I'm currently working through Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. The dialectic the title refers to seems to be between nature and society and potentially between myth (magic) and science (though the latter may fit into the former). While reading through their analysis of The Odyssey a few light bulbs started going off, and I definitely got a kick out of it. Namely, Horkheimer and Adorno were pointing out the compulsions of mythical beings - they are cursed to act out the powers that define them (e.g., Medusa is compelled to turn those who gaze upon her as stone. If she does not, what is she?). Then I came upon this quote:
"Mythical inevitability is defined by the equivalence between the curse, the abominable act which expiates it, and the guilt arising from the act, which reproduces the curse. All law in history up to now bears the trace of this pattern. In myth each moment of the cycle pays off the preceding moment and thereby helps to establish the continuity of guilt as law. Against this Odysseus fights. The self represents rational universality against the inevitability of fate."
Now, perhaps for some this underlying theme in myth would call up certain works, but for me it speaks directly to video games I've played. In Final Fantasy X, as Tidus and Yuna reach Zanarkand to learn the summon that will defeat Sin, they learn that the summon has long since been destroyed. One of their comrades must become the summon, but after they defeat Sin that summon will be reborn as Sin - perpetuating the cycle of mythical inevitability. (Now that I think about it, this is also a similar theme in The Matrix). In the face of this endless curse, Tidus and Yuna refuse to take part, and fight against the fate that constitutes the myth shared by so many.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
A quick Bourdieu soundbite on gender
This past semester in Feminist Criminology we very briefly talked about the differences between feminist ideology and feminist science, the difference being that feminist science utilizes feminist theory. I wasn't quite convinced and wished that we had spent a little more time on it because my inability to articulate a clear difference between the two was uncomfortable. Fortunately, I recently picked up Bourdieu's Masculine Domination, which so far I interpret as an attempt to explain the perceived permanency of patriarchy. I was drawn to the book because of the applicability of habitus and doxa to the division of the sexes, and so far I haven't been disappointed.
What I believe is that in Feminist Criminology we missed the chance to break down the antimony between feminist ideology and theory by seeking an theoretical account of the structures that in essence conceal the origins of ideology. An account of the socialization from which patriarchal ideology derives its permanency. Bourdieu says it better.
"This detour through an exotic tradition is indispensable in order to break the relationship of deceptive familiarity that binds us to our own tradition. The biological appearances and the very real effects that have been produced in bodies and minds by a long collective labour of socialization of the biological and biologicization of the social combine to reverse the relationship between causes and effects and to make a naturalized social construction ('genders' as sexually characterized habitus) appear as the grounding in nature of the arbitrary division which underlies both reality and the representation of reality and which sometimes imposes itself even on scientific research" (p. 3).
It is refreshing to begin to construct a theoretical (objectified) understanding of what previously appeared to be an eternal patriarchal order. I remember thinking as I wrote a paper on the origins of rape legislation that patriarchy began simply because men thought of taking power first! I especially like the the notion of "a long collective labour of socialization of the biological and biologicization of the social combine to reverse the relationship between causes and effects", or a naturalization of social differences in biology and socialization of biological differences through science, presumably.
What I believe is that in Feminist Criminology we missed the chance to break down the antimony between feminist ideology and theory by seeking an theoretical account of the structures that in essence conceal the origins of ideology. An account of the socialization from which patriarchal ideology derives its permanency. Bourdieu says it better.
"This detour through an exotic tradition is indispensable in order to break the relationship of deceptive familiarity that binds us to our own tradition. The biological appearances and the very real effects that have been produced in bodies and minds by a long collective labour of socialization of the biological and biologicization of the social combine to reverse the relationship between causes and effects and to make a naturalized social construction ('genders' as sexually characterized habitus) appear as the grounding in nature of the arbitrary division which underlies both reality and the representation of reality and which sometimes imposes itself even on scientific research" (p. 3).
