This dissertation identifies and responds to a problem for liberal relational egalitarians. There is a prima facie worry about the compatibility of liberalism and relational egalitarianism, concerning the requirements of equality in informal social life. Liberalism at least involves a commitment to leaving individuals substantial discretion to pursue their own conceptions of the good. Relational equality is best understood as a kind of deliberative practice about social institutions and practices. Patterns of otherwise innocuous social choices (e.g., where to live, whom (...) to befriend or marry) can create emergent, severe differentials in power, status, and influence, and when they do they can threaten relational equality. If relational equality required individuals to subordinate personal choices to egalitarian considerations, it would run into conflict with liberal commitments. In response, I defend the value of accepting an imperfect realization of relational equality. What I call fair relational equality demands that members of society treat some informal social norms and practices as part of the basic structure of society, in need of justification. Three practices are required to meet that demand. First, the relational-egalitarian society must develop institutional strategies to preempt or mitigate tendencies toward emergent inequality as they are identified. Second, members of society must engage in broad social deliberation about the norms and expectations of informal social interaction. Third, they must be willing to reform social practices where doing so does not impinge on important personal projects and values. (shrink)

The concept of rationality, predominantly in the guise of rational choice theory, plays a key role in the social sciences. Yet, whilst rational choice theory is usually understood as part of positive political science, it is also widely employed within normative political theories. In this paper, we examine how allegedly positive rational choice arguments can find application within normative political theories. To this effect, we distinguish between two interpretations of rationality ascriptions, one empirical, the other normative. Since, as we demonstrate, (...) empirical readings of the rationality assumption cannot convincingly explain the role of rational choice arguments in normative theories, we argue that the rationality assumption should be given a normative interpretation. We conclude by considering what this result implies for the use of rational choice arguments in normative and positive political science. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud Some Views of Humankind Scientism and the Freudian Model of Personality The Social Sciences beyond Freud Evolution and the Social Sciences Freud and Revolutions in Thought Reading List Essay Questions.

Rationality, Norms and Institutions: In Search of a Realistic Utopia The main goal of political philosophers is to search for a realistic utopia by taking individuals as they are and institutions, rules and laws as they might be. Instead of trying to change either individuals or institutions in order to improve society, this article argues that both strategies should be combined, since there are causal connections running both ways. Because individuals ultimately devise and uphold institutions, one should be optimistic about (...) the possibilities of deliberately improving society through institutional reforms. However, one should adequately model the influences that these reforms have on individuals, their identities and their motivations. From the fact that individuals can actually turn into egoists if they are treated as such, this article stresses the need to detect and maintain non-egoistic motivations. Since informal norms, for example, motivate individuals to socially desirable action, it is important to devise formal institutions that support rather than erode norm-guided behavior. (shrink)

This paper gives a philosophical outline of the importance of plausible ontologies in the social sciences and argues how mechanisms and processes should be placed as the foundation in the social world. The argumentation is mainly based on a critical appraisal of the use of mechanisms and processes in the works of Norbert Elias, Charles Tilly, and Jon Elster. I start by elaborating on how inquiries of scientific interest evolve to shed light on cases, facts and the things that constitute (...) such facts, whilst the actual explanation demands the description of mechanisms and processes. Basically, focusing on variation and difference making is not sufficient to sustain claims of ontological plausibility and reasonableness. It is thus pointed out how the practices and proceedings of the social sciences can be ontologically enhanced by embracing the complementary roles of mechanisms plus processes together with difference making, as is performed in a special science such as biology, as well as is informally but promisingly pursued in the works of the discussed social scientists. While discussing their work, it is also argued that we should differentiate between processes and mechanisms in order to formalize this approach, which highlights the role of technologies and institutions as prime building blocks for social explanation. I conclude by presenting a claim that in taking seriously that the purported relations between beings and entities need to make discursive sense and historical sense, the social sciences will increase our cognitive success about the things of the world. (shrink)

Critics of functional explanations in social science maintain that such explanations are illegitimate unless a mechanism is specified. Others argue that mechanisms are not necessary for causal inference and that functional explanations are a type of causal claim that raise no special difficulties for testing. I show that there is indeed a special problem that confronts testing functional explanations resulting from their connection to second-order causal claims. I explain how mechanisms can resolve this difficulty, but argue that this does not (...) provide support for methodological individualism since it is not necessary that the mechanisms be described in terms of individual interactions. (shrink)

