Scientific Realism Again

Ladyman, James

doi:10.4245/sponge.v9i1.29356

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The essence of theories' counterintuitivity and imaginative conjecture generation culminates in postulating the existence of unobservable entities, for example, electrons or gravitational waves that explain observable phenomena (Godfrey and Hill, 1995; Kukla, 1998; Psillos, 1999; Chakravartty, 2017). Using these theoretical constructs theorists explain observable phenomena and by doing this, implies that there are hidden causes and mechanisms beyond the phenomena (Ladyman, 2018, p. 99).…”

Section: What Theory Is Not and Why It Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…CE simply abandons realists' belief that science and scientific theories reveal a true picture of the world and unobservables and instead “science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate, and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate” (1980, p. 12). What matters is not a description of institutional logics or institutional work but what these constructs can tell us about organizations and organizational behavior since “believing in hidden causes and mechanisms beyond the phenomena is not required” (Ladyman, 2018, p. 99). There need not be any electrons, waves or institutions in order for the theory to be good or worth accepting (Grimes, 1984).…”

Section: Abandoning Preoccupations With Metaphysicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How institutional theories explain and fail to explain organizations

Aksom

Tymchenko

2020

JOCM

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PurposeThis essay raises a concern about the trajectory that new institutionalism has been following during the last decades, namely an emphasis on heterogeneity, change and agentic behavior instead of isomorphism and conformist behavior. This is a crucial issue from the perspective of the philosophy and methodology of science since a theory that admits both change and stability as a norm has less scientific weight then a theory that predicts a prevalence of passivity and isomorphism over change and strategic behavior. The former provides explanations and predictions while the latter does not.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers an analysis of the nature, characteristics, functions and boundaries of institutional theories in the spirit of philosophy and methodology of science literature.FindingsThe power of the former institutional theory developed by Meyer, Rowan, DiMaggio and Powell lies in its generalization, explanation and prediction of observable and unobservable phenomena: as a typical organizational theory that puts forward directional predictions, it explains and predicts the tendency for organizations to become more similar to each other over time and express less strategic and interest-driven behavior, conforming to ever-increasing institutional pressures. A theory of isomorphism makes scientific predictions while its modern advancements do not. Drawing on Popper's idea of the limit of domains of explanation and limited domains of theories we present two propositions that may direct our attention towards the strength or weakness of institutional theories with regard to their explanations of organizational processes and behavior.Practical implicationsThe paper draws implications for further theory building in institutional analysis by suggesting the nature of institutional explanations and the place of institutional change in the theoretical apparatus. Once institutional theory explains the tendency of the system towards equilibrium, there is no need to explain the origins and causes of radical change per se. Institutional isomorphism theory explains and predicts how even after radical changes organizational fields will move towards isomorphism, that is, institutional equilibrium. The task is, therefore, not to explain agency and change but to show that it is natural and inevitable processes that organizational field will return to isomorphic dynamics and move towards homogenization no matter how much radical change occurred in this field.Originality/valueThe paper discusses the practical problems with instrumental utility of institutional theories. In order to be useful any theory must clearly delineate its boundaries and offer explanations and predictions and it is only the former 1977/1983 institutional theory that satisfies these requirements while modern advancements merely offer ambiguous theoretical umbrellas that escape empirical tests. For researchers therefore it is important to recognize which theory can be applied in a given limited domain of research and which one has little or no value.

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Section: What Theory Is Not and Why It Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Abandoning Preoccupations With Metaphysicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How institutional theories explain and fail to explain organizations

Aksom

Tymchenko

2020

JOCM

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“…Scientific realism in its most general form claims the existence of unobservable entities that most successful theories postulate (Achinstein 2002;Ladyman 1998Ladyman , 2018Jones 1991) and maintains that the picture science gives us of the world is true (Van Fraassen 1977:623) (see Table 1 for basic differences and similarities between scientific realism, antirealism and structural realism). Most scientists claim to be realists (Rohrlich 1996;Weinberg 1994) and "most of us would like to be realists" (Jones 1991:185) since realism is the most intuitively obvious philosophy which accepts that scientific theories describe the world the way it actually is.…”

Section: Epistemic Pessimism Structural Realism and The Correspondence Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…7 A gap between direct observations and theoretical propositions is filled in with guesses which create a space for different interpretations for philosophers of science with regard to our attitudes towards theories. A key feature of scientific theories is their claims about the existence of unobservable phenomena and relations between observables and unobservables (Worrall 1982;Achinstein 2000Achinstein , 2002Psillos 2011;Mamchur 2017;Ladyman 2018;Cao 2019). Scientists deduce claims about the existence of unobservables but we cannot be sure about whether these phenomena really exist and whether scientists provided their correct description (Worrall 1982;Godfrey and Hill 1995;Mamchur 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Correspondence Between Organizational Theories

Aksom

Firsova

2021

Philosophy of Management

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Organizational research constitutes a differentiated, complex and fragmented field with multiple contradicting and incommensurable theories that make fundamentally different claims about the social and organizational reality. In contrast to natural sciences, the progress in this field can’t be attributed to the principle of truthlikeness where theories compete against each other and only best theories survive and prove they are closer to the truth and thus demonstrate scientific knowledge accumulation. We defend the structural realist view on the nature of organizational theories in order to demonstrate that despite the multiplicity of isolated and competing explanations of organization-environment relations these theories are still logically compatible and mutually consistent which, in turn, assures theoretical progress in the field. Although postulating different and incompatible ontologies, three most successful organization-environments theories, namely, contingency theory, new institutionalism and population ecology share the same explanations of the relations between organizations and environments at the structural level. Without this principle one would say that what occurs in the field of organization theory is a change rather than a progress.

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“…The point of structural realism is that even when ontological categories change radically (mass), or entities are dropped altogether (phlogiston), there can still be preservation of structure and more than the purely empirical content of the old theory is retained. French rightly does not defend structural realism as a form of `selective realism' in the sense that is often discussed in the literature (see Ladyman 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%