It is refreshing to begin to construct a theoretical (objectified) understanding of what previously appeared to be an eternal patriarchal order. I remember thinking as I wrote a paper on the origins of rape legislation that patriarchy began simply because men thought of taking power first! I especially like the the notion of "a long collective labour of socialization of the biological and biologicization of the social combine to reverse the relationship between causes and effects", or a naturalization of social differences in biology and socialization of biological differences through science, presumably.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Unintended consequences
I recently finished reading John Berger's Ways of Seeing, a book recommended to me by a friend who suggested that it would "blow my mind". The book is a short, accessible combination of Horkheimer and Adorno's The Culture Industry and Bourdieu's Distinction, arguing that art plays a key role in the legitimation of social differences. There was one particular quote in the book that struck me.
Publicity (product advertising) has another important social function. The fact that those who use publicity are unaware of this use in no way diminishes its importance. Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic in society.
Publicity (product advertising) has another important social function. The fact that those who use publicity are unaware of this use in no way diminishes its importance. Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic in society.
-- John Berger, Ways of Seeing.
This quote has so much meaning packed into it, combining doxa with capitalism, domination, social reproduction, and democracy. But the italicized part is what I am concerned with. The incorporation of unintended consequences in social theory has helped me make sense of incredibly irrational way that people conduct their lives, subjecting themselves to conditions and begging for economic systems that enslave them. There is simply no support for the rational subject at the center of economic theory, and no reason to think that individuals know the costs or benefits of essentially any action that they take. Instead, the experience of social reality (regardless of an "objective" underlying reality) is masked by the manners in which we are socialized and the messages that constantly bombard us. We are unwitting agents in the reproduction of the conditions that oppress us (and those that enable us, to be fair) because we have come to internalize those values as what we desire.Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Long time coming, a lot of growth?
Should I feel obligated to write in blogs? Is it alright to just let this sit here? Well, sometimes your experiences accumulate to such an extent that I can now probably write most of a post.
It's entertaining to look at these posts I was making less than a year ago and look at how far my thinking has gone. I'm not going to call it maturity or growth, and I'm a bit less concerned about getting it "right", but there have been so many great influences. Taking Feminist Criminology and Contemporary Sociological Theory has exposed me to a lot of scholarship that has made substantial contributions to the way that I conceptualize social science, reality, consciousness, and oppression. Sociology has really helped to put my criminological education in perspective - I honestly feel that the divisions between the two are unnecessary and only hamper education.
I suppose after reading The Sociological Imagination I was skeptical as to what I would find in a sociological theory class. I expected heavy positivism and Parsonian dominance, but that's what happens when you read books that are 50 years old and treat them like they are talking about today. What I did find has really ignited some interests that were unknown/alien to me just last year.
The critique of Modernity
Two quotes:
For Marx "...modernity is seen as a monster. More limpidly perhaps than any of his contemporaries, Marx perceived how shattering the impact of modernity would be, and how irreversible. At the same time, modernity was for Marx what Habermas has aptly called an 'unfinished project.' The monster can be tamed, since what human beings have created they can always subject to their own control. Capitalism, simply, is an irrational way to run the modern world, because it substitutes the whims of the market for the controlled fulfillment of human need." - Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity
"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened Earth is radiant with triumphant calamity." - Horkhiemer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
Before setting foot in the class, I had never once thought of applying reason and science to society as a "value" that could be, or had been, otherwise. I had simply taken them for granted. While the enlightenment thinkers had displayed such exuberance in expounding those beliefs, present-day sociologists have argued that the conception and creation of a scientific society has only placed humans under, using Weber's term, an inescapable iron cage. These readings spoke to me the same way that reading Nietzsche did, kind of a "I can't believe people can say these things!" reaction. The amount of philosophy I found in sociology has been a reason that I have found it so interesting. These ideas are applied by criminologists as well, I simply had not recognized it. Whether that is my fault or the fault of my education is a moot issue.
Perceptions of reality
As I had indicated in earlier posts, I was interested in morality, and sociology has only helped. Really, my conception of "what is theory" has been expanded, from beyond positivist attributions of cause, to complete models of human reality. Very briefly, Bourdieu's concept of doxa has helped me make sense of a lot of my own questions about morality and political dispositions, and at the same time has opened many new questions.