It is a matter of some irony that psychiatry's most trenchant critic for over four decades is himself a psychiatrist. I refer to Thomas S. Szasz. Szasz's core thesis may be succinctly rendered: mental illness is a “myth”, a “metaphor” which serves only to obscure the social and ethical “problems in living” we face as human beings. This paper reconsiders the conceptual bases of Szasz's assault on psychiatry and assesses recent counter-arguments of his critical interlocutors. It presents a defence of (...) the Szaszian conception and emphasises the continuing relevance of his earliest work. Additionally, the paper discusses Szasz's thesis in light of the work of the influential French philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem. (shrink)

We argue that neuroeconomics should be a mechanistic science. We defend this view as preferable both to a revolutionary perspective, according to which classical economics is eliminated in favour of neuroeconomics, and to a classical economic perspective, according to which economics is insulated from facts about psychology and neuroscience. We argue that, like other mechanistic sciences, neuroeconomics will earn its keep to the extent that it either reconfigures how economists think about decision-making or how neuroscientists think about brain mechanisms underlying (...) behaviour. We discuss some ways that the search for mechanisms can bring about such top-down and bottom-up revision, and we consider some examples from the recent neuroeconomics literature of how varieties of progress of this sort might be achieved. (shrink)

In this article I argue that most biases in argumentation and decision-making can and should be counteracted. Although biases can prove beneficial in certain contexts, I contend that they are generally maladaptive and need correction. Yet critical thinking alone seems insufficient to mitigate biases in everyday contexts. I develop a contextualist approach, according to which cognitive debiasing strategies need to be supplemented by extra-psychic devices that rely on social and environmental constraints in order to promote rational reasoning. Finally, I examine (...) several examples of contextual debiasing strategies and show how they can contribute to enhance critical thinking at a cognitive level. (shrink)

In this article I argue that most biases in argumentation and decision-making can and should be counteracted. Although biases can prove beneficial in certain contexts, I contend that they are generally maladaptive and need correction. Yet critical thinking alone seems insufficient to mitigate biases in everyday contexts. I develop a contextualist approach, according to which cognitive debiasing strategies need to be supplemented by extra-psychic devices that rely on social and environmental constraints in order to promote rational reasoning. Finally, I examine (...) several examples of contextual debiasing strategies and show how they can contribute to enhance critical thinking at a cognitive level. (shrink)

Some explanations in social science, psychology and biology belong to a higher level than other explanations. And higher explanations possess the virtue of abstracting away from the details of lower explanations, many philosophers argue. As a result, these higher explanations are irreplaceable. And this suggests that there are genuine higher laws or patterns involving social, psychological and biological states. I show that this ‘abstractness argument’ is really an argument schema, not a single argument. This is because the argument uses the (...) ‘is lower than’ relation, and this relation admits of different readings. I then suggest four rigorous definitions of the ‘is lower than’ relation, and show that the abstractness argument’s prospects are much brighter for some of these definitions than for others. To show this, I evaluate the so-called ‘disjunctive threat’ to the abstractness argument. (shrink)

From a sociological perspective, Rational Choice Theory neglects an important question: How do agents come to conceptualise choices as they do? In particular, agents not only communicate about their choices and resulting outcomes but also draw attention to options unconsidered by others. This paper presents an agent-based simulation in which different kinds of information about choices are transmitted. This approach also provides a concrete model for certain aspects of hegemonic discourse . In standard Rational Choice where options are common knowledge, (...) all actors with the same preferences should make the same decisions. By contrast if information is transmitted socially, the concerns of a majority may reduce the ability of a minority to choose options appropriate to them even without any exercise of coercion or discrimination. (shrink)

Philosophers of the social sciences are increasingly convinced that macro-and micro-explanations are complementary. Whereas macro-explanations are broad, micro-explanations are deep. I distinguish between weak and strong complementarity: Strongly complementary explanations improve one another when integrated, weakly complementary explanations do not. To demonstrate the explanatory autonomy of different levels of explanation, explanatory pluralists mostly presuppose the weak form of complementarity. By scrutinizing the notions of explanatory depth and breadth, I argue that macro- and micro-accounts of the same phenomenon are more often (...) strongly complementary. This invites a revision of the pluralist position in which integration promotes explanatory progress. (shrink)

