Peter Emmerson

  3.2 More solid resistance to idealism? – the case of the orthodox applied sciences.

Anti-idealism has been slow to develop in sociology as the recent flirtation with postmodernism suggests. However, another area of formal resistance to ideals such as uncertainty involves applied sciences such as engineering and medicine. There is nothing exact about measurement; it is all about estimation – the steel girder is 5 metres long, plus or minus 1 millimetre, the drug has only a small chance of harming you if it has been tested using randomized trials, even though catastrophe such as death can still occur. The sciences that deal in measurement are very reality-oriented and specify their findings in terms of probabilities not proofs, in stark contrast with the much less reality-congruent pure sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology; the word ‘pure’ by its very nature is redolent of idealism. Why is it that applied sciences are seen as the poor relations of natural science? I believe it is their lack of idealism that explains this. They have lesser status because they are not truth-finders, they are merely the artisans who deal in day to day problems explained in terms of probabilities, whereas the physicists deal in ‘cool’, they are the dominant figuration of scientists who are the custodians of the faith because they control the thing of ultimate value as the apostles of the mathesis, the absolute truth. If people were asked to explain the workings of the universe, I would suggest that two types of answer would dominate: 1) supernatural accounts such as God 2) models developed by physicists such as Newton, Einstein even Heisenberg, although the biological Darwinian model is now a close rival.

Leaving the supernatural aside, although it must be said that in all the above there is an element of mysticism as Comte suggested, the high status accorded to physicists is I believe, constituted on the basis of their expertise and love affair with idealism in the form of pure mathematics and to a lesser extent, philosophical logic: see the work of Karl Popper. Even though this elite figuration of mathematical truth-finders has run into a red light signalled by the inability of Einstein’s model to explain the world of sub-atomic particles, physicists and theoretical scientists still insist on a mathematical discourse that speaks in terms of ideals. So, rather than ponder the possibility that the boundary between the macro-universe (stars and planets) and the micro-universe (sub-atomic particles such as baryons and quarks) is actually a problem of idealistic method, Heisenberg ingeniously revamped the old method by invoking the ‘Uncertainty Principle’ and a new mathematics. Thus in true idealistic form we have a dichotomy: we are certain about the big part of the universe and uncertain about the little bits. Instead of looking for a more reality congruent, radical model, lead by the facts, we continue re-branding the old idealism. It may well be that in reaching the limit of certainty and crossing over to the mathematics of uncertainty, we have been brought face to face with relative uncertainty because neither ends of the dichotomy are feasible – Einstein nor Heisenberg. However, to investigate the ‘Relative Uncertainty Principle’ may require the total exhaustion of the old way, (M-theory gives the impression of something akin to this happening) before a more reality congruent model can be developed.

The use of the word ‘Relative’ is very important because it distances us from the idealism of the ‘certainty-uncertainty’ dichotomy, suggesting a continuum comprised of degrees of certainty/uncertainty with no definitive limit to either. Based on my experience I would suggest that like the rest of our knowledge of the universe, the world of tiny events is not ‘Uncertain’ as per Heisenberg; it is ‘relatively uncertain’. Only mathematicians, other than God or philosophical logicians, can provide the ideals of certainty or uncertainty, to act as guides in our search for knowledge. However, the mistake is to assume that they are knowledge in themselves, when in fact they are an aid for comparison, a useful means of modelling or approximating the world. Consequently, we spend large amounts of time considering ideals and issues of certainty and uncertainty and too little on the practical problems that employ the real nuggets of knowledge provided by applied science that embrace relative uncertainty by allowing us to calculate probabilities. This may be explained by the preference of established business-oriented figurations and their allies for truth over relative certainty.

However, high reality-orientation does not immunise applied scientists from idealising infections that can paralyse their models, any more than Soviet style communist governors could eradicate religion. Social science, and more pertinently for this discussion – sociology, is I would argue, a case in point and offers further insight on the way idealism can subvert scientific goals. I think it can be argued that the development of sociology has been hampered by figurations within its ranks idealistically committed to the politics of inequality: sociology has been colonised by people whose main purpose has been to use it as a base in the battle for authority in areas such as class, sex and race. Accordingly, sociological perspectives have too often been motivated by sheer moral outrage, rather than the relative detachment necessary for scientific analysis of social problems. This is not to say that class etc. should not be researched; it is the goal of that research which is at issue. If by investigating scientifically social problems sociologists produce findings that explain relative inequality then fine. If however, research is motivated by a wish to establish the ideal of equality, it is not scientific and therefore not sociology. Such a programme motivated by the need for authority that idealism can provide will suffer from too large a dose of what theometaphysicians call subjectivity, or, what I would prefer to call, after Elias, ‘relative involvement’.

