#7 Pareto’s advice on how to study multidisciplinary social science

Let there be given any proposition—and to leave it indeterminate we shall express it by saying “A is B.” It is customary for the theorist to hold the view — whereas empiricists instinctively avoid such errors — that the effect of the proposition on a society depends solely on whether it is objectively true or false and on whether or not it is known to the bulk of the people making up that society. Hence, when we have found what we believe is the truth, our only remaining preoccupation is to propagate this doctrine. This opinion, which is extremely general, stands out fairly clearly in the writings of the French philosophes of the end of the 18th century, and in many of the writings of the so-called classical economists. It blends perfectly with the sentiments of humanity and philanthropy, and would that it were really true! But unfortunately there is perhaps no opinion in all of social science which is more at odds with the facts and clashes with them. In case upon case, men’s faith, or belief, by its very nature and independently of its objective content, impels them to act in a certain way. To the two investigations to which reference has been made, I must therefore add a third, and inquire into the effect of certain beliefs on men.Then it will be of advantage to study the ways in which these beliefs arise and spread—which two processes exist by themselves and without necessarily being linked to the objective reality of the proposition “A is B” to which these men subscribe …

Human actions reveal certain uniformities, and it is only because of this property that they can be the object of scientific inquiry. These uniformities bear still another name; they are called laws. Anyone studying a social science, anyone who makes an affirmation about the effects of such an economic, political, or social measure, implicitly acknowledges the existence of these uniformities; otherwise, his inquiry would have no object, his affirmations would be baseless. If there were no uniformities, one could not, with any degree of approximation, draw up the budget of a state or of a municipality any more than one could, say, that of an industrial company …

The study of the evolution of economic phenomena in times close to our own and in societies that do not differ vastly from ours is much more useful than the study of their origins; and this is so from two points of view. It enables us first to replace direct experimentation, which is impossible in the social sciences. When we are able to carry out experiments, we try to bring about the phenomenon under study, in various circumstances, in order to see how the latter act upon it, whether they modify it or not. But when we cannot proceed in this way, the only thing we can do is to see whether we can find in a natural state in space and time those experiments which cannot be performed artificially. Secondly, the study of the evolution of the phenomena may be useful to us in facilitating the discovery of the uniformities that are present in this evolution, and in enabling us to predict the future on the basis of the past. It is obvious that the longer the chain of deductions between the past and the future facts, the more these deductions become uncertain and doubtful; it is thus only on the basis of the very recent past that one can predict the very near future; and, unfortunately, even within these narrow limits, predictions are very difficult to make. Discussions about the “method” of political economy are a waste of time. The aim of science is to discover the uniformities in phenomena; one should, consequently, have recourse to whatever procedure, whatever method, that attains this objective. Good methods can be distinguished from bad ones only by testing them. The one that achieves our aim is good, at least so long as a better one has not been discovered …

The foundation of political economy and, in general, of every social science, is evidently psychology. A day may come when we shall be able to deduce the laws of social science from the principles of psychology, in the same way that some day, perhaps, the principles of the constitution of matter will give us, by deduction, all the laws of physics and chemistry. But we are still very far from this state of affairs, and we must adopt another approach.

Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy, edited by Aldo Montesano, Alberto Zanni, Luigino Bruni, and translated by John S. Chipman, Michael McLure, Oxford 2014 [pp. xiv-iv, 3-4, 13, 20]

The man entirely unaffected by sentiments and free from all bias, all faith, does not exist; and to regard that freedom as an essential prerequisite to profitable study of the social sciences would amount to saying that such study is impossible. But experience shows that a person can as it were divide himself in two and, to an extent at least, lay aside his sentiments, preconceptions, and beliefs when engaged in a scientific pursuit, resuming them afterwards. That was the case with Pasteur, who outside his laboratory was a devout Catholic, but inside kept strictly to the experimental method. And before Pasteur one might mention Newton, who certainly used one method in discoursing on the Apocalypse and quite another in his Principia. Such self-detachment is more readily achieved in the natural sciences than in the social sciences. It is an easy matter to look at an ant with the sceptical disinterestedness of experimental science. It is much more difficult to look at human beings that way. But even if complete success in such an effort is impossible, we can at least try to succeed in part, and reduce the power and influence of sentiments, preconceptions, beliefs, to a minimum. Only at that price can progress in the social sciences be achieved.

Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society, Volume One: Non-Logical Conduct, edited by Arthur Livingstone, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1935 [p. 142]

MGH: Vilfredo Pareto is one the most provocative and witty social scientists, an economist and philosopher, as well as a pioneering figure in sociology. He strongly believed in the feasibility of interdisciplinary social science. As an economist and political theorist he praised theoretically rational behavior (of homo economicus or of Machiavelli), but as a sociologist with an interest in the new discipline of psychology, he accepted everyday irrationality with sardonic good humor.

Apropos of yesterday’s Herbert Spencer exhibits, Pareto held Spencer in very high regard. He wrote in a letter cited by the editors of the 2014 edition of the Manual of Political Economy, “Basically he [Spencer] is the only writer who has produced a truly scientific work on sociology.”