Proposals for the democratization of technology imply a necessary condition of universal emancipatory technological literacy. However, in the literature on the topic, people’s willingness to assume the cost in time and effort involved in acquiring that knowledge is often taken for granted. In this paper, we apply Anthony Downs’s economic theory of political action in democracy to analyze the cost-benefit ratio of this literacy from the perspective of the individual subject who should acquire it. Our conclusion is that the cost (...) does not rationally justify in an instrumental sense a benefit that, being mainly of an indivisible nature, motivates individuals to avoid their share of the cost to produce it. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate the notions of explanation and mechanism, in particular of the social kind. A mechanism is defined as what makes a concrete system tick, and it is argued that to propose an explanation proper is to exhibit a lawful mechanism. The so-called covering law model is shown to exhibit only the logical aspect of explanation: it just subsumes particulars under universals. A full or mechanismic explanation involves mechanismic law statements, not purely descriptive ones (...) such as functional relations and rate equations. Many examples from the natural, biosocial, and social sciences are examined. In particular, macro-micro-micro-macro social relations are shown to explain other wise puzzling macro-macro links. The last part of the article relates the author's progress, over half a century, toward understanding mechanism and explanation. (shrink)

In the January 6, 1991, issue of theWashington Post Magazine, reporter Walt Harrington wrote a profile of Bryan Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson is a 31-year-old working-class African-American from Delaware who graduated from Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. Like the typical graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Stevenson had the opportunity to join the worlds of six-figure corporate law or high-visibility politics. Rather than follow his colleagues, however, Mr. Stevenson works seven-day, eighty-hour weeks as director of the Alabama (...) Capital Representation Center. He appeals death sentences, handling twenty-four death-row cases himself, supervises five other lawyers who cover about thirty cases, and raises federal government and foundation funding. He does this living a Spartan existence on a salary of $24,000, refusing even the $50,000 directorship salary offered to him. (shrink)

This article defends methodological and theoretical pluralism in the social sciences. While pluralistic, such a philosophy of social science is both pragmatic and normative. Only by facing the problems of such pluralism, including how to resolve the potential conflicts between various methods and theories, is it possible to discover appropriate criteria of adequacy for social scientific explanations and interpretations. So conceived, the social sciences do not give us fixed and universal features of the social world, but rather contribute to the (...) task of improving upon our practical knowledge of on-going social life. After arguing for such a thorough-going pluralism based on the indeterminacy of social action, I defend it from the post-modern and hermeneutic objections by suggesting the possibility of an epistemology of interpretive social science as a form of practical knowledge. (shrink)

Drawing general inferences on the basis of single-case and small- n studies is often seen as problematic. This article suggests a logic of generalization based on thinly rationalistic social mechanisms. Ideal-type mechanisms can be derived from empirical observations in one case and, based on the assumption of thin rationality, used as a generalizing bridge to other contexts with similar actor constellations. Thus, the “portability” builds on expectations about similar mechanisms operating in similar contexts. We present the general logic behind such (...) “rationalistic generalization” and relate it to other ideas about generalization from single-case studies. (shrink)

This paper introduces the philosophical foundation and practical application of empirical phenomenology in social research. The approach of empirical phenomenology builds upon the phenomenology of the philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and the sociologist Alfred Schütz, but considers how their more philosophical and theoretical insights can be used in empirical research. It aims at being practically useful for anyone doing qualitative studies and concerned about safeguarding the perspective of those studied. The main idea of empirical phenomenology is that scientific (...) explanation must be grounded in the first-order construction of the actors; that is, in their own meanings. These constructions are then related to the second-order constructions of the scientist. In this paper, empirical phenomenology is considered in the light of phenomenological philosophy. The paper includes an explication of the approach, which is summarized in seven steps through which the researcher is guided, and considers its implications for qualitative methods such as interviewing and participant observation. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance an analytical approach that systematically seeks to identify social mechanisms that generate and explain observed associations between events. In spite of recent contributions to animate the search for explanatory mechanisms, most of these monographs extol the theoretical while eschewing its application to applied research. This study emphasizes a systematic approach to identifying causal processes derived from critical realism by applying a realist template to research projects that claim to have identified causal mechanisms. (...) A critical realist framework serves as an independent standard in order to evaluate whether two proposed mechanisms, identified in applied research, adequately explain the phenomenon under study. The Disciplinary Revolution and The Familial State are used as sources of data since each work attempts to explain the emergence of the modern Dutch state yet by differing causal mechanisms. Realism’s approach to understanding causation emphasizes structural analysis which depends on abstract conceptualization in order to identify ontologically constituent properties, utilizes abductive and retroductive logic, and an emic interpretation of historical events. Findings suggest that research that intuitively emphasizes realist principles is more likely to identify causal processes. (shrink)