Too much research done under the auspices of sociology, especially in the field of theory, has I would argue, been carried out by people from figurations dedicated to ideals such as equality, who should have proffered their ideas as philosophy, politics (as opposed to political science), cultural theory, literary criticism or journalism. The involvement of such people, often highly influential, disrupts not only the scientific character of the discipline, but also clouds the vision of those who practice it. Perhaps the most prominent example was the importation of Marx’s philosophy into sociology, with its blend Hegelian idealism and underdeveloped science: Marxism is arguably a piece of humanitarian conviction politics, that speaks of absolute truths rather than probabilities. As opposed to benefiting from Marx’s insights by refining the scientific aspects of his model, especially his attack on idealism, too many sociologists have been preoccupied with pursuing, re-analysing and justifying his metaphysics – why is this? Because like Marx they want the authority to change the world rather than understand it in a more realistic way; their agenda is political, it is about the fight for influence to attain personal ideals, not science. Such a process is evidence of the still pervasive influence of philosophy through conceptual habits that allow us to pursue ideals disguised as science, even in a world of greater uncertainty. Thus, it is easy to exclude sociology from science and call it a branch of the humanities, subservient to the philosophers.

The problem is in part a function of the special place that sociologists inhabit in the community of scientists, because in order to establish their right to exist as bona fide members of the figuration they had a bigger fight on their hands with the traditional figurations of truth-finders: the theologians and philosophers. One of the pioneers in this process, Auguste Comte, felt the full force of their stigmatizing influence, which is ongoing, as a reading of Michel Foucault testifies who has contributed to the vilification of Comte’s concept of positivism. It was not so easy for theologians and philosophers to assimilate sociologists into their ranks as they had the physicists, because sociologists were immediately identifiable as rivals, competing for dominance in the same field of expertise – human moral knowledge. The threat posed by earlier natural scientific figurations to the old orders of truth-finders was met with fierce resistance, as the likes of Copernicus and Galileo found out. However, as we now know the development of scientific figurations could not be stopped, even by the still formidable Roman Catholic Church, as the more reality-focused business-oriented figurations became more influential. The natural philosophers (early scientists) were I would suggest ameliorated, a job made easier because the natural philosophers were claiming expertise over the relatively uncolonised ground of the material universe, Genesis apart. Nevertheless, their activities were closely chaperoned by the ancient truth-finders, to produce a new amalgam of knowledge that mixed together theology, philosophy, mathematics and science – deism. In contrast, sociologists were a threat of a more serious order on account of the fact that they were disputing ownership of the same area of knowledge. Just as later scientists such as the figuration headed by Darwin have attracted so much fierce resistance, sociologists have been subjected to very aggressive attempts to undermine and discredit their approach.

It was arguably not until the 19^th century that the threat from natural scientists became truly manifest, with the emergence of a historicized scientific account of life forms in the shape of the Darwinian model. The arrival of the de-theologized theory of natural selection, has attracted very intense anti-scientific resistance from the start, which arguably continues to provoke unrest as the attempt to reassert the various theological orthodoxies by contemporary groups of religious fundamentalists testifies. The emergence of sociology was a pre-cursor to these hostilities, as a historicized science intruding onto the hallowed ground of human morals. The birth of anything is fraught with problems, made only worse if the new arrival is perceived to be a direct threat to the established: the reaction in ancient Egypt to the arrival of Moses springs to light as a mythical example. For the traditional guardians of moral knowledge, a sociological explanation undermined everything they had laboured for millennia to produce, by suggesting that knowledge was something that changed with time. Such a conclusion is anathema to the truth-finders whose raison d’être is defined by the search for stability; a programme by its very nature, resistant to a historicizing approach to knowledge. Consequently, the raw material that sociologists had to develop, inherited from the truth-finders, was almost starved of any historical content having been thoroughly scourged of such corrupt material by theologians and philosophers committed to ideals. Not only was the raw material of sociology in need of a thorough transposition, it was relatively easy to re-colonize by 20^th century idealists, waiting for the first major hiccup in sociology’s theoretical development when both Parsonianism and Marxism were found wanting as what Thomas Kuhn called a ‘paradigms’.

3 The Applied Sciences: anti-idealism.

3.1 A possible anti-idealist response to understanding contemporary authoritarianism through the use of figurations.

In tackling this question I want to draw attention to the difficulties experienced by anti-idealistic forces such as applied sciences. One possibility is to explore the re-emergence of authoritarianism in late 20^th century Britain from a social scientific point of view using the concept of figuration. This might at first glance seem a strange venture, as sociology is not usually associated with the more usual candidates for membership of the applied sciences such as computing, engineering or forensics. However, from my point of view the social sciences are about the application of a scientific approach to people and therefore qualify as applied sciences. In addition and more pertinently as regards this essay, the main factor that defines membership of the applied sciences is the existence of a high level of what Elias termed ‘reality congruence’ (a close correspondence with the facts), higher even than theoretical physics. My argument is that high reality congruence is negatively correlated with idealism: the nearer you commune with the facts the less opportunity there is for idealism. In this sense we cannot be non-idealistic for there are no definitive ends to a continuum: we are always influenced by our values, thus there are just degrees of realism/idealism. Because of its close proximity to the facts applied science is I believe, anti-idealistic.

