Critical Reflection Paper

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING CRP 495 | URBAN POLITICAL ANALYSIS

Evaluation of the Article ‘’ The Third World Revolt Against First World Social Science: An Explication Suggested by the Revolutionary Pedagogy of Paulo Freire’’

in Accordance with The Learning Outcomes of the Course

Sinay COŞKUN 2019 – 2020 | FALL

PART I. Evaluation of the paper in terms of ontological, epistemological, human nature and methodological approaches adopted by the author.

By saying Social Theory, it is implied that ideas/opinions, assertions, conjectures, thoughtexperiments and explanatory speculations about how and why human societies or elements or structures of such societies come to be formed, change, and develop over time or begin to be disappeared. According to Harrison's approach (2005), social theories are analytical frameworks or paradigms used to examine social phenomena. This tradition took as its aim of using philosophy to examine problems in society, an aim not too dissimilar to the social theories so popular today.

In the first part of the study the nature of science will be discussed, that is one of the bases of the study of social theories. Discussion will be carried out within the context of the article; ‘’The Third World Revolt Against First World Social Science: An Explication Suggested by the Revolutionary Pedagogy of Paulo Freire’’ by Frederick H. Gareau.

To begin with, it can be said that social sciences can be conceptualized in terms of four sets of assumptions which are Ontology, Epistemology, Human Nature and Methodology. These assumptions about the Nature of Science have two polarized perspectives; Objectivist View and Subjectivist View.

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Firstly, the ontological approach adopted by the author will be tried to be examined. Here, the ontology is taken in hand as a theory of what exists, what is looks like, what units make it up and how these units interact with each other? The basic question in the ontological debate is whether the reality is external to the individual or the product of individual conciseness? If theories related to the ontological debate of different perspectives are examined; nominalism suggests that only singular and individual things exist in nature or in social environment; for nominalists, universal does not refer anything, it is only a word or a name composed of letters, they are thought objects made by mind (it is just opposite to what idealism argued). In addition, in using universal terms, the mind is not doing anything more than thinking in an orderly way. On the other hand, and similar to nominalism, realism suggests that the science is an empirically-based rational and objective enterprise. For realists, the social word is hard and concrete as the natural world. Their primary purpose is to give causal explanations of observable phenomena.

The author of the given article focuses on giving a new form and content to the continuum whereby the third word indigenizes the social sciences. Here the term indigenization is used to refer a phenomenon whereby third world social scientists deny paradigms from the first world. Another focus of the author is to stimulate first word social educators and scientists of the existence and the magnitude of the indigenization movement in the third world. While the author evaluates the approach of Singh (1976), he argues that the universalism of main initiatives is limited to the offer of "interpretations of social phenomena in terms of estimation of causal relationships among various events" (Singh, 1976: 59). Apart from this, the universalism of social science could not be achieved. Here, if we can examine the article from the author’s point of view, it can be said that he has adopted a realist approach to the situations just mentioned above. Furthermore, while he evaluates the Berger's approaches on the realization foreign sociology, he argues that it is insufficient and unable of explaining social problems related to dependency. On the other hand, it is criticized that the it does not improve the independence of the country. For the author, all of the ideas that foster such discipline should be concrete and historical. For him, the main thing needed is an inevitably systematic and holistic view. For all these ideas or approached adopted by the author, his point of view has been found to be realistic (objectivist) but far from being conventionalist (subjectivist).

Secondly, as an assumption of philosophy of science, epistemology deals with the sources of knowledge. Specifically, it deals with probabilities, limitations and sources, and the nature of knowledge. In short, it is a philosophical field in search of the knowledge and how to reach or find it. For the positivism (objectivist point of view), scientific theories consist of general universal statements and truth or falsity evaluated by observation and experiment. For positivists, knowledge must be based on experience. In this part of the discussion, ‘’experiment or experience’’ are considered as key words to evaluate the approach adopted by the author, since he emphasizes these terms too often in the article.

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As it specified by the author, several problems or issues can be pointed out related to the first and third world dilemmas discussed in the article (that are explained in detail and restructured

by Freire.) Freire’s pedagogy advocates that "concrete" existential facts should be conveyed from experiences. The author also underlines how sensitive Freire is in transferring the experience to the posterities or to his students. The author further mentions Freire’s arguments that science is fed by experience. On the other hand, while the author is evaluating the codification and decodification concepts of Freire, he underlies, again, the contributions from the concrete existential experience of the members of the society (could be found in page 184).

Thirdly, the subjectivist view under the human nature debate will be discussed due to the specific evaluations of the author with the embracement of voluntarism. For this approach, human beings are completely autonomous and free willed; free to choose goals, and how to achieve them within the bounds of certain constraints.

In the article, author urge upon the critical Marxism, offered the Latin American paradigm insights that better represented the recent mode. He further explains the new mode as more dialectic and historical, rather than general. For him, the new mode consists of commitments rather than objectivity. Accordingly, a flexible and critical Marxism, often devoid of economic reductionism, adopts voluntarism, is twisted and adjusted to be part of the Latin American indigenous paradigm, a local creation that enables the exploitation of foreign structures. On the other hand, while the author explaining the main objectives of his paper, he argues that, the paper asks the reader to adopt the views of the two Indian social scientists. The first one is Singh, who especially refers two things; meta concepts and values. It was emphasized that these values and meta concepts may differ from culture to culture like it has been emphasized previously in the general framework of the voluntarism; that the human being are completely autonomous or self-directed. And the second one is Varma, who denied structural functionalist approaches for specific reasons, although they adopted voluntarism (mentioning the specific examples of values and meta- concepts typical of the United States).

