Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction

Description

Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines perennial questions of philosophy through engaging the empirical study of society. Questions of normativity concern the place of values in social scientific inquiry. Questions of naturalism concern the relationship between the natural and the social sciences. And questions of reductionism ask how social institutions relate to the people who constitute them. This accessible text offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to new research programs. Topics include the relationship of social policy to social science, interpretive research, cognitive and evolutionary explanations, intentional action explanation, rational choice theory, conventions and social norms, joint intentionality, causal inference, and experimentation. Detailed examples of social scientific research motivate the philosophical questions and illustrate the important concepts. Treating philosophical commitments as implicit in social science, students of the social sciences will benefit from its application of philosophical argument to methodological and theoretical problems. The text argues that social science transforms philosophical questions, and students of philosophy will benefit from its direct engagement with contemporary debates. Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 Objectivity, Values, and the Possibility of a Social Science 3 Theories, Interpretations, and Concepts 4 Interpretive Methodology 5 Action and Agency 6 Modeling and Explaining 7 Reductionism: Structures, Agents, and Evolution 8 Race and Other Social Constructions 9 Social Norms 10 Intentions, Institutions, and Collective Action 11 Causality and Law in the Social World 12 Methodologies of Causal Inference References Index