Social identity poses one of the most important challenges to rational choice theory, but rational choice theorists do not hold a common position regarding identity. On one hand, externalist rational choice ignores the concept of identity or reduces it to revealed preferences. On the other hand, internalist rational choice considers identity as a key concept in explaining social action because it permits expressive motivations to be included in the models. However, internalist theorists tend to reduce identity to desire—the desire of (...) a person to express his or her social being. From an internalist point of view, that is, from a viewpoint in which not only desires but also beliefs play a key role in social explanations as mental entities, this article rejects externalist reductionism and proposes a redefinition of social identity as a net of beliefs about oneself, beliefs that are indexical, robust, and socially shaped. (shrink)

This paper addresses the explanatory role of the concept of a motive for action in economics. The aim of the paper is to show the difficulty economists have to accommodate the motive of commitment into their explanatory and predictive framework, i.e. rational choice theory. One difficulty is that the economists’ explanation becomes analytic when assuming preferences of commitment. Another difficulty is that it is highly doubtful whether commitment can be represented by current frameworks while (pre-)serving the ‘folk-psychological’ idea of what (...) is commonly understood by the idea of a commitment. Both difficulties lead to the conclusion that, although motives do matter, conceptualizing the motive of commitment would cause trouble for rational choice theory. (shrink)

There are, broadly speaking, two ways to think about rationality, as defined in the following passage: ‘Reason’ for a long time meant the activity of understanding and assimilating the eternal ideas which were to function as goals for men. Today, on the contrary, it is not only the business but the essential work of reason to find means for the goals one adopts at any given time. To use what Horkheimer called objective reason, and what others have called expressive or (...) non–instrumental reason, is to reflect on one's goals, to attempt to determine what preferences one ought to hold. On the other hand, to use what Horkheimer called subjective reason is to ‘be concerned with means and ends, with the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted’, that is, to be instrumentally rational. This contrast between non-instrumental and instrumental reason is at the heart of many contemporary social and philosophical disputes. 1. (shrink)

This article aims to show that fundamentality is construed differently in the two most prominent strategies of analysis we find in physical science and engineering today: (1) atomistic, reductive analysis and (2) Systems analysis. Correspondingly, atomism is the conception according to which the simplest (smallest) indivisible entity of a certain kind is most fundamental; while systemism, as will be articulated here, is the conception according to which the bonds that structure wholes are most fundamental, and scale and/or constituting entities are (...) of no significance whatsoever for fundamentality. Accordingly, atomists maintain that the basic entities—the atoms—are fundamental, and together with the “external” interactions among them, are sufficient for illuminating all the features and behaviors of the wholes they constitute; whereas systemists proclaim that it is instead structural qualities of systems, that flow from internal relations among their constituents and translate directly into behaviors, that are fundamental, and by themselves largely (if not entirely) sufficient for illuminating the features and behaviors of the wholes thereby structured. Systemism, as will be argued, is consistent with the nonexistence of a fundamental “level” of nondecomposable entities, just as it is consistent with the existence of such a level. Still, systemism is a conception of the fundamental in quite different, but still ontological terms. Systemism can serve the special sciences—the social sciences especially—better than the conception of fundamentality in terms of atoms. Systemism is, in fact, a conception of fundamentality that has rather different uses—and importantly, different resonances. This conception of fundamentality makes contact with questions pertaining to natural kinds and their situation in the metaphysics of the special sciences—their situation within an order of autonomous sciences. The controversy over fundamentality is evident in the social sciences too, albeit somewhat imperfectly, in the terms of debate between methodological individualists and functionalists/holists. This article will thus clarify the difference between systemism and holism. (shrink)

