Professor Landau argues that inquiry and perception are limited by language forms, and that mixing concepts from different models leads to disorder in the process of inquiry and meaninglessness of conclusions. He discusses the pragmatics of model construction and concept formation, and relates the logic of models and concepts to explanative- predictive capabilities. The author is affiliated with the Department of Political Science and the Research Center in Comparative Politics and Administration at Brooklyn College.
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References
1.
* A version of this paper was delivered at the 1964 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
2.
** As is generally the case in political science, I have taken "model" as a synonym for "theory" (although in a formal sense a model serves as the interpretation of a theory). My comment is directed to all types of models but I have chosen to bypass a discussion of mathematical models so as not to unduly complicate this paper. For similar reasons, I have not extended discussion to include "idealized research models".
3.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, Collected Papers on Metalinguistics. Washington, D.C., U.S Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, 1952 , p. 11
4.
See Morris Swadesh, "Diffusional Cumulation and Archaic Residue as Historical Explanation ", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 7 (1951), pp. 1-3.
5.
Language, Thought and Reality, Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, edited by J. B. Carroll (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1956 ), p. 212.
6.
Ibid., pp. 213-14. For a full discussion of the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, including some relevant researches, see Language in Culture, edited by Harry Hoijer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).
7.
Stephen K. Bailey, "Is Congress the Old Frontier" in Continuing Crisis in American Politics, edited by Marian D. Irish (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall , 1963), p. 68.
8.
Ibid, p. 71.
9.
Louis W. Koenig, "Foreign Aid to Spain and Yugoslavia" in The Uses of Power, edited by Alan F. Westin (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), p. 75.
10.
Ibid, p. 113.
11.
Carl B. Swisher, The Growth of Constitutional Power in the United States ( Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1963), p. 51.
12.
Constitutional Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908), p. 56.
13.
J.M. Burns and J.W. Peltason, Government By the People (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1957), pp. 33, 88.
14.
Harold Laski, The American Presidency (New York: Harper & Bros., 1940). See Ch. I, p. 21.
15.
Norton Long , "The Local Community as an Ecology of Games ", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44 (1958), pp. 251-61.
16.
The literature of game theory is rather extensive. For an excellent collection of essays and an equally excellent bibliography see Martin Shubik, Game Theory and Related Approaches to Social Behavior (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964).
17.
Some of the Conference Reports can be found in The American Political Science Review, Vol. 18 ( 1924), pp. 119-166; Vol. 19 (1925), pp. 104-162, 371-384.
18.
And see Charles E. Merriam, New Aspects of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925), esp. chs. 3 & 4.
19.
See James C. Davies, Human Nature in Politics ( New York. John Wiley & Sons, 1963).
20.
And see Appendix I in Morton A. Kaplan, Sys em and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons , 1957)
21.
F.W. Riggs, "Agraria and Industria" in W. Siffin , editor, Toward the Comparatve Study of Public Administration (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957).
22.
And see Riggs, The Ecology of Public Administrat on (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1961).
23.
Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1953)
24.
; and The Nerves of Government (New YorkFree Press, 1964).
25.
Following Charles Morris , communications theory or the theory of signs (semiotics) may be subdivided into three classes of rules: syntactics (relations between signs); semantics (relations between signs and their referents) , pragmatics (relations between signs and their users). Information theory treats of the syntactical rules of communciation and is expressed mathematically. See " Foundations of the Theory of Signs" in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, Part I (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955).
26.
And see Colin Cherry, On Human Communication (New York. Science Editions, 1961), ch. 6.
27.
James G. Miller, "Toward a General Theory for the Behavioral Sciences" in L. D. White, editor, The State of the Social Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
28.
John T. Dorsey, Jr. , "The Information-Energy Model" in F. Heady and S. Stokes, editors, Papers in Comparative Public Administration (Ann Arbor : Institute of Public Administration, 1962).
29.
For an analysis on the influence of both mechanics and biology on political science, see my paper "On the Use of Metaphor in Political Science" Social Research Vol. 28 (1961).
30.
Horace M. Kallen, "Political Science as Psychology", The American Political Sc ence Rev ew Vol. 17 (1923), p. 184; and see, of course, Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers.
31.
See my discussion of "field" as a part of the "scientific situation" in "The Concept of Decision-making in the Field of Public Administration " in S. M. Mailick and E. H. Van Ness, editors, Concepts and Issues in Administrative Behavior (New York. Prentice-Hall, 1962).