I want to return to certain features of the re-emergence of authoritarianism in British politics since the late 1970s. A figurational analysis could examine the network of interdependencies between what on the surface appear to be groups in conflict such as the Conservative and Labour Parties. What has always intrigued me was to hear Tony Blair and Gordon Brown speak of their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, someone who did serious damage to the Labour Party and its allies. Foucault for example might have cited this as evidence of the dominance of a new authoritarian discourse that emerged in the late 1970s and which has patterned political thinking of all varieties ever since. If this were the case, it would be extremely difficult for those who were resistant to its arguments to do anything other than conform, or at best post their disagreement in a manner that is consistent with its rules of engagement: which is arguably why Foucault got involved in taking action at a local rather than national level, where discursive forces were less well organised to resist.

As with other structuralist types of analysis, this style of argument under-represents the people to whom it supposedly relates, in favour of the discursive systems they use, thereby turning a blind eye to the web of interrelationships that bound Thatcher, Blair and Brown together as a political figuration, where certain styles of thinking, speaking and acting became acceptable. None of this trio operated alone or with personal freedom; their thinking and behaviour was moderated by those around them. In other words giving a style of government the title of a person such as Thatcherism is misleading because it ignores the complexities of the web of social connections and influences that bind people to each other, in a similar style of authoritarian government, even though they are enemies. Nonetheless, such structural processes, be it social or discursive, should not dominate the analysis to the detriment of the people involved. Whilst Margaret Thatcher did not drive her perspective through single-handedly, as the politics of individualism would suggest, she was part of a figuration of people with significant amounts of influence who marshalled their allies to bring about change, moving the British economy back towards a market model and reducing the activities of certain parts of government. A figurational approach favours neither structural nor individualistic perspectives by exploring the processes of social influence that bind people together.

Politics is a rich ground for idealism and therefore often dominated by flights of fancy rather than factual understandings. In the recent British election of 2010, there was one loud and constant call, that seemed to unite the parties of whichever persuasion; that Britain needed ‘strong and stable government’ as though this alone would guarantee our future well being. I never heard anyone saying we want competent people to govern, of any variety. The suggestion is that stable, strong government which results from an overall majority in parliament is a precursor to success. This is a view that I believe does not stand the test of the material facts. Both Thatcher and Blair had landslide majorities and neither made Britain ‘Great’ again. No! – at the last election the old ideals of strong and stable government were peddled out once more, the ideals that would help one or other figuration to establish an authoritarian government where they could implement their preferred plan with minimum resistance, thoroughly mixed with ideals to disguise their incompetence and abuse of social influence. Such talk of stability is an ingredient in an orthodox meal of ideals that goes back to ancient Greece and probably further, useful to justify authoritarian approaches in established figurations, served up by the theometaphysical truth-finders. This is not driven by discursive rules, it is driven by figurations of people competing for influence: the ideals are the technology of influence use by people in figurations with similar ambitions of control. Nevertheless, in places where democratising and civilising processes are well developed, such that there exist large numbers of figurations of people with high levels of self-control, there is enough relative detachment around in those with significant social influence to make it more difficult to quietly exterminate those who resist like Thomas More. Even so, this does not guarantee the development of a surge in interest in more reality congruent applied sciences as idealism is still highly valued.

 2.3.3 The king’s new clothes – 20^th century idealism dressed as history – Michel Foucault.

My initial reaction to the previous sentence was to write ‘Idealism has reasserted itself’. The fact that I wanted to make such a statement is an example of our tendency towards idealism, as if it has a force in itself. It is as if ideas and discourses drive us rather than our emotions. Thus idealism plays a role like some sort of immanent spectre influencing life’s activities. The truth-finders still have enormous sway even though many contemporary philosophers have abandoned any attempt at establishing the truth, by disguising themselves as anti-authoritarian radicals, as if by being anti the established, they somehow qualify as agents of the move away from absolutist styles of oppression. It is however I would suggest, just a different brand of oppression because its roots are firmly linked to idealism, a prime example being the very influential French philosopher Michel Foucault.

Foucault put together his archaeological approach to history as an alternative to the normal type of history that exhaustively examines the documents people leave behind in order to construct a once for all, correct interpretation of past events. Such an enterprise was impossible, believed Foucault, and so he put together what on the surface seemed a more realistic, empirical approach that treated the writings of the past as if they were merely objects; the debris left behind by people about whom we can know very little. His programme was heavily influenced by structuralist arguments that gave priority to systems such as language. From this point of view human thinking and activity is conditioned by biological, logical and linguistic patterns: Lévi-Strauss’s use of binary systems and Noam Chomsky’s conclusions on the deep structure of language are two influential examples. Thus the author is rather like the record or cd player in a hi-fi system, simply relaying the different pre-recorded messages according to a pre-determined format. This structuralist style of analysis that Foucault adapted demotes human creativity to the level of conformity and writes people out of their own history; more realistic? – how absurd.

This is how philosophers operate, even philosophers of the 20^th century. They construct models to suit ideal processes taking too little heed of factual evidence. What is important to them is the model and its purity; the facts are made to fit the ideal-type, comparatively unmoderated by reality. Foucault revised his earlier fundamentalist enterprise reinvigorating history to a degree with people, but only as far as Nietzsche’s arguments would allow. The post-structuralist method that emerged saw knowledge as a piece of technology that was used by powerful groups to dominate others. However, Foucault was still, even after his conversion, very reticent to identify the actual people that wield intellectual and discursive power. We hear about the outcomes, the discourses such as La Mettrie’s Man Machine and Bentham’s panoptical model for creating order, but never really go behind such accounts to analyse the variables that are involved in the human practice of power or what I prefer to call social influence. It is all very nebulous and cloudy, merely suggestive of human activity and nothing more; he never fully locates people in their own lives.

As far as I can see this is because he was an idealist and therefore capable of being certain/uncertain! – absolutely convinced that the problem of meaning is insurmountable, and that, as a result, there cannot be any possibility of absolute truths in history. This is the logical absurdity of Foucault’s position because in his certainty that there are no truths he has discovered one – no meaning. For an idealist there is therefore only one possible alternative – the absolute uncertainty of ‘relativism’. Relativism, not to be confused with relative, is the idealist answer to the conclusion – ‘there is no absolute truth’. If the latter is accepted then all we are left with is opinion, multitudes of truths dependent on the numbers of people who can enunciate views, because there is no method of judging what is right or wrong in what they say. These are the stark, dichotomous alternatives that denote a non-realistic analysis: absolute truth or relativism. It’s a pity Foucault did not learn this other lesson from Nietzsche, that the gap between dichotomies such as ‘good and evil’ is not empty. Whilst Nietzsche’s analysis is itself idealist, it does point to the real experience of dichotomies such as right and wrong as being too simplistic. In the real world of ‘relative uncertainty’, there are always other ways of looking at things, other perspectives – it is never this or that.

On the surface Foucault’s analysis seems quite a plausible, integrating philosophy with elements of history, psychology, literary theory, economics etc. It would appear from this that in accepting the impossibility of finding the definitive meaning of historical documents he has gone beyond his philosophical forebears and their obsession with absolute truth to a more liberal, less dogmatic position. He has drawn our attention to a range of discursive objects (texts) that testify to the ways in which knowledge is defined in the battle for power and dominance. He has unmasked the Enlightenment fraud that science is liberating and beneficial. He has revealed uncertainty everywhere. Yet he does this by removing the people, by washing over their relatively autonomous existences and the meanings they gave to their lives, with a set of axioms built on an ideal that the meaning of what people in the past say to us cannot be understood. There is no attempt to compromise by suggesting that we can understand others sufficiently to do science for example. If we can’t understand all, then we understand nothing.

In ditching collective meaning Foucault abandons people. Meaning is a shared thing, like language it does not exist without figurations of people and cannot be ignored just because the model doesn’t cope. In abandoning any attempt to research collective meaning, Foucault makes the assumption that all meaning is individual as per Nietzsche, and that life is a battle to impose your meaning on others. This is essentially an intellectual exercise, the application of a truth-model to history that makes no sense in the reality focussed world of science. There is in Foucault little attempt to check the facts and modify the model accordingly – this is another idealistic enterprise that frees off the writer from the bonds of social accountability giving them maximum autonomy to exhaust their prejudices, disguised as skilled philosophical argument. As such it legitimates individual self-indulgence, excuses the shirking of responsibility and absolves people from personal guilt – it is postmodernism, ‘Je ne regrette rien’. Another form of authority based in idealism.

What we find therefore by the end of the 20^th century is a recognition that uncertainty abounds coupled with a deep suspicion of certain types of authoritarian governance yet a continuing and profound belief in idealistic ways of seeing. So what is it that explains the still pervasive appeal of ideals such as uncertainty?

2.3.2 Fluctuations in the balance of influence, uncertainty and authoritarianism: idealism is still alive and well in 20^th century.

Even though there has been a formal discussion of the ideal of uncertainty for quite some time is has made little headway. Thus, even where authoritarian figurations are more constrained and quiet, and a diversity of discourses develops, the growth in influence of uncertainty, never mind relative uncertainty, has been slow. There is a direct analogy here with Darwin’s ideas on species formation. In extreme climates only very specialised, limited varieties of life forms can flourish. Where absolute rulers are in place, authoritarian governance is more likely and any form of resistance is more easily driven out. Uncertainty as a mode of perception may be anathema to absolute rulers, who thrive by their very nature as guardians of the absolute truth, exterminating if necessary those who resist or threaten the position of the figuration which they lead. Where the tools of social repression such as violence, available to governing figurations have to be controlled, models of uncertainty are more likely to flourish and prevail as they have done since the 17^th century in western Europe and related cultures.

However, the conditions for less authoritarian styles of governance are contingent and therefore reversible. The voices of highly influential absolutist figurations are only muted by such developments until the balance of social influence moves back in their favour, when the truth-finders can be re-engaged to provide the ideological underpinning for a renewed bout of authoritarianism: the example of British governance since 1979 is a case in point. The democratising changes in the balance of social influence in favour of organized labour that contributed to the Labour landslide election victory and the formation of the welfare state after WW2, were accompanied by a growth in the level of uncertainty that for many became too much to bear; even those it had favoured. Thus, the Thatcher government was elected to reinstate order, a euphemism for certainty, with the tacit agreement of a large number of people in the UK who were culturally opposed to its market economic ethos. Of course, relative uncertainty has not gone away; it is just less visible curtained by conviction politics, backed by what Althusser termed the ‘repressive state apparatus’, and luck: it is arguable that the successful campaign to re-take the Falklands saved the Thatcher government, even though so many people perished in the process. Governing figurations can reassert authority by making idealistic promises that the future is in their control. Nonetheless, such promises are found wanting as the complexity of relatively uncertain variables such as those pertaining to human social networks defeat their over-blown statements: the credit crunch is the most notable recent example; the latest of a long list.

  2.3.1 Case Study: the law as an important instance of the emergence of relative uncertainty.

As democratising processes have emerged and extended, gradually displacing authoritarian practices associated with absolute rule, there has been a concomitant growth in opportunity for personal autonomy, often called individualism, as more and more people recognise the tactical benefits of self-control as a useful technique for living with business-oriented figurations. Elias shows how the interrelated decline in the level of violence is correlated with the formation of nation states where the more centralized governance involved is reliant on increasing levels of taxation, which in turn gives more and more influence and responsibility to those figurations employed in the burgeoning bureaucratic processes. However, legal functions are well worth a specific mention.

The proliferation of the influence of lawyers is impressive. The specification of guilt and punishment is clearly very important in the less authoritarian process of management by consent, albeit backed by the potential for violent suppression where required. The law, unlike many bureaucratic processes, has to be seen to work otherwise people will not accept its legitimacy. To achieve this it operates on what is basically a scientific programme of research, where the factual evidence is given priority, thereby pushing the influence of the theologians further to the margins, in favour of a heavier dependence on the more secular truths of metaphysicians. The problem is that the models developed by the logicians, in particular the mathematicians, have only limited application to issues of guilt or innocence. Therefore, the business-oriented figurations and their lawyers are heavily reliant on the philosophers for their truths. The problem is that the ideals produced by the philosophers will be of only limited value because their models relate to the human mind and have no real jurisdiction over the facts. Thus, the truth foundations of the legal processes are shaky because, as with science, they are mostly dependent on factual evidence which is uncertain.

Such a contingent experience is correlated with the conditions in which legal figurations operate, where higher levels of social interdependency prevail and where the authority of the law is best employed with consent. That consent is only guaranteed by factual evidence which because it is unpredictable, broadcasts to the world the existence of uncertainty! Hence, in life threatening judgements, established figurations place juries at the hub of their legal processes because they recognise the level of doubt in every decision: the use of juries has a long history in dispute resolution in Britain, possibly for this reason. As legal processes are so closely attached to the facts, and thus distanced from the truths that allow authoritarianism, it should not be surprising to find that in lawyers we have some of most self-controlled, relatively detached, scientific professionals in the business-oriented world, who achieve their aims through negotiation. Ultimately the legal network is about making decisions on life and death. In the past hanging judges such as Jeffries were unimpeachable, feeling no need to doubt their right to make decisions. Now judges act interdependently by managing the process of judgement involving figurations of people who provide the evidence for a ballot of relatively detached jurors – Why? – because there is uncertainty, knowledge that extends as far back as the beginning of the 13^th century when Magna Carta was agreed. Such decisions are made in relation to a continuum between at one end ‘certainty’, with ‘uncertainty’ at the other. It is here where one of the most significant indicators of civilising and democratising processes is evident; it is here where the nature of uncertainty is very salient and where we feel most uncomfortable; it is here where the heat of the fight is most controlled, where excitement is turned down in favour of sobriety, where the relative detachment of a lawyer who is defending the indefensible is clearly visible. Why? – because it is common knowledge that everything is uncertain.

In connection with this, I recently heard Lord Justice Bingham say that the law is based on certain absolutes, hence my use of ‘certainty’ and ‘uncertainty’ in the above rather than my preferred relative uncertainty. From my perspective I would suggest he is wrong – the law is founded on a belief in absolutes, a conviction that ideals can be useful as the means to define innocence or guilt. The facts of the matter are otherwise, for I believe that there is no absolute method of deciding these issues in social networks where the balance of influence is less favourable to established figurations, because their potential to exercise their authority by imposing their truths is constrained. As a result, in more democratic, less authoritarian social webs, we judge guilt or otherwise by a show of hands by one’s peers, especially in more serious cases. These are the social networks where certainty has been largely driven out, and where negotiation takes place on the authority of material evidence rather than ideals. The growth in the significance of reality-oriented legal processes has evolved alongside the rise in influence of democratising, business-oriented figurations. There has been a concomitant decline in interest in the views of ecclesiastical and philosophical absolute truth finders. This is I would argue, suggestive of a negative correlation between the gradual emergence of business-oriented figurations (which includes scientists) and authoritarianism.

2.3 The emergence of formal arguments suggestive of uncertainty.

The processes of change I have tried to detail above occurred interdependently with one another, not as separate unrelated developments. They were part of a network of interrelated gradual transformations that were unplanned, with no necessary outcomes. However, that does not mean that they were unpredictable; they were just relatively unpredictable – a perception too far, in a world so heavily dominated by idealism.

