Philosophy of social science

Stephen Turner proposes to provide a philosophical analysis of a family of concepts falling under the general heading of " social practice " : the notion of a tacit set of rules, norms, or presuppositions that inform behavior in a given cultural milieu and that are socially authoritative and causally influential. Examples include: skills of the carpenter, passed on from master to apprentice; knowledge of laboratory techniques passed on from senior scientist to graduate student; norms of etiquette and comportment, passed on from adults to children; frameworks of interpretation of literary or religious texts; social practices governing the use and significance of food; and many others. Especially important among such phenomena in Turner's account are epistemic practices: the notion that knowledge and belief are dependent upon schemes, worldviews, or frameworks that are not themselves amenable to rational standards of assessment. Turner makes the important point that we need a better conceptualization of the theory of practice. And he offers detailed and provocative analysis of a host of problems raised in this area. Turner's position is that the concept of practice is seductive but ultimately untenable. The central source of his skepticism has to do with the difficulty of assuring that the " same " practice is transmitted. Where does a social practice reside? How is it transmitted? How do the young absorb the mores of their elders? How are the " rules " of these practices represented internally within the individual? What guarantees that two practitioners—each equally adept—have the same practical knowledge, the same internal grammar? On the basis of skeptical answers to several of these questions, Turner concludes that there is no such thing as a social practice; rather, there are trained similarities of external performance. Turner's skepticism about social practices is ultimately unpersuasive. The reality of social customs, norms, mores, assumptions, worldviews, habits— practices, in short—is too compelling to be seriously doubted. The challenge, then, is to provide an account of embodiment and transmission of such skills and knowledge that makes sense of the facts of social experience and addresses the concerns that Turner raises. And in fact, the outlines of such an account are not hard to produce. We might postulate that each individual possesses a " norm inference engine, " on the basis of which the individual observes the social