32.
For an analysis of the concept "scientific situation" see Felix Kaufman, Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York: Oxford Univeisity Press, 1944).
33.
R.A. Dalh, "The Behavioral Approach", American Political Science Review Vol. 55 (1961), p. 772.
34.
H Kaufman, "Organization Theory and Political Theory", American Political Science Review Vol. 58 ( 1964), p. 11.
35.
H. Reichenbach , The Rise of Scientific Philosophy ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 230-1.
36.
And see Experience and Prediction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938).
37.
Morton Grodzins , "Centralization and Decentrahzation in the American Federal System" in R. A. Goldwin , editor, A Nation of States (Chicago . Rand McNally, 1961).
38.
Karl Deutsch , Nerves, op. cit.
39.
See Kaufman, op. cit. for a discussion of this concept and for a very clear statement of the rules of scientific procedure. An appendix of Simon Perry's dissertation on Conflict of Expectations and Roles in 'Policy Sc.ence Behavior' (unp. mss., Michigan State University) is an unusually neat summary statement of these rules.
40.
See Alfred Schuetz, "Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 14 (1953), pp. 1-38.
41.
The bulk of Schuetz' woik has to do with the analysis of common sense situations and are contained in a volume of his collected works, The Problem of Social Reality (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962). And see the striking work of Harold Garfinkle, Common Sense Knowledge of Social Structures (unp. mimeo) abridged as "Aspects of Common-Sense Knowledge of Social Structures", Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology (1959), pp. 51-65
42.
; " The Rational Properties of Scientific and Common Sense Activities" Behavioral Sc,ence Vol. 5 (1960 ), pp. 72-83
43.
, " The Documentary Method of Interpretation" in Theories of the Mind, edited by J. M. Schei ( New York. Free Press, 1962), pp. 689-712. Garfinkle has added some brilliant chapters to the powerful work of Schuetz.
44.
See Deutsch, Nerves, op. cit., pp. 10-11.
45.
For a more extensive analysis of "metaphorical analysis" see my paper "On the Use of Metaphor in Political Analysis", op. cit.
46.
Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961), p. 108.
47.
Riggs, Ecology , op. cit., see pp. 94-7.
48.
J.A. Robinson , Congress and Foreign Policy-Making ( Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1962 ), see ch. 6.
49.
See Landau, Metaphor , op. cit., p. 333.
50.
And see M. Landau, "Baker v. Carr and the Ghost of Federalism" in Glendon Schubert, ed., Reapportionment ( New York: Scribners, to be published Fall, 1964).
51.
D. Easton, "An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems", 9 World Politics (April, 1957), pp. 383-400. They are intended, however, as they are used in information theory.
52.
G. Almond, "Comparative Political Systems" in S. S. Uhlmer, editor, Introductory Readings in Political Behavior (Chicago: Rand McNally , 1961), pp. 147-157.
53.
And see G. Almond and J. Coleman, The Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 8.
54.
Ibid, p. 150.
55.
Nagel, op. cit, see pp. 520-535
56.
Felix Mainx, "Foundations of Biology" in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science Vol. I, Part II (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 593.
57.
And see L. Von Bertalanffy, Problems of Life (Harper Torch-book, 1960).
58.
See John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley, Knowing and the Known ( Boston. Beacon Press, 1949) esp. chs. 4 and 5.
59.
Parenthetically, a close attention to "relationship" would minimize the extent to which we reify concepts.
60.
See Nagel, op. cit. for a discussion of some of the conceptual problems involved.
61.
William C.Mitchell's effort to apply Parsons' functionalism to politics is especially interesting because of its effort to reduce the ambiguity of many of its crucial concepts. The American Polity (New York : The Free Press, 1962).
62.
A. Rapoport, "Various Meanings of Theory", The American Political Science Review Vol. 52 (1958).
63.
It is not too difficult to show e.g. how Dahl's major conclusions in Who Governs may be deduced from certain aspects of functionalism. This, however, is the subject of another paper now in progress.
64.
This is now an ambiguous term: it not only is used as synonymous with structural-functionalism but refers to computer technology, operations research, information and communication theory, biological theory and general systems theory. Underlaying this ambiguity is perhaps the fact that biological functionalism and communication-information theory possess certain structural similarities.
65.
Alfred Schutz , "The Social World and the Theory of Social Action ", Social Research Vol. 27 (1960), p. 209.
