A dangerous imbalance

Dynamic innovation in the natural sciences and stagnation in the social sciences

The enormous technological innovations of our time (AI, digitization, miniaturization, biochemistry, space technology, and much more) are based on advancing scientific theory formation; for only in the knowledge-oriented race of generalizable systems of ideas (theories) and research could all these innovations have arisen—an insight that can be associated with the philosopher of science Karl Popper, who wrote in his "The Logic of Scientific Discovery": The empirical sciences are systems of theories. One could call the logic of knowledge the theory of theories (Popper 1969: 31).

Consequently, science, unlike the late medieval scholasticism of Meister Eckhart (Harrington 2018), must proceed logically and empirically verifiably. Statements can be empirically tested all the more effectively the more universally valid and precisely formulated they are, that is, the higher their empirical content (Popper 1969: 86). Therefore, science strives to develop theories that are as substantial as possible (and thus as easily verifiable as possible).

Furthermore, open theory formation stands for effective academic freedom.

In the social sciences, especially political science, theory building plays only a minor role today; rather, the prevailing idea is that science should directly serve practice – in accordance with Karl Marx's eleventh thesis on Feuerbach: The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it (Marx 1845).

This prevents the development and unfolding of what truly defines science: free, knowledge-oriented theory formation. Instead, those who control research budgets—political parties, networks, and bureaucracy—dominate; a dynamic of social scientific knowledge acquisition fails to materialize.

This leads to a dangerous imbalance: While the natural and technical sciences have been developing at a breakneck pace for centuries, changing the world ever more rapidly and profoundly, the political and social sciences stagnate, incapable and unwilling to engage in any dynamic of knowledge development. As a result, technological frameworks are changing ever more rapidly and comprehensively, while socio-political self-understanding stagnates, even regresses, and ultimately destroys itself.

In this situation, social science theory is of paramount, indeed existential, importance. It was with this in mind that the Civility Theory was developed, and it is with this in mind that Civility gUG addresses itself to academia, providers of political education, and policymakers.