When stripped to the bare bone, there are only 11 foundational paradigms in social sciences. These foundational paradigms are like flashlights that can be utilized to shed light on different aspects of human society, but each of them can only shed light on a limited area of human society. Different schools in social science result from different but often incomplete combinations of these foundational paradigms. To adequately understand human society and its history, we need to deploy all 11 foundational paradigms, (...) although more limited combinations of them may be adequate for understanding more specific social facts. (shrink)

This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice, mapping out some main strands of the tradition leading up to contemporary political philosophy. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by explaining the normative focus of philosophical theories of justice – that is, a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we explain what sorts of methods philosophers use to justify (...) theories of justice. Following this, in the longest section, we highlight major questions about justice that have drawn the attention of philosophers, and indicate how competing conceptions of justice have arisen from differing answers to these questions. The goal here is not to answer but to elucidate some of the larger questions about justice, as well as to establish a framework for understanding and distinguishing different kinds of claims about justice and some of the relations between them. (shrink)

This paper critiques the new mechanistic explanatory program on grounds that, even when applied to the kinds of examples that it was originally designed to treat, it does not distinguish correct explanations from those that blunder. First, I offer a systematization of the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: they must 1) represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right ‘level.’ Second, I argue that (...) even the most developed attempts to fulfill these desiderata fall short by failing to appropriately constrain explanatorily apt mechanistic models. -/- *This paper used to be called "The Emperor's New Mechanisms". (shrink)

Patrick Baert Cambridge, Polity Press, 2005viii + 210 pp., ISBN 9780745622460, £50.00, €62.50 (hardback); ISBN 9780745622477, £17.99, €22.50 (paperback) Hans Dooremalen, Herman de Regt & Maurice Sc...

Philosophers and social scientists have focussed a great deal of attention on our human capacity to trust, but relatively little on the capacity to hope. This is a significant oversight, as hope and trust are importantly interconnected. This paper argues that, even though trust can and does feed our hopes, it is our empowering capacity to hope that significantly underwrites—and makes rational—our capacity to trust.

Justice and Vulnerability in Europe contributes to the understanding of justice in Europe from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. It shows that Europe is falling short of its ideals and justice-related ambitions by repeatedly failing its most vulnerable populations. Interdisciplinary and expert contributors search for the explanations behind these failing ambitions, through analysis of institutional discourse, legal debate and practice and the daily experiences of vulnerable populations, such as those dependent on social care and welfare. By setting tentative criteria (...) for justice as 'participatory parity', in line with the insights of the political philosopher Nancy Fraser, the book challenges European policy makers to re-define redistributive, recognitive and representative justice. (shrink)

Many political philosophers hold the Feasible Alternatives Principle (FAP): justice demands that we implement some reform of international institutions P only if P is feasible and P improves upon the status quo from the standpoint of justice. The FAP implies that any argument for a moral requirement to implement P must incorporate claims whose content pertains to the causal processes that explain the current state of affairs. Yet, philosophers routinely neglect the need to attend to actual causal processes. This undermines (...) their arguments concerning moral requirements to reform international institutions. The upshot is that philosophers’ arguments must engage in causal analysis to a greater extent than is typical. -/- [Supplement: Handout available at http://db.tt/fyuVW3Xv]. (shrink)

Extremists who have been well educated in science are quite common, but nevertheless puzzling. How can individuals with high levels of scientific education fall prey to irrationalist ideologies? Implicit assumptions about rationality may lead to tremendous and conspicuous developments. When correction of social deficits is seen as a pressing problem, it is quite common that individuals conclude that some religious or political system contains the all-encompassing answer, if only it is applied with sufficiently high standards. Implicit assumptions about rationally high (...) standards often demand consistency, system and justification. The strict application of these standards to political and/or religious systems leads quite readily to extremism. J. L. Talmon has shown how the rationality of the Enlightenment led to intolerance, dictatorship and torture. The Enlightenment view of rationality can also encourage irrationalist ideologies and extremism: it leads individuals to conclude that various religions and/or political systems contain all encompassing answers, if only they are systematic, coherant and justified. Alternative theories of science and rationality, which view rationality as critical, partial, and progressive, and which seek to improve imperfect standards, can help avoid the unintended support of extremism rendered by established views of rationality. Unfortunately such theories meet enormous resistance: they call into question well-established canonical doctrines. (shrink)

In this paper we present two case studies on inconsistencies in the social sciences. The first is devoted to sociologist George Caspar Homans and his exchange theory. We argue that his account of how he arrived at his theory is highly misleading, because it ignores the inconsistencies he had to cope with. In the second case study we analyse how John Maynard Keynes coped with the inconsistency between classical economic theory and real economic conditions in developing his path-breaking theory.

