After Method there is only Hyper-Chaos: limitations of John Law’s Theory of a Social Science Method

The article focuses on the problem of contingency in John Law's theory of sociological method and its theoretical implications for social theory. The theory proposes to use as a legitimate source of sociological knowledge any sensory or cognitive experience of a researcher-bodily sensations, emotions, etc.-along with classical sociological methods. Such a methodology follows from Law's metaphysical premises that classical methods do not grasp the "fluid” and changeable realities of the social world, capturing only a part of them. According to Law, in order to know the "fluid” realities, a flexible method is needed that is not regulated by normative means; that is, a method that does not reject some forms of data obtained in others as illegitimate and "unscientific.” The elimination of the norms of the scientific method doubles the problem of contingency - now not only knowledge becomes contingent to the world, but also the way to obtain it becomes contingent on the situation of research, since in each specific situation different methods will be relevant. The problem with such a theoretical move is that it roots knowledge in subjectivity, making the former dependent on the latter. This means the impossibility of a general science of the social guaranteeing the legitimacy of the data as relevant and scientific. To resolve this contradiction, the author of the article refers to the ideas of Quentin Meillassoux on the absolutization of contingency, arguing that only the mathematization of knowledge can ensure the irreducibility of knowledge to subjectivity. This means that the only logical way to resolve the contradiction of Law's theory is to get normativity back into a rigid mathematical form. Such a move raises the question of the possibility and attempts to mathematize sociological theory, and not just its methods. This issue is discussed briefly at the end of the article.

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