Philosophical foundations of the social sciences : analyzing controversies in social research / Harold Kincaid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kincaid, Harold, 1952-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social sciences--Research.

Social sciences.

Social sciences--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xvi, 283 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge [England] ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Summary:

This book defends the prospects for a science of society and argues that behind the diverse methods of the natural sciences lies a common core of scientific rationality that the social sciences can and sometimes do achieve. It also argues that good social science must duly reflect large-scale social structures and processes and thus that methodological individualism is misguided. These theses are supported by a detailed discussion of actual social research, including theories of agrarian revolution, organizational ecology, social theories of depression, and supply and demand explanations in economics. Professor Kincaid provides a general picture of explanation and confirmation in the social sciences and discusses the nature of scientific rationality, functional explanation, optimality arguments, meaning, and interpretation; the place of microfoundations in social explanation; the status of neo-classical economics; the role of idealizations and non-experimental evidence; and other controversies in social research.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Issues and arguments 1

1.1 The naturalist and holist traditions and their detractors 2

1.2 An outline of the argument 9

Chapter 2 Challenges to scientific rationality 16

2.1 Quine and the demise of positivism 17

2.2 Varieties of rationality 27

2.3 Kuhn and shifting standards 30

2.3.1 Incommensurability 30

2.3.2 Theory-laden data 33

2.3.3 Ambiguous criteria 35

2.4 Social constructivism and post-modernist rhetoric 37

2.5 The subtle invasion of values 43

2.6 The symptoms of good science 47

Chapter 3 Causes, confirmation, and explanation 58

3.1 Some a priori objections 59

3.2 Confirmation and qualifications 63

3.2.1 How can ceteris paribus laws be confirmed and how can they explain? 63

3.2.2 Ceteris paribus in practice 70

3.3 Inferring causes from non-experimental data 84

3.4 Lawless explanations 90

Chapter 4 Functionalism defended 101

4.1 Functionalism and its critics 103

4.2 What is functionalism? 105

4.3 Confirming functional explanations 114

4.4 Functionalist failures and successes 122

4.4.1 Optimal Eskimos and Hindu Cows 122

4.4.2 Marxist accounts of the state 126

4.4.3 The ecology of organizations 131

4.5 The critics answered 136

Chapter 5 The failures of individualism 142

5.1 The prospects for reduction 145

5.1.1 Requirements for reduction 145

5.1.2 Conceptual arguments for and against reducibility 149

5.1.3 An empirical case against individualism 153

5.2 Claims about explanation and confirmation 166

5.2.1 Full explanation without reduction? 167

5.2.2 Is individualism the best explanation? 175

5.2.3 Are individualist mechanisms necessary? 179

5.2.4 Individualist evidence and heuristics 182

5.3 A question of ontology? 187

5.4 The truth in individualism 189

Chapter 6 A science of interpretation? 191

6.1 Issues and presuppositions 192

6.2 The right-wing attack 194

6.3 Skeptical hermeneuts 205

6.4 Interpretive successes 212

6.5 Norms and symbols 215

Chapter 7 Economics: a test case 222

7.1 How to think about economics 223

7.2 The supply-and-demand core 232

7.2.1 Confirming the laws of supply and demand 232

7.2.2 The central role of supply-and-demand arguments 241

7.3 Assessing neo-classical models 247

7.4 Reduction and microfoundations 250

Chapter 8 Problems and prospects 258.

ISBN:

0521482682

0521558913

OCLC:

32237823