On Bicchieri's view, social norms most centrally involve a pattern of preferences among the members of a relevant population; according to Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin, and Southwood, social norms most centrally involve patterns of normative attitudes among the members of a given group. This paper argues, first, that social norms can require attitudes as well as behaviour, and, second, that the existence of such attitudinal social norms speaks in favour of the preference-based view and against the normative attitudes-based view.

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and the use of (...) explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we find that metaphors and metaphoric reasoning are fundamental for causal claims-making in the discipline. On this basis, we define three dominant causal types used in sociology today, which we label the Probabilistic, Initiating and Conditioning types. We theorize this outcome as demonstrating the primary role that cognitive models play in providing inference-rich metaphors that allow sociologists to map causal relationships on to empirical processes. (shrink)

This article discusses an epistemological problem faced by causal explanations of action and a proposed solution. The problem is to justify why one particular reason rather than another is specified as causally efficacious. It is argued that the problem arises independently of one’s preferred conception of singular causal claims, psychological and psychophysical generalizations, and our folk-psychological competence. The proposed fallibilist solution involves the supplementation of the reason given by narratives that contextualize it and provide additional criteria for justifying the causal (...) claim. It is argued that narratives have a distinctive structure that can afford the justification of causal attributions without sui generis powers of narrative explanation having to be invoked. (shrink)

In the last couple of years there have been some attempts to introduce Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts into the critical realist conception of social science. But these attempts either limit themselves to the constitution of a philosophical connection between Bourdieu and critical realism or confine Bourdieu’s theoretical contributions to analyses of human agency, whereas Bourdieu’s habitus can provide a deepening of the critical realist conception of what the ‘social’ is. We can establish a socio-ontological connection between the concept of habitus and (...) the idea of the social as a stratified reality. In this way, it may be possible to employ real-actual-empirical stratification for the purpose of defining the domain-specific ontology of social science, and to comprehend the habitus-field relation as a component of the stratification in question. To this end, the paper suggests that habitus is ‘the missing link between structure and agency’. (shrink)

This article uses participant objectivation in sociology and philosophy as two knowledge fields to provide a reflexive comparison of their synced field effect in historical circumstances. Drawing on the philosopher and historian of science Gaston Bachelard, I theorize fielded knowledge as a social relation that combines the prior presence of folk knowledge with a socioanalytic exchange between field and folk that includes positions of either defense, replacement or critique. A comparison of post-Wittgenstein Anglophone philosophy and post-sixties American sociology describes their (...) mutual confrontation with folk psychology as an “epistemological obstacle” that generates a remarkable concern with action as a position-taking on the folk relation. A reflexive objectivation of folk knowledge is therefore necessary for a revised understanding of action that correlates with the distinction of sociology’s knowledge capital and how it fares as an explanatory resource in competitive circumstances. The article concludes by leveraging the synced field effect even further to make a recommendation that sociologists can increase the distinction of their knowledge capital by producing discourse that can recognize, legitimate and officialize experiences that otherwise remain obscure, nameless or impossible within the bounded universe of folk psychology. (shrink)

Mechanisms in a theory are defined here as bits of theory about entities at a different level (e.g., individuals) than the main entities being theorized about (e.g., groups), which serve to make the higher-level theory more supple, more accurate, or more general. The criterion for whether it is worthwhile to theorize at lower levels is whether it makes the theory at the higher levels better, not whether lower-level theorizing is philosophically necessary. The higher-level theory can be made better by mechanisms (...) known to be inadequate in the discipline dealing with the lower level. Conditions for the usefulness of lower-level theorizing are proposed, with many examples from various social and physical sciences. (shrink)

Several authors have claimed that mechanisms play a vital role in distinguishing between causation and mere correlation in the social sciences. Such claims are sometimes interpreted to mean that without mechanisms, causal inference in social science is impossible. The author agrees with critics of this proposition but explains how the account of how mechanisms aid causal inference can be interpreted in a way that does not depend on it. Nevertheless, he shows that this more charitable version of the account is (...) still unsuccessful as it stands. Consequently, he advances a proposal for shoring up the account, which is founded on the possibility of acquiring knowledge of social mechanisms by linking together norms or practices found in a society. Key Words: causality • social mechanisms • interpretation • anthropology. (shrink)

This article examines methodological individualism in terms of the theory that invariance under intervention is the signal feature of generalizations that serve as a basis for causal explanation. This theory supports the holist contention that macro-level generalizations can explain, but it also suggests a defense of methodological individualism on the grounds that greater range of invariance under intervention entails deeper explanation. Although this individualist position is not threatened by multiple-realizability, an argument for it based on rational choice theory is called (...) into question by experimental results concerning preference reversals. Key Words: methodological individualism • mechanisms • explanation • invariance • preference reversal. (shrink)

Social scientists have not integrated relevant knowledge from the biological sciences into their explanations of human behavior. This failure is due to a longstanding antireductionistic bias against the natural sciences, which follows on a commitment to the view that social facts must be explained by social laws. This belief has led many social scientists into the error of reifying abstract analytical constructs into entities that possess powers of agency. It has also led to a false nature-culture dichotomy that effectively undermines (...) the place of biology in social scientific explanation. Following the principles of methodological individualism, we show how behavioral explanations supported by data and theory from the neurosciences can be used to correct the errors of reificationist thinking in the social sciences. We outline a mechanistic approach to the explanation of human behavior with the hope that the biological sciences will begin to find greater acceptance among social scientists. (shrink)

We show how more general knowledge can be built in information security, by the building of knowledge of mechanism clusters, some of which are multifield. By doing this, we address in a novel way the longstanding philosophical problem of how, if at all, we come to have knowledge that is in any way general, when we seem to be confined to particular experiences. We also address the issue of building knowledge of mechanisms by studying an area that is new to (...) the mechanisms literature: the methods of what we shall call mechanism discovery in information security. This domain offers a fascinating novel constellation of challenges for building more general knowledge. Specifically, the building of stable communicable mechanistic knowledge is impeded by the inherent changeability of software, which is deployed by malicious actors constantly changing how their software attacks, and also by an ineliminable secrecy concerning the details of attacks not just by attackers, but also by information security defenders as they protect their methods from both attackers and commercial competitors. We draw out ideas from the work of the mechanists Darden, Craver, and Glennan to yield an approach to how general knowledge of mechanisms can be painstakingly built. We then use three related examples of active research problems from information security to develop philosophical thinking about building general knowledge using mechanisms, and also apply this to develop insights for information security. We show that further study would be instructive both for practitioners and for philosophers. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that what we ought to do collectively does not imply anything about what each of us ought to do individually. According to this line of reasoning, if cooperating will make no difference to an outcome, then you are not morally required to do it. And if cooperating will be personally costly to you as well, this is an even stronger reason to not do it. However, this reasoning results in a self-defeating, yet entirely predictable outcome. If (...) everyone is rational, no one will cooperate, resulting in an aggregate outcome that is devastating for everyone. This dismal analysis explains why climate change and other collective action problems are so difficult to ameliorate. The goal of this paper is to provide a different, exploratory framework for thinking about individual reasons for action in collective action problems. I argue that the concept of commitment gives us a new perspective on collective action problems. Once we take the structure of commitment into account, this activates requirements of diachronic rationality that give individuals instrumental reasons to cooperate in collective action problems. (shrink)

This paper deals with the highly personal way an individual makes sense of the world in a way that avoids the pitfalls of the so‐called private language. For Wittgenstein following a rule can never mean just following another rule, though we do follow rules blindly. His idea of the ‘form of life’ elicits that ‘what we do’ refers to what we have learnt, to the way in which we have learnt it and to how we have grown to find it (...) self‐evident. But the reference to the ‘bedrock’, to what was originally learnt, is the only kind of situation for which it makes sense to ask whether the meaning of a concept is correctly stated. Dialogue, conversation, and exchange of ideas are the right ways to characterize all the other situations. The challenge of Wittgensteinian philosophy is therefore that of a balance of the individual and the community, of language and the world. His insistence on the third person is countered by the importance he gives to each individual's personal stance: persons must speak for themselves and do what they can do. Given the growing interest for the kind of educational research where the ‘personal’ is focused on, I will try to take up the challenge to see how here as elsewhere ‘language’ works. By making clear what it does for us, it will gradually become clear how this kind of research may itself have to be reinterpreted. (shrink)