As mentioned earlier natural philosophy was renamed science in the first half of the 19^th century, by which time its practitioners functioned interdependently with the traditional truth-finders, the theometaphysicians, as the suppliers of the more mathematicised ideals reinforcing the authority of the emergent commercial figurations. The growth in influence of the latter, committed to rational democratic systems, market economics and greater personal autonomy, was sufficiently established by the 1700s to allow the possibility of people entering into open, formal discussion of ideas that questioned the very existence of absolute truths. In Britain before this time people who proffered such arguments would have been liable to violent suppression from the agents of monarchical and ecclesiastical rule. During the 18^th century philosophers such as David Hume were publicly attacking the foundations of Christian religious belief, and by the 1800s atheist revolutionaries such as Karl Marx were even questioning the sanctity of philosophical knowledge, whilst residing as a refugee in Britain. The possibilities of uncertainty were openly debated.

Such examples of the greater tolerance of arguments from uncertainty may well be linked to the decline in the level of violence meted-out by authorities throughout much of Europe to those who challenged established figurations: thus incarceration has tended to replace capital punishment. Michel Foucault argued that this change was part of the extension of disciplinary technology, imposed on non-bourgeois groups through the military, schooling, hospitals etc., in order to produce a docile work force. I think Elias’ model of the civilising process that plots the gradual extension of the use of self-control, offers the possibility of a more valid explanation of the decreasing level of violence.

Whilst Elias gives focus to the monopolization of the means of violence by established figurations such as monarchies, I want to emphasise the significance of the process of doing business. To do business you become interdependent with a range of people, whether as customers, partners, investors, or employees. Doing business benefits from management rather than physical suppression. Thus, acting without careful consideration of the reactions of others is potentially counterproductive; violence is a last resort. Where Foucault relates the decline in overt violence to a bourgeois strategy to create order, Elias explains it as a correlate to movement in a more complex nexus of social interdependencies. Imposition from those with high influence is but one factor in a social nexus that involves the activities of figurations with less influence such as employees, who are more reliant on negotiation rather than force.

What is clear from Foucault is that the increased use of prisons, as opposed to torture and capital punishment, has accompanied the rise to positions of influence of business-oriented figurations. However, in doing so he gave insufficient weight to the way these commercially oriented networks of people function with a much higher level of social interdependence where the use of violence is, in other than legally prescribed situations, much more unacceptable: to be successful in such networks you must be skilled in exercising self-control. A good example of the importance of interdependence is the threat posed to the dominance of business-orientated groups by striking employees. Nowadays in Britain such acts of resistance will only be met with violence on very rare occasions: the last event of note in this respect was the suppression of the views and actions of militant figurations of miners headed by Arthur Scargill during the 1980s, who decided to confront a new bout of government authoritarianism inspired by a revival of the 18^th and 19^th century market economic idealism. This process of realignment was already moving ahead in the USA with the election of Ronald Reagan who headed groups committed to a strident reaffirmation of American dominance after the defeat in Vietnam. In Britain a similar campaign was waged by figurations which had as their speaker Margaret Thatcher. Whatever the reasons for the emergence of the new-found self confidence backed by a revitalised market economic model associated with the likes of Friedman, it is usually the case that resistance in contemporary Britain has to be managed, not put down violently. I think it is fair to say that these less authoritarian styles of governing are connected to the changes mentioned above that allowed Hume to publish his work.

2.2 The growth in influence of uncertainty: interdependencies between business-oriented figurations including scientists and their partners the pure mathematicians.

These processes of change were interdependent with the emergence of a more liberal, democratic perspective from governing figurations, which found it much more difficult to suppress people who held and gave formal expression to views different from those in authority. This relaxation of authoritarianism was also accompanied by the arrival of the ‘Enlightenment’ writers who helped undermine the influence of tradition, by stressing the significance of a new and improved set of ideals correlated with the attempt to come to terms with profane experience – the laws of nature. These new figurations of truth-finders, who provided the ideological platform for the insurgent business-oriented groups, were influenced by mathematicians like Newton and more secular philosophers such as Bacon, Descartes and Locke. Turgot, Adam Smith and David Hume, furthered this type of approach speaking in terms of concepts such as ‘market’ and ‘reason’ in direct opposition to government by ecclesiastical or royal whim. It was not that the new liberal, realistic perspective to running things rejected the use of idealism as a means of controlling potential resistance, it was more that the enlightened model of idealism allowed greater room for diversity and personal autonomy; something quite unexpected and difficult to control. According to Smith there was less need for governing figurations to employ direct methods of constraint because this would occur naturally, guided by the universal rules of the market. These new truths that would assist the business-oriented figurations achieve their aims, were derived from a different amalgam of elements: less mysticism, more metaphysics (verbal and numerical logic) and increasing amounts of natural philosophy (science); a mix that produced social sciences such as economics. It is I believe reasonable to suggest that an unplanned by-product of the enlightenment belief in the efficacy of the laws of nature was the further exploration of uncertainty. The greater tolerance and more democratic style of the new elite of business figurations, was based in the fervent belief that control would be provided by the forces of nature if they were allowed to function: the application of the new market economics was an important example. This new metaphysics is another form of absolute truth, another form of ideal; this time more secular or natural, scaffolded on the rock of mathematics. The latter is not the direct word of God and does not have the same status as the Ten Commandments, but it has something approaching that, the authority of absolute truth expressive of the divine presence. Such a truth, albeit man-made, was extremely valuable to business-oriented figurations who needed clear justification for their ambitions and the means of control once their aims were achieved.

By the 19^th century, natural philosophers, now called scientists, were well established as partners of the governing figurations in Britain. Their status was interdependent with the success of the models developed by the likes of Newton that produced a less religious view of the universe using upgraded tools of idealism such as the new mathematics. Earlier however, in the 17^th century natural philosophy was a supplement rather than a rival to the old verities of theometaphysics; just an additional method of finding the absolute truth that facilitated the opening up of the new frontier with sensory experience. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the growing acceptance of natural philosophical ideas reinforced previous changes that occurred during the reign of Henry VIII in lowering even further the volume of the voices of those espousing religious truths to the ears of the governing figurations. Even though Newton was a mystic and a believer in the absolute truth of the laws that God put in place to run the universe, the scientific style of thinking which he and others developed, with its requirement for the factual validation of models, made the discussion of uncertainty more likely: it is not a great cognitive leap to disconnect God from the laws of nature and mathematics, as Darwin and Einstein later showed. Where the certainty of God comes into question so can the certainty of everything, even mathematics and logic.

The new mathematics and the related trust in reason were more than adequate replacements for the decline in influence of religious truth-finders. It is as if people need a bank of truth on which they can rest easy: the currency (religious, philosophical or mathematical) deposited changes with movements in the balance of social influence between competing figurations, but the need for some form of absolute truth of whichever currency has been consistent. As business-oriented figurations flourished, so the truth vaults were emptied of religious currency and replenished with the more secular funds reliant on mathematics and applied reason. The problem for the fund managers replenishing the vaults with the more secular knowledge resources required by business-oriented figuration, is that the new truth-finding process, being less reliant on the absolute dogmatism of religion, is less valuable than the old stock because it is more unstable, being reality-based rather than mind-based. As a result it always falls short of the gold standard required to define absolute truth; science, even backed by the reliable shadow of pure mathematics, is defined by uncertainty. The new more secular knowledge compound contains an element of instability that the ancients such as Plato warned about. By introducing base metal such as human sensory experience into the knowledge coinage, albeit stabilised with a good quantity of gold in the form of the new metaphysics, the currency is always relatively unstable. In other words there is no possibility of absolute control.

 2. The Socio-psychogenesis of the Ideal of Uncertainty: changes in patterns of social influence exploring the interdependencies between the rise of business-oriented figurations, a more material type of idealism, and a decline in authoritarian governance.

2.1 The rise and fall in influence of monarchic figurations: some processes in the decline of the theological truth-finders.

There are good reasons for believing that nothing in mundane human experience is certain, even though very influential constructors of ideals, namely, theometaphysicians, have for millennia, certainly in Europe, furnished us with absolute truths and in the process distracted us from thinking otherwise. One very important reason for the manufacture of such knowledge is to supply elite groups with the authority necessary to govern; a point I learned from Zygmunt Bauman. The holders of social influence use absolute truths to counter resistance in the form of alternative argument, especially in more democratic countries. If such a tactic is unsuccessful, then the means of violence can be deployed, justified on the grounds that those in opposition were given a fair chance to come to their senses.

Under the figuration headed by Henry VIII, no such caution was felt necessary. The English monarchy at this time felt so confident in its capacity to govern that it was willing to relax its hold on the truth by throwing out the authority provided by the Roman Catholic Church, in order to replace it with a more convenient Protestant message. The ensuing conflict was accompanied by doctrinal ferment, which, as far as I can see, contributed to opening the way for a more secular system of absolute truths: the balance of social influence was moving even more in favour of the monarchical figuration and away from the priests, and for the rest, it may well have been a matter of ‘we don’t care because it has nothing to do with us’. Consequently, most of the English agents of God in their retreat, took on more of a support function rather than directly competing with monarchical interests. For example, the unhelpful and threatening religious dissident Thomas More, was given time to adjust his perception of the truth, before being dispatched to oblivion by the more influential monarchic figuration which by then had much less need to worry about possible condemnation from the Church.

Just over a hundred years later we see a more reasoned justification of the subservience of the Church in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Hobbes’ book is a very good example of the way influential figurations use verbal logic (philosophy) to justify their activities. As the level of influence of monarchic figurations in Britain increased there came a point, the Reformation, at which they could bring one of their greatest rivals, the Church, to heal. Part of the reinforcement of this change in the patterning of authority was to lower the volume of ecclesiastical truth statements in favour of more secular, metaphysical forms of truth-finding from philosophers such as Hobbes, and mathematicians. Interdependently, this offered more scope for arguments from relative uncertainty. For a justification of this way of discussing social influence see the Introduction to The Court Society by Norbert Elias.

My argument is that God’s truth-finders played a less directorial role in patterning daily life after the Reformation. This is not to deny that their influence was still substantial: the significance of puritan ethics in relation to the activities of revolutionaries such as Oliver Cromwell is well documented, let alone their connection to the development of capitalism as explored by Max Weber. However, I believe that these were part of democratising changes interdependent with the decline in religious control and the concomitant growth of forms of secular authority, initially monarchic then business-oriented. What is interesting is that by the 17^th century, even the more secular truths used to justify the right to rule such as the personal superiority of the monarchical figurations were under threat, as Oliver Cromwell’s promotion to Lord Protector testifies. True, the monarchical groups re-established their dominance after Cromwell died, but his emergence as a non-royal leader was a shot across the bows for monarchies, an indication that social processes were in motion that would permanently threaten their ancient hold on influence.

I often think experts on political revolutions take too little account of the emancipatory impetus that resulted in the British revolution, by giving precedence to the events of 1789 in France over a hundred years later. One might argue that the potential for a republic in Britain was too raw in the 17^th century, even though the democratising forces were strong enough to play their part in the execution of a monarch. I suppose the British experience is seen as a revolution that failed, in contrast to France. However, whilst the British monarchy was restored in a watered down form, it did not crush the republican impulse, which can be seen to re-emerge in America and then France where many of those who were sympathetic to the revolution ended up: were the events just over a hundred years later in 1775 and 1789 a matter of unfinished business? My point is this; that from the 17^th century onward there was a continuation of the gradual contraction of ecclesiastical influence, given further impetus by the decline in authority of monarchical figurations. These changes were interdependent with the growth in influence of groups with commercial interests partnered by truth-finders of an even more secular leaning.

 1.5 The Problem of Power

Whilst making the case for using Elias’ approach with respect to my analysis of the way we use idealism in the search for certainty, I also want to question our use of the concept ‘power’. To me power is a variable more akin to physics and engineering than sociology: it tells us for example, about the ability of motors to do work. Human bodies do work and thus the notion of power could translate to an understanding of the activity of the body through bio-engineering: powerful bodies can do work very quickly. However, in the context of the latter, power is not that good a fit, as the complexity and dynamism of biological forms is not directly analogous to a motor. There is even less fit between power and human social webs. Instead of power I want to use the less mechanistic notion of ‘social influence‘ which I am familiar with in the context of social psychological models that analyse compliance, conformity and obedience. By replacing power with the notion of social influence I think we get a closer appreciation of the complexity and dynamism of processes such as domination, a better description of the pervasive and turbulent interdependencies of forces that are involved in human experience. Power suggests more capacity to make things happen than in fact we have. Social influence is more sensitive to an understanding of both human impotence and resistance.

 1.4 The Development of Social Science, its Bond with Theometaphysics and the Resistance to a Focus on Dynamics and Process

The complex changes of which the civilizing process is a component, feature the rise to power of business-oriented, democratizing groups who were more interested in exploring reality, if only to make money. The Renaissance indicated certain trends in the experience of influential groups: a growth in self-reliance and a decline in fatalism, a rise in humanism and a decrease in religiosity: see John Carroll’s Humanism. Rather than simply accepting God’s prescription and the agents who purveyed it, many more people saw the rewards involved in managing the world as something that could be understood. The natural philosophers (scientists) were part of this change, chaperoned by the exponents of idealism in the form of numerical logic, the pure mathematicians. Even so, this was an important step away from idealism per se, in that it involved a more rigorous dialogue with the relative uncertainty that is reality. The balance of influence had moved slightly away from the guild of theometaphysicians, involving a significant change in emphasis as the theologists and philosophers were distanced from influence in favour of the mathematical idealists. The process was accelerated as applied scientists such as engineers, medics, economists and sociologists emerged bringing people closer to a reality-oriented approach.

The arrival of sociologists in the 19^th century such as Auguste Comte indicates the growth in influence of historical perspectives on what can be known, which were important in the development of scientific models that move us further down the continuum towards greater reality-orientation. In sociology this took the form of a variety of models, the most prominent being those associated with Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Parsons. Nevertheless, from my perspective they all suffer from one major fault: they were all too heavily involved with theometaphysics. It is not until the model developed by Norbert Elias that we see a type of analysis that employs a sufficient level of detachment from the idealism of theometaphysics to allow sociologists the opportunity to become more autonomous and more scientific: the same may well be the case for economists, psychologists and anthropologists. As far as I can see the main force of Elias’ argument is that sociologists need to become process-oriented in order to engage more closely with the dynamism of their subject matter. This is difficult because of the influence of the theometaphysical discourses that still pattern our thinking and activity, with their emphasis on stability. However, if we take Elias’ lead we can make sociological tools more dynamic and fit for purpose; otherwise sociology will remain ostensibly a branch of theometaphysics, or at best, as Popper observes – history. With this in mind Elias takes us some way down the road in developing more scientific sociological concepts that emphasise fluidity such as ‘figuration’, ‘relative detachment’, the ‘established and the outsiders’. There is an emphasis on the verb rather than the noun; there is no attempt to establish absolutes or causes; there is a focus on answering questions, on the problem not the solution. Sadly, too few have caught on so far.