Lastly, as the final discussion of the first part of this reflection paper, the methodological approach adopted by the author will be evaluated. In the objectivist methodological approach or in nomothetic theory making generalizations about the world and understanding large-scale social patterns are the man focuses. On the other hand, the subjectivist methodological approach or idiographic theory uncovering a great deal of detailed information about a narrower subject of study is the man focus. In nomothetic approach the tools are field studies, specific questions and problem sets. On the contrary, idiographic theory uses the life stories, diaries, biographies and journalists’ records as a tool.

If the problem-oriented approach of the author is examined, it can be said that he does not generalize the problems or issues, which will be mentioned a little after. Thus, it can be observable that in problem identification, analysis and criticism, the author has an elaborated declarations and attitude. He focuses on a narrower subject rather than large scale social patterns. To be clear here, the author mentions African problems as a narrowed case (without generalizing it to the whole country or region) and adds: ‘’Social scientists have not contributed much to an understanding of African problems-foreign experts have probably produced as Sinay COŞKUN 2019 – 2020 | FALL

much confusion as solutions to problems (Temu, 1975: 191).’’ In another example, the author mentions a small-scale solution to the local problems and offers the following explanations: ‘’ The social sciences were implanted in Asia under conditions very different from the way in which they arose in Europe. They arose in the latter in response to local conditions-the decline of traditionalism and the growth in the power of reason and as a way of solving local problems.’’ (page 177). Here, subjectivist (idiographic) point of view of the author may be seen from that; specific problems are not generalized and understood as large-scale (region-scale) issues, in fact, it is specified in the local level.

PART II. Evaluation of the paper in terms of sociology of regulation and sociology of radical change adopted by the author.

In the second part of the study the nature of society will be discussed, that is one of the bases of the study of social theories.

Discussion will be carried out within the context of the article; ‘’The Third World Revolt Against First World Social Science: An Explication Suggested by the Revolutionary Pedagogy of Paulo Freire’’ by Frederick H. Gareau.

The sociology of radical change concerns with finding explanations for the radical change, structural conflict and the modes of domination. It also concerns with man’s emancipation, with what is possible, rather than what exists. All in all, it deals with alternatives rather than status quo. Here, some of the key concepts can be given as structural conflict, domination, deprivation and contradiction.

The sociology of regulation, on the other hand, emphasizes the underlying unity and cohesiveness of the society. It concerns with the need for regulation in human affairs and explains why society tends to be maintained as an entity rather than fall apart. For the sociology of regulation; the status quo, social order, consensus, social integration and solidarity are the basic requirements of a permanent society. In order to expand on these sociologies, objectivist and subjectivist perspectives should be examined.

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For the radical structuralist paradigm which has roots that are connected to the materialist view, completed its intellectual process in the second half of the 19th century with Karl Marx’s views. The radical structuralist paradigm posits that the perceptible reality, just as the nature, exists on its own independent of the human mind. The first and foremost purpose of this paradigm is to criticize the status-quo in social relations. This paradigm does not only criticize, it also aims to reshape the social world (Burrell and Morgan, 1979).

For the radical humanist paradigm, it can be said that it stands on the idea that “the fundamental reality of the universe is not matter, but soul”. As it shares the view that “individuals live in the world they themselves create” with the hermeneutic paradigm, they are sometimes perceived as the same paradigm. However, while hermeneutics try to understand this process, radical humanists criticize this situation and looks for ways to stop people from being alienated from themselves (Burrell and Morgan, 1979).

In the article, the author has the courage of Freire’s convictions that when the ‘’man’’ realize the existence of exploitation, a great deal of truth and critical consciousness have developed.

For him, the term ‘’critical’’ means consciousness of exploitation. As a result, the man becomes aware of and criticizes the routine things he previously accepted. The author further implies that: ‘’All these debates are intended to lead the man to the conclusion that man uses other men as objects, and that their continuing bondage is affected through social structures, but man creates these structures as well as history, and man can destroy them and change the course of history’’. Which takes us back to the argument that the radical humanist paradigm advocates: ‘’The man lives in the world that he, as an individual, create himself.’’

For the Structural Functionalist approach, it can be said that the society consists of a system of social institutions and a pattern of culture. Nature and part of a society lay in its interconnections with other parts and the function is a contribution a part makes to the total system which has a functional unity. These parts of the system work in a harmony cannot be understood without the knowledge of the whole. The whole system consists of institutions and the institutions have some functions that are related to the adaptation and integration of the system itself. So the emphasis here is given on internal factors of the system. Furthermore, the social development goes hand in hands with the emergence of new and more complex structures and processes which increases the long-run adaptive capacity of the system and the values play significant roles as unifying function. Adaptive structures prevent dysfunctions.

For the Interpretive Analysis, Reeves and Hedberg (2003, p. 32) stated that the “interpretivist” paradigm stresses the need to put analysis in context. The interpretive paradigm is concerned with understanding the world as it is from subjective experiences of individuals. They use meaning (versus measurement) oriented methodologies, such as interviewing or participant observation, that rely on a subjective relationship between the researcher and subjects.

Interpretive research does not predefine dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the full complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994). This is the interpretive approach, which aims to explain the subjective reasons and meanings that lie behind social action.

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In the article, functionalist paradigm has been accentuated for several times. As an example, let us remember two Indian social scientists who are Varma and Singh. Varma, rejects the structural functionalism, due to its being individualistic and hedonistic assumptions (which are focuses only on the pleasure and suffering and accepts that they are the only components of well-being) do not accord with those of Hinduism. The author comments on this argument; for him, a social scientist has a legitimate right to develop her own paradigms and can name her own world with the necessary causal explanations, her own religious and philosophical views, and her own methods. This implies the right to reject paradigms not in accord with the certain criteria.

Sinay COŞKUN 2019 – 2020 | FALL