response to language. Even for adults, how do we make sense of a shared understanding without positing inaccessible states, except to point to a shared form of life where everyone participates appropriately? (pets included). And of course all kinds of animals have complex social structures, so perhaps Winch's account is overreliant on language.

2. More seriously, intuitively at least it strikes me that Winch's argument swings too wide (For a similar critique, refer to Barry Barnes (1974) p. 78). Of course agent categories will have to be "taken seriously" (108) but if understanding is only bound to the agent's context, it seems as though we cannot anymore do any cross-context comparisons anymore. Winch does seem to say something along these lines:

But ideas cannot be torn out of their context in that way; the relation between idea and context is an internal one. The idea gets its sense from the role it plays in the system. It is nonsensical to take several systems of ideas, find an element in each which can be expressed in the same verbal form, and then claim to have discovered an idea which is common to all the systems. This would be like observing that both the Aristotelian and Galilean systems of mechanics use a notion of force, and concluding that they therefore make use of the same notion. (107)

This seems a little extreme, although I see how it flows out of Winch's socio-metaphysics. Possibly, theorizing that would systematically reinterpret individual categories might no longer be allowed, if the fruits of analysis of other contexts can no longer be imported. This has some plausibility in cases where it's decided that every social system can be analyzed in terms of universal aspects ("residues") and local deviations ("derivations"), without close attention to specific textures. But any system like Marxism which treats agent categories with some skeptcism also potentially get into trouble here, but so does any garden-variety comparisons which seem common place. That Winch seems to be denying that these kinds of comparisons are possible, in the name of treating existing discourse-systems seriously, seems...off.

[Peter Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably more controversial today than it was in 1958. For the general public that is. In the face of increasing public skepticism of social sciences and critical theory, Winch reminds the reader that the social studies are not in fact empirical sciences. That is at least the claim. Generally the ideas seem sound. Winch, clearly dedicated to Wittgenstein, lays out succinctly the error with empirical social theory. In 2025, many would question the truth in Winch’s words; we are in an age of mass-data. But data without interrelated epistemological thought is entirely vacuous. Do I agree entirely with Winch? No, maybe, I’m not sure… certainly need to read more.

[Harry Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5 - maybe overly harsh. The later half was a bit beyond me, the first half didn’t seem entirely convincing. Somewhat messily explained and whilst wittgensteinian rule following seems to shed an interesting light on the topics he’s considering, I’m not sure it’s as essential to the conclusions he draws (or even to the practice of social science) as he appears to be convinced that it is, or at least he didn’t convince me that it is.

[Jim Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished re-reading this minor classic by Peter Winch. (I had read the first edition in the ‘70’s). It still reads very well, although the main issue he grapples with (the methodological, not to say the ontological distinctiveness of the social and historical sciences from the natural sciences) is less controversial these days. Or at least not argued about as much!

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book articulating the philosophy of social science in the legacy of Weber and Wittgenstein. A good understanding of semiology has also helped to elucidate the sign. The author makes a great number of rebuttals to opposing conception of the subject. I loved the objection addressed against naturalism and dispositionalism. Both Ryle and Mill are seriously put in the spot as being unable to perceive the conceptual change at play. Other reviews have mentioned that this work was dry, didn’t find it to be particularly true, given how it reads very well. The overall conclusion is probably something along the lines that to makes sense of an individual act you must understand the rules that this individual follows.

[Cyril Hédoin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An account of the relationship between philosophy and social sciences that gives a prominent place to Wittgenstein's views about the nature of rule-following. Interesting but unsurprisingly outdated in its discussion of the special social sciences.

[Emile · Rating 5 out of 5]

some really special moments, hopefully i'll update later

[Beyzanur]

Okuması çok zordu... Muhtemelen ileride bir vakit işaretlediğim yerlere bi daha bi baksam iyi olur. Özellikle Wittgenstein üzerine daha fazla bir şeyler okuduktan sonra.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 1st chapter remains an essential reading.

[Tylor Lovins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winch gives a Wittgensteinian critique of modern anthropology and modern social sciences in general. His discussion on rule following makes this book important in and of itself. I think it's indispensable for anyone wanting to understand Wittgenstein, but also for anyone who plans to study the social sciences (because the social sciences often confuse empirical data with conceptual confusion--hence, they beg the question of concept formation).

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uhm, he makes his arguements in circular ways. Essentially, he says that you can't apply scientific principals to the study of human beings and social science should not be based on scientific research./

[Ross Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winch’s first book is a triumph of anti-scientism. It demonstrates the essential affinity between the social sciences and philosophy, and it alerts us to the confusions that inevitably result when we ask the social sciences to be more like physics.

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short and delightful book -- of deep, deep stuff -- that helped the Collingwood revival.