Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Foresight
There is a long-lasting and controversial discourse on the role of quantitative and qualitative data and methods in science, at least since the “Newtonian turn” in physics in the seventeenth century. After this successful step in the mathematical formaliz
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Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Foresight Matthias K.B. Lüdeke
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Introduction
There is a long-lasting and controversial discourse on the role of quantitative and qualitative data and methods in science, at least since the “Newtonian turn” in physics in the seventeenth century. After this successful step in the mathematical formalization of a large branch of physics, nowadays called “classical mechanics”, it was used as a kind of paradigmatic case by many theorists of science. Thereby, standards for scientific processes and theory structures were imposed on realms of science dealing with dramatically different subjects and having different purposes than classical mechanics. This was controversially discussed within the debate on positivism, but it still has a strong influence on our understanding of science. Why is this relevant for the discussion of quantitative and qualitative concepts in foresight? Firstly, this paradigmatic case deals with the motion of objects in space (planets, cannonballs, cars), that is, it deals explicitly with the time dimension. Therefore, a new kind of mathematics was developed by Newton and Leibniz: the differential calculus. The general laws of motion could then be formulated as a set of differential equations which calculate the (observed or future) time courses of the object’s location from given initial (and boundary) conditions. These laws of motion described a number of observations and experiments so well that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a mechanistic world view was formulated, assuming that, once set in motion, the universe would work like clockwork, following eternally the
M.K.B. Lüdeke (*) Department for Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P.O. Box 60 12 03, Potsdam, D-14412, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. Giaoutzi and B. Sapio (eds.), Recent Developments in Foresight Methodologies, Complex Networks and Dynamic Systems 1, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-5215-7_4, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
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Newtonian laws of motion (theological complications could be resolved1). Although this extreme view was revised for several reasons,2 the relation between the explanation of phenomena and their prediction is still a vital point for the controversial understandings of foresight. Secondly, the cited paradigmatic case is a fully quantitative theory where each basic concept (like “length”) is operationalized by a measurement procedure (“compare with the ‘mètre des archives’ in Paris”) which assigns the respective variable (“s”) a real number (“5.51 m”). This constitutes a clear-cut relation between the quantitative theory and its real-world subject and makes a variable-oriented approach to scientific explanation and prediction very appealing. Thirdly, the Newtonian laws of motion are valid for a huge number of different experimental and observed situations (all macroscopic mechanical phenomena with relative velocities significantly less than the speed of light).
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