"One of the most important effects of the correspondence between real divisions and practical principles of division, between social structures and mental structures, is undoubtedly the fact that the primary experience of the social world is that of doxa, an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self evident." - Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction
Perhaps in the past I would have read such a statement and thought, "Fuck, this isn't falsifiable". Well, I'll leave that to those who care about those sorts of things. For me now though, doxa helps to explain the manner in which normative orders against the interest of those who follow them are able to persist for so long (e.g., Tea Party Movement, minimum-wage labor, women living under Roman Catholocism, etc.). Taking another quote from Adorno, doxa helps to explain why groups inevitably "insist on the very system that enslaves them".
It's entertaining to look at these posts I was making less than a year ago and look at how far my thinking has gone. I'm not going to call it maturity or growth, and I'm a bit less concerned about getting it "right", but there have been so many great influences. Taking Feminist Criminology and Contemporary Sociological Theory has exposed me to a lot of scholarship that has made substantial contributions to the way that I conceptualize social science, reality, consciousness, and oppression. Sociology has really helped to put my criminological education in perspective - I honestly feel that the divisions between the two are unnecessary and only hamper education.
I suppose after reading The Sociological Imagination I was skeptical as to what I would find in a sociological theory class. I expected heavy positivism and Parsonian dominance, but that's what happens when you read books that are 50 years old and treat them like they are talking about today. What I did find has really ignited some interests that were unknown/alien to me just last year.
The critique of Modernity
Two quotes:
For Marx "...modernity is seen as a monster. More limpidly perhaps than any of his contemporaries, Marx perceived how shattering the impact of modernity would be, and how irreversible. At the same time, modernity was for Marx what Habermas has aptly called an 'unfinished project.' The monster can be tamed, since what human beings have created they can always subject to their own control. Capitalism, simply, is an irrational way to run the modern world, because it substitutes the whims of the market for the controlled fulfillment of human need." - Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity
"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened Earth is radiant with triumphant calamity." - Horkhiemer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
Before setting foot in the class, I had never once thought of applying reason and science to society as a "value" that could be, or had been, otherwise. I had simply taken them for granted. While the enlightenment thinkers had displayed such exuberance in expounding those beliefs, present-day sociologists have argued that the conception and creation of a scientific society has only placed humans under, using Weber's term, an inescapable iron cage. These readings spoke to me the same way that reading Nietzsche did, kind of a "I can't believe people can say these things!" reaction. The amount of philosophy I found in sociology has been a reason that I have found it so interesting. These ideas are applied by criminologists as well, I simply had not recognized it. Whether that is my fault or the fault of my education is a moot issue.
Perceptions of reality
As I had indicated in earlier posts, I was interested in morality, and sociology has only helped. Really, my conception of "what is theory" has been expanded, from beyond positivist attributions of cause, to complete models of human reality. Very briefly, Bourdieu's concept of doxa has helped me make sense of a lot of my own questions about morality and political dispositions, and at the same time has opened many new questions.
"One of the most important effects of the correspondence between real divisions and practical principles of division, between social structures and mental structures, is undoubtedly the fact that the primary experience of the social world is that of doxa, an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self evident." - Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction
Perhaps in the past I would have read such a statement and thought, "Fuck, this isn't falsifiable". Well, I'll leave that to those who care about those sorts of things. For me now though, doxa helps to explain the manner in which normative orders against the interest of those who follow them are able to persist for so long (e.g., Tea Party Movement, minimum-wage labor, women living under Roman Catholocism, etc.). Taking another quote from Adorno, doxa helps to explain why groups inevitably "insist on the very system that enslaves them".
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
In passing, what is science?
I just read this as I was doing some research for a paper:
"Ethnographic research on the structure and culture of urban communities and some subcultural theories of crime suggest that the nature of violence is shaped, at least in part, by community characteristics. Yet, beyond these suggestive accounts, this issue has not been examined systematically in empirical research." - Baumer et al., Criminology 41(1), 2003
In other words, no observation may enter into the realm of social scientific knowledge until it has been examined statistically. Some day, I would love to put together a compelling reason to disagree.
"Ethnographic research on the structure and culture of urban communities and some subcultural theories of crime suggest that the nature of violence is shaped, at least in part, by community characteristics. Yet, beyond these suggestive accounts, this issue has not been examined systematically in empirical research." - Baumer et al., Criminology 41(1), 2003
In other words, no observation may enter into the realm of social scientific knowledge until it has been examined statistically. Some day, I would love to put together a compelling reason to disagree.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Back from Australia
More than likely the best vacation I have ever been on. Australia is a fabulous country, the way of life is much, much slower than in America, which may have just been because I was staying in a farming community, but it was welcome nonetheless. The trip in general was just awesome. Bex and I traveled between Kiama and Sydney several times and hit up some locations a bit further inland to visit relatives. Sydney is just enormous, probably more than twice the size of greater Boston, but surprisingly the entire country has a population of around 22 million people, and 95% of them live on the East coast. I would love to go back at some point to check out the more arid areas of the outback.
Bex and I talked a lot about the prospect of moving out there for work once we are finished with our PhDs, and while at first I was reluctant, now I am totally on board, given that there will be opportunities, that is.
I got a metric fuck-ton of reading done while I was there. I brought Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a Marx reader, mainly to read Capital, but ended up buying several more books along the way, including A.C. Grayling's What is Good?, E.H. Carr's What is History?, and Sartre's The Age of Reason.
Just a few thoughts on those.
I loved Zarathustra, it was a great follow up to The Genealogy of Morals because while the latter was written to deconstruct "traditional" morals, Zarathustra attempted to fill the void with Nietzsche's Dionysian/individualistic morality. The lessons that I enjoyed the most were regarding self mastery. Nietzsche's conception of self mastery is mostly on an intellectual level and I feel like that is somewhat doable for me, as opposed to a physical self mastery, which I usually lack to discipline to keep up with. I also really enjoyed Nietzsche's courage to critique any idea, no matter how widely held or regarded. In the late 1800s (and today for that matter), arguing against utilitarianism must have appeared very daunting. Today, while I can appreciate the veracity of Nietzsche's conviction on utilitaranism, I imagine it would be very difficult, in a practical sense, to avoid using the philosophy of maximizing the pleasure of most while minimizing pain.
Relatedly, I enjoyed Grayling's What is Good?, mainly for approaching the issue as a question to be explored, rather than a definative, unalterable list of "thou shalts". In the end, the book felt a little shallow, mostly for the obvious vehemence that Grayling feels towards morality and ethics based on otherworldly beings, but I suppose I should have known what I was going to get from a good friend of Dawkins.
Reading Capital was pretty difficult, and I'm sure many of the harder parts were left out of the reader. What I enjoyed most about the book was Marx's method, what he considered to be social science. Concerning a subject, in this case capitalism, Marx starts at the beginning. Not chronologically, but with the simplest fundamental pieces of capital. He begins with a general statement on a definition of capitalism and then moves from concept to concept and their interrelations until he is discussing capital in it's entirety (he begins with 'what is a commodity?' and moves to 'what is value?').
Marx's analysis today, if it were produced to be part of the modern social science industry, would probably be considered "a conceptual piece", and thus "not real science" meaning that it would not be considered to present "scientific knowledge" until Marx's methodology was scrutinized and his assertions became subject to large-scale statistical analysis using a presumably representive dataset. Not being an economist, I am unfamiliar with the extent to which this has been done in modern econometrics, so maybe I am speaking out of ignorance and pessimism.
An important lesson I pulled from Capital (and The Genealogy of Morals, once I recognized the lesson) was the sheer importance of a historical outlook in social science. Marx rightly criticized capitalistic economists for analyzing capitalism ahistorically. This meant that they considered modern features of capitalism to either be eternal, in that they actually have been in place for all of human history, or eternal in the sense that capitalism was seen as a very real "thing", an idea which was destined to be put into power, people just needed to "discover" it (what Mills would call a 'Concept' with a capital 'C').
Thinking about this (and lack of other books) led me to get What is History? and I enjoyed it as much as I did The Sociological Imagination. The two books really mirror each other, but do not cite one another as they were both written around the same time. The important ideas I pulled from Carr's book regarded relativism and objectivity in the social sciences. I'll write a bit on those later, it's breakfast time.
Bex and I talked a lot about the prospect of moving out there for work once we are finished with our PhDs, and while at first I was reluctant, now I am totally on board, given that there will be opportunities, that is.
I got a metric fuck-ton of reading done while I was there. I brought Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a Marx reader, mainly to read Capital, but ended up buying several more books along the way, including A.C. Grayling's What is Good?, E.H. Carr's What is History?, and Sartre's The Age of Reason.
Just a few thoughts on those.
I loved Zarathustra, it was a great follow up to The Genealogy of Morals because while the latter was written to deconstruct "traditional" morals, Zarathustra attempted to fill the void with Nietzsche's Dionysian/individualistic morality. The lessons that I enjoyed the most were regarding self mastery. Nietzsche's conception of self mastery is mostly on an intellectual level and I feel like that is somewhat doable for me, as opposed to a physical self mastery, which I usually lack to discipline to keep up with. I also really enjoyed Nietzsche's courage to critique any idea, no matter how widely held or regarded. In the late 1800s (and today for that matter), arguing against utilitarianism must have appeared very daunting. Today, while I can appreciate the veracity of Nietzsche's conviction on utilitaranism, I imagine it would be very difficult, in a practical sense, to avoid using the philosophy of maximizing the pleasure of most while minimizing pain.
Relatedly, I enjoyed Grayling's What is Good?, mainly for approaching the issue as a question to be explored, rather than a definative, unalterable list of "thou shalts". In the end, the book felt a little shallow, mostly for the obvious vehemence that Grayling feels towards morality and ethics based on otherworldly beings, but I suppose I should have known what I was going to get from a good friend of Dawkins.
Reading Capital was pretty difficult, and I'm sure many of the harder parts were left out of the reader. What I enjoyed most about the book was Marx's method, what he considered to be social science. Concerning a subject, in this case capitalism, Marx starts at the beginning. Not chronologically, but with the simplest fundamental pieces of capital. He begins with a general statement on a definition of capitalism and then moves from concept to concept and their interrelations until he is discussing capital in it's entirety (he begins with 'what is a commodity?' and moves to 'what is value?').
Marx's analysis today, if it were produced to be part of the modern social science industry, would probably be considered "a conceptual piece", and thus "not real science" meaning that it would not be considered to present "scientific knowledge" until Marx's methodology was scrutinized and his assertions became subject to large-scale statistical analysis using a presumably representive dataset. Not being an economist, I am unfamiliar with the extent to which this has been done in modern econometrics, so maybe I am speaking out of ignorance and pessimism.
An important lesson I pulled from Capital (and The Genealogy of Morals, once I recognized the lesson) was the sheer importance of a historical outlook in social science. Marx rightly criticized capitalistic economists for analyzing capitalism ahistorically. This meant that they considered modern features of capitalism to either be eternal, in that they actually have been in place for all of human history, or eternal in the sense that capitalism was seen as a very real "thing", an idea which was destined to be put into power, people just needed to "discover" it (what Mills would call a 'Concept' with a capital 'C').
Thinking about this (and lack of other books) led me to get What is History? and I enjoyed it as much as I did The Sociological Imagination. The two books really mirror each other, but do not cite one another as they were both written around the same time. The important ideas I pulled from Carr's book regarded relativism and objectivity in the social sciences. I'll write a bit on those later, it's breakfast time.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Time to catch up
It's not that I haven't been finding things to write about, but I have been busy finalizing two publications, playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion obsessively, and getting ready to depart for Australia.
I finished Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals and was very happy with my introduction to his writing. Nietzsche presented some interesting perspectives on atheism which I had no been exposed to through more recent works. A very interesting take came from Nietzsche's thoughts on a possible origin of God. He posited that ancient peoples may have seen themselves as being in debt to their ancestors (ironically this seems rather Darwinian) in that they survived, established societies, and other amenities that modern people enjoy. To that extent, the debt that a people owe to their ancestors may take the form of rules (i.e., I ought to act in such a way, i owe it to my ancestors). After some time, the debt one owes to their ancestors becomes seen as unpayable, the ancestor becoming so powerful they are deified.
Nietzsche goes on to say that with Christianity, the debt people felt they owed to God became so great that the creators of the religion saw that the only one capable of paying the debt was God himself. So he pays himself with a pound of his own flesh.
What Nietzsche does not go on to say is that this act really did not pay off any of the debt that humans owed to God, instead, it made it greater than ever. Like the government bailing out the auto industry, God was then in complete ownership of the actions of mankind. Given the sacrifice* that he had made for humans, they would now have to pay an immense fine for refusing to follow his commands. This is the point (the New Testament) when the concept of hell is introduced.
*As Christopher Hitchens points out, the idea of the crucifixion as being a sacrifice for which I owe God an immense amount is simply ridiculous. The Bible, if it is to be believed, is clear in that Jesus comes back from the dead. Jesus - being the son of God, and presumably sharing some of his powers (i.e., omniscience) - probably knew that he would return to life following his execution. Furthermore, Jesus knew that I would later be an atheist and reject his sacrafice, whether he did it or not. To that extent, I owe him nothing.
Anyways, I enjoyed the book so much that I bought Thus Spoke Zarathustra and will be reading that along with a chuck of Marx's Capital while I am abroad.
For other recent reading, I am almost done with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Though Kuhn writes mostly about natural science, I am trying to relate what I am reading to social science, specifically criminal justice and criminology. So far, I am not sure that I have found much of use (I am probably missing a ton, I'm still new at this philosophy stuff), mostly because criminal justice is probably in a pre-paradigm stage. I wonder, however, if there could ever be a successful paradigm for studies of human behavior. I wonder if the scope of "laws" of behavior would have to be reduced to capture at least a central tendency.
I finished Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals and was very happy with my introduction to his writing. Nietzsche presented some interesting perspectives on atheism which I had no been exposed to through more recent works. A very interesting take came from Nietzsche's thoughts on a possible origin of God. He posited that ancient peoples may have seen themselves as being in debt to their ancestors (ironically this seems rather Darwinian) in that they survived, established societies, and other amenities that modern people enjoy. To that extent, the debt that a people owe to their ancestors may take the form of rules (i.e., I ought to act in such a way, i owe it to my ancestors). After some time, the debt one owes to their ancestors becomes seen as unpayable, the ancestor becoming so powerful they are deified.
Nietzsche goes on to say that with Christianity, the debt people felt they owed to God became so great that the creators of the religion saw that the only one capable of paying the debt was God himself. So he pays himself with a pound of his own flesh.
What Nietzsche does not go on to say is that this act really did not pay off any of the debt that humans owed to God, instead, it made it greater than ever. Like the government bailing out the auto industry, God was then in complete ownership of the actions of mankind. Given the sacrifice* that he had made for humans, they would now have to pay an immense fine for refusing to follow his commands. This is the point (the New Testament) when the concept of hell is introduced.
*As Christopher Hitchens points out, the idea of the crucifixion as being a sacrifice for which I owe God an immense amount is simply ridiculous. The Bible, if it is to be believed, is clear in that Jesus comes back from the dead. Jesus - being the son of God, and presumably sharing some of his powers (i.e., omniscience) - probably knew that he would return to life following his execution. Furthermore, Jesus knew that I would later be an atheist and reject his sacrafice, whether he did it or not. To that extent, I owe him nothing.
Anyways, I enjoyed the book so much that I bought Thus Spoke Zarathustra and will be reading that along with a chuck of Marx's Capital while I am abroad.
For other recent reading, I am almost done with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Though Kuhn writes mostly about natural science, I am trying to relate what I am reading to social science, specifically criminal justice and criminology. So far, I am not sure that I have found much of use (I am probably missing a ton, I'm still new at this philosophy stuff), mostly because criminal justice is probably in a pre-paradigm stage. I wonder, however, if there could ever be a successful paradigm for studies of human behavior. I wonder if the scope of "laws" of behavior would have to be reduced to capture at least a central tendency.
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