Download “philosophy of social science”? - University of Michigan–Dearborn

The
Heterogeneous
Social
Daniel Little
University of Michigan-Dearborn
Section 1. Challenges facing
Chinese social science research

A time of paradigm transition
 The challenge of China’s rapid social
change
 An inventory of change
 A new sociology for China
 The need for a post-positivist social
science in China
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Section 2. Why the “philosophy
of social science”?

Why do we need a philosophy of social
science?
 What are the foundational questions?
 How should we pursue a philosophy of
social science?
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What is the philosophy of social
science?

Careful, analytical treatment of the most
basic problems that arise in the study of
society and social behavior
 Major areas of question include ontology,
methodology, theory, and explanation
 The social sciences are more difficult than
the natural sciences
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Some guiding questions for
philosophy of social science
What is the nature of the “social”?
 How can we investigate social properties
and structures?
 What makes a study “scientific”?
 What is the role of social theory in
explaining the social world?

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A method for philosophy of
science

Some philosophers approach these questions on
the basis of purely philosophical assumptions
 A better approach is to engage with working social
scientists and uncover the conceptual and
methodological problems they are confronted
with.
 Use philosophical skills of reasoning and analysis
to clarify these issues.
 There is no “master theory” of science that covers
all the sciences.
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Section 3. Current discussions of
the social sciences

Many reflective social scientists have called
for a rethinking of the foundations of the
social sciences.
 Philosophers can learn from these debates.
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Comparative historical sociology





Study large historical structures (Theda Skocpol)
Small-N research: a limited range of carefully
chosen cases
Seek out historical causes by comparing similar
historical processes in different settings
Historical process is contingent and pathdependent
The study of revolutions, corruption, collective
action, and social welfare systems
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Social causal mechanisms

Social change occurs through concrete
social causal mechanisms (Charles Tilly)
 It is a legitimate social science research goal
to attempt to uncover the social mechanisms
at work in particular cases.
 Example: the effects of free-rider behavior
in the provision of collective goods
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Case study methodology

A research strategy aimed at discovery of
causal mechanisms through detailed study
of individual historical cases.
 Process-tracing: “the attempt to trace the
links between possible causes and observed
outcomes” (George and Bennett).
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New institutionalism

New emphasis on the causal role that
institutions play in social process
 Detailed studies of the particulars of some
social institutions through which social
behavior is structured.
 Example: rules defining liability for grazing
animals (Shasta County)
 Example: different technology regimes in
different countries lead to very different
implementation of technology like railroads
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Social ontology

New efforts to provide a better framework
for defining social entities (Andrew Abbott)
 Do social things have fixed, permanent
properties?
 Or are they malleable and flexible, changing
substantially over time?
 “A social entity is not a fixed thing with
permanent properties.… It is rather a
continuing swirl of linked social activities.”
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The cultural turn

New recognition of the causal role played by
cultural differences: norms, practices, attitudes,
beliefs.
 The value of turning to some of the tools of
ethnography to study subjects not usually
considered by anthropologists -- e.g. industrial
change.
 “Culture is a feature of all social life, and every
area of social science research needs the
theoretical ability to analyze the role of culture.”
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Quantitative social science

It is crucial that we understand the presuppositions
that are made in applying various statistical tools
to social data.
 The logic of experimentation is difficult or
impossible to reproduce in the area of social
research, and “quasi-experimentation” does not
serve the same function.
 Conclusions about causation based on discovery
of correlations must be provided with theories of
the underlying social causal mechanisms.
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Section 4. A philosophy of
social science

Summary - Methodological localism
 Microfoundations
thesis

The importance of causal mechanisms
 The lack of strong social regularities and
generalizations
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Section 4.1. Methodological
localism

How does the social world work? I offer a
social ontology I refer to as “Methodological
Localism”.
 The “molecule” of all social life is the socially
constructed and socially situated individual,
who lives and acts within a set of local social
relationships.
 There are large social structures; but these are
only possible insofar as they are embodied in
the actions and states of socially constructed
individuals.
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Battle of the Overpass
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Ontology and methodology

We need a defensible ontology of the social
world before we can intelligently choose
methods and theories.
 The ontology doesn’t dictate how we
conduct research; but it places constraints
on the nature of the theories and methods
we use.
 ML does not entail that our methods of
research need to proceed from the local to
the macro.
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Microfoundations for social
processes

An assertion of a structure or process at the
macro-social level must be supplemented by



Knowledge about what it is about the local
circumstances of choice of individuals that leads
them to act in such a way as to bring about the
macro-structure;
Knowledge of the aggregative processes that lead
from individual actions to the macro-event or
structure
We must be able to envision the pathways by
which socially constituted individuals are
influenced by distant social conditions.
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Four large areas of questions
for the social sciences
 what makes individual agents tick?

accounts or mechanisms of choice and action at the level of the
individual; performative action, rational action, impulse, ...
 how are individuals formed and constituted?


accounts of social development, acquisition of preferences,
worldview, moral frameworks.
How are individuals situated?

institutions, incentives, constraints
 how are individual agents' actions aggregated to meso
and macro level?

social mechanisms aggregating individual actions
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…
 These areas of research combine to give
upward and downward social influence. Social
institutions and facts influence agents; and
agents' actions influence institutions and
outcomes.
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Advantages of methodological
localism

The approach represents a limited social
ontology.
 The approach avoids reification: the
postulation of permanent “essences”
corresponding to our concepts.
 Localism provides an intellectual
foundation for almost all forms of social
research.
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Section 4.2. Causal mechanisms

Social explanation depends on the discovery of
underlying causal mechanisms giving rise to
outcomes of interest.
 There are many kinds of social causal
mechanisms. Examnple: free-rider behavior
 Explanation does not reduce to the discovery of
regularities; instead, the discovery of causal
mechanisms explains the regularities.
 Social outcomes are highly contingent and
path-dependent.
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The nature of social causal
mechanisms

The causal properties of social entities derive
from the structured circumstances of agency of
the individuals who make up social entities.
 “Agency” and “structure” are fundamental,
and each underlies and constrains the other.
 Social causes work through the influence of
patterns of social behavior on individual
actions, beliefs, values, and choices (microfoundations thesis)
 All “macro-” causation must be grounded in
facts about local agents.
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Section 4.3. Generalizations
and predictions

Some social scientists and philosophers believe
that scientific knowledge is inseparable from
the discovery of strong general laws.
 The laws of planetary motion govern the
motions of the planets; the laws of gravitation
explain the laws of planