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  1. From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    Several of these essays have been printed whole in journals; others are in varying degrees new. Two main themes run through them. One is the problem of meaning, particularly as involved in the notion of an analytic statement. The other is the notion of ontological, commitment, particularly as involved in the problem of universals.
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  • The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby - 1992 - Oxford University Press. Edited by Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby.
    Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...
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  • Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science.Ian Hacking - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This 1983 book is a lively and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of natural science, organized around the central theme of scientific realism. It has two parts. 'Representing' deals with the different philosophical accounts of scientific objectivity and the reality of scientific entities. The views of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Putnam, van Fraassen, and others, are all considered. 'Intervening' presents the first sustained treatment of experimental science for many years and uses it to give a new direction to debates about (...)
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  • Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science.Carl Gustav Hempel - 1965 - New York: The Free Press.
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  • Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.
    The concept of mechanism is analyzed in terms of entities and activities, organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Examples show how mechanisms work in neurobiology and molecular biology. Thinking in terms of mechanisms provides a new framework for addressing many traditional philosophical issues: causality, laws, explanation, reduction, and scientific change.
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  • (1 other version)Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes.Paul M. Churchland - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (2):67-90.
    Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...)
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  • Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science.Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.) - 1999 - Cambridge University Press.
    Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide instruments for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework which covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they (...)
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  • (2 other versions)The possibility of naturalism: a philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences.Roy Bhaskar - 1998 - New York: Routledge.
    Since its original publication in 1979, The Possibility of Naturalism has been one of the most influential works in contemporary philosophy of science and social science. It is a cornerstone of the critical realist position, which is now widely seen as offering a viable alternative to move positivism and postmodernism. This revised edition includes a new foreword.
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  • Aspects of scientific explanation.Carl G. Hempel - 1965 - In Carl Gustav Hempel (ed.), Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: The Free Press. pp. 504.
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  • Essays in Positive Economics.Milton Friedman - 1953 - University of Chicago Press.
    There is not, of course, a one-to-one relation between policy conclusions and the conclusions of positive economics; if there were, there would be no ...
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  • Explanation: a mechanist alternative.William Bechtel & Adele Abrahamsen - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36 (2):421-441.
    Explanations in the life sciences frequently involve presenting a model of the mechanism taken to be responsible for a given phenomenon. Such explanations depart in numerous ways from nomological explanations commonly presented in philosophy of science. This paper focuses on three sorts of differences. First, scientists who develop mechanistic explanations are not limited to linguistic representations and logical inference; they frequently employ diagrams to characterize mechanisms and simulations to reason about them. Thus, the epistemic resources for presenting mechanistic explanations are (...)
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  • Mind, self and society.George H. Mead - 1934 - Chicago, Il.
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  • From a Logical Point of View.Richard M. Martin - 1955 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 (4):574-575.
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  • The Structure of Social Action [1937].Talcott Parsons - 1937 - Free Press.
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  • (1 other version)Aspects of Scientific Explanation.Asa Kasher - 1965 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 37 (4):747-749.
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  • (1 other version)Social Theory and Social Structure.Lawrence Haworth - 1961 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 11 (44):345-346.
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  • The Methodology of Positive Economics.Milton Friedman - 1953 - In Essays in Positive Economics. University of Chicago Press. pp. 3-43.
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  • (1 other version)Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes.Paul Churchland - 2003 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science.Davis Baird - 1988 - Noûs 22 (2):299-307.
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  • Foundations of Social Theory.James Samuel Coleman - 1990 - Belknap Press.
    Combining principles of individual rational choice with a sociological conception of collective action, James Coleman recasts social theory in a bold new way. The result is a landmark in sociological theory, capable of describing both stability and change in social systems. This book provides for the first time a sound theoretical foundation for linking the behavior of individuals to organizational behavior and then to society as a whole. The power of the theory is especially apparent when Coleman analyzes corporate actors, (...)
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  • Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science.Philip Mirowski - 2001 - Cambridge University Press.
    This was the first cross-over book into the history of science written by an historian of economics. It shows how 'history of technology' can be integrated with the history of economic ideas. The analysis combines Cold War history with the history of postwar economics in America and later elsewhere, revealing that the Pax Americana had much to do with abstruse and formal doctrines such as linear programming and game theory. It links the literature on 'cyborg' to economics, an element missing (...)
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  • More is different.P. W. Anderson - 1994 - In H. Gutfreund & G. Toulouse (eds.), Biology and Computation: A Physicist's Choice. World Scientific. pp. 3--21.
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  • Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.John Von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern - 1944 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
    This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry (...)
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  • From a Logical Point of View.Willard Orman Quine - 1953 - Harvard University Press.
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  • Behavior: the Control of Perception.William Treval Powers - 1973 - Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
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  • Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach.Margaret S. Archer - 1995 - Cambridge University Press.
    Margaret Archer develops here her morphogenetic approach, heralded in Culture and Agency (CUP, 1988), and applies it to the problem of structure and agency, that is, how we both shape society and are shaped by it. Her aim is to capture the interplay between these two processes rather than collapse them into one, as has been the case with the traditional competing individualist and collectivist methodologies. The morphogenetic approach offers a new understanding of social change and poses a direct challenge (...)
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  • Some reductive strategies in cognitive neurobiology.Paul M. Churchland - 1986 - Mind 95 (July):279-309.
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  • Mechanism and explanation.Mario Bunge - 1997 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 27 (4):410-465.
    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 (...)
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  • Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.John von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern - 1944 - Science and Society 9 (4):366-369.
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  • A framework for the unification of the behavioral sciences.Herbert Gintis - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (1):1-16.
    The various behavioral disciplines model human behavior in distinct and incompatible ways. Yet, recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for rendering coherent the areas of overlap of the various behavioral disciplines. The analytical tools deployed in this task incorporate core principles from several behavioral disciplines. The proposed framework recognizes evolutionary theory, covering both genetic and cultural evolution, as the integrating principle of behavioral science. Moreover, if decision theory and game theory are broadened to encompass other-regarding preferences, they (...)
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  • Models as Mediating Instruments.Margaret Morrison & Mary S. Morgan - 1999 - In Mary S. Morgan & Margaret Morrison (eds.), Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge University Press.
    Morrison and Morgan argue for a view of models as 'mediating instruments' whose role in scientific theorising goes beyond applying theory. Models are partially independent of both theories and the world. This autonomy allows for a unified account of their role as instruments that allow for exploration of both theories and the world.
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  • Transcending general linear reality.Andrew Abbott - 1988 - Sociological Theory 6 (2):169-186.
    This paper argues that the dominance of linear models has led many sociologists to construe the social world in terms of a "general linear reality." This reality assumes (1) that the social world consists of fixed entities with variable attributes, (2) that cause cannot flow from "small" to "large" attributes/events, (3) that causal attributes have only one causal pattern at once, (4) that the sequence of events does not influence their outcome, (5) that the "careers" of entities are largely independent, (...)
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  • Four concepts of social structure Douglas V. Porpora.Douglas V. Porpora - 1989 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 19 (2):195–211.
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  • Some non-reasons for non-realism about economics.Uskali Maki - 2002 - In Uskali Mäki (ed.), Fact and Fiction in Economics: Models, Realism and Social Construction. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 90.
    Many participants in the debate over the current state and recent developments of economics make claims that are unrefined, simplistic, often exaggerated. This is understandable: the stakes are high, the issues trigger emotional responses, and few participants are motivated or equipped to seek more nuanced analyses. To assert, or to deny, that economics as a scientific discipline or a particular part of it (such as a model) is about reality – or refers to reality, represents it, is true about it, (...)
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  • Where did economics go wrong? Modern economics as a flight from reality.Peter J. Boettke - 1997 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 11 (1):11-64.
    F. A. Hayek's realistic economic theory has been replaced by the formalistic use of equlibrium models that bear little resemblance to reality. These models are as serviceable to the right as to the left: they allow the economist either to condemn capitalism for failing to measure up to the model of perfect competition, or to praise capitalism as a utopia of perfect knowledge and rational expectations. Hayek, by contrast, used equilibrium to show that while capitalism is not perfect, it contains (...)
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  • (1 other version)Concept and theory formation in the social sciences.Alfred Schutz - 1954 - Journal of Philosophy 51 (9):257-273.
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  • Fact and Fiction in Economics: Models, Realism and Social Construction.Uskali Mäki (ed.) - 2002 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    There is an embarrassing polarization of opinions about the status of economics as an academic discipline, as reflected in epithets such as the Dismal Science and the Queen of the Social Sciences. This collection brings together some of the leading figures in the methodology and philosophy of economics to provide a thoughtful and balanced overview of the current state of debate about the nature and limits of economic knowledge. Authors with partly rival and partly complementary perspectives examine how abstract models (...)
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  • (1 other version)Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences.A. Schütz - 2003 - Filozofia 58:347-359.
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  • How is Society Possible?Georg Simmel - 1910 - American Journal of Sociology 16 (3):372-391.
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  • The weight of simplicity in the construction and assaying of scientific theories.Mario Bunge - 1961 - Philosophy of Science 28 (2):120-149.
    One of the most difficult and interesting problems of rational decision is the choice among possible diverging paths in theory construction and among competing scientific theories—i.e., systems of accurate testable hypotheses. This task involves many beliefs—some warranted and others not as warranted—and marks decisive crossroads. Suffice to recall the current conflict between the general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravitation that account for the same empirical evidence, the rivalry among different interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the variety of (...)
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  • "Mirror neurons," collective objects and the problem of transmission: Reconsidering Stephen Turner's critique of practice theory.Omar Lizardo - 2007 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37 (3):319–350.
    In this paper, I critically examine Stephen Turner's critique of practice theory in light of recent neurophysiological discoveries regarding the “mirror neuron system” in the pre-frontal mo-tor cortex of humans and other primates. I argue that two of Turner's strongest objections against the sociological version of the practice-theoretical account, the problem of transmission and the problem of sameness, are substantially undermined when examined from the perspective of re-cently systematized accounts of embodied learning and intersubjective action understanding in-spired by these developments. (...)
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  • Evolutionary psychology: The emperor's new paradigm.David J. Buller - 2005 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9 (6):277-283.
    For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue (...)
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  • Chaos of Disciplines.Andrew Abbott - 2001 - University of Chicago Press.
    This work presents analysis of the evolution and development of the social sciences. It reconsiders how knowledge actually changes and advances. Challenging the accepted belief that social sciences are in a perpetual state of progress, this work contends that there is a core set of principles.
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  • Simulating organizational decision-making using a cognitively realistic agent model.Ron Sun - manuscript
    Most of the work in agent-based social simulation has assumed highly simplified agent models, with little attention being paid to the details of individual cognition. Here, in an effort to counteract that trend, we substitute a realistic cognitive agent model (CLARION) for the simpler models previously used in an organizational design task. On that basis, an exploration is made of the interaction between the cognitive parameters that govern individual agents, the placement of agents in different organizational structures, and the performance (...)
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  • The Pure and the Applied: Bourbakism Comes to Mathematical Economics.E. Roy Weintraub & Philip Mirowski - 1994 - Science in Context 7 (2):245-272.
    The ArgumentIn the minds of many, the Bourbakist trend in mathematics was characterized by pursuit of rigor to the detriment of concern for applications or didactic concessions to the nonmathematician, which would seem to render the concept of a Bourbakist incursion into a field of applied mathematices an oxymoron. We argue that such a conjuncture did in fact happen in postwar mathematical economics, and describe the career of Gérard Debreu to illustrate how it happened. Using the work of Leo Corry (...)
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  • Structural social psychology and the micro-macro problem.Edward J. Lawler, Cecilia Ridgeway & Barry Markovsky - 1993 - Sociological Theory 11 (3):268-290.
    A unique multilevel perspective-structural social psychology-is explicated to help build theoretical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors (human or corporate) as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent processes. Applying these assumptions, we illustrate the ability of the (...)
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  • Luhmann, N. Social Systems. [REVIEW]N. Luhmann, John Bednarz & Dirk Baecker - 1998 - Human Studies 21 (2):227-234.
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  • Time Matters: On Theory and Method.Andrew Abbott - 2001 - University of Chicago Press.
    What do variables really tell us? When exactly do inventions occur? Why do we always miss turning points as they transpire? When does what doesn't happen mean as much, if not more, than what does? Andrew Abbott considers these fascinating questions in Time Matters, a diverse series of essays that constitutes the most extensive analysis of temporality in social science today. Ranging from abstract theoretical reflection to pointed methodological critique, Abbott demonstrates the inevitably theoretical character of any methodology. Time Matters (...)
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  • Principles of theoretical analysis.Guillermina Jasso - 1988 - Sociological Theory 6 (1):1-20.
    This paper considers the goals and methods of theoretical sociology. The chief goal of theoretical work is a theory in two parts-postulates and predictions-the key challenge being to minimize the number of postulates and maximize the number and variety of predictions. The paper discusses the distinctive character of the sentences in each part of the theory and, in light of that bipartite structure, the two main activities of theoretical analysis: (i) speculative thinking, whereby the theorist identifies the starting ideas for (...)
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  • 10 Truthlikeness and economic theories.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2002 - In Uskali Mäki (ed.), Fact and Fiction in Economics: Models, Realism and Social Construction. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 214.
    In a series of carefully argued and stimulating papers on realism, Usakli Maki has pointed out that economic theories typically are unrealistic in two senses: by violating "the-whole-truth" and "nothing-but-the-truth" (Maki 1989, 1992b, 1994b). He suggests that realism in economics can still be rescued by regarding theories as partially true descriptions of essences and as lawlike statements about tendencies. In this chapter, I defend realism by an alternative strategy: idealizational (or "isolational") statements are counterfactual conditional (Niiniluoto 1986), and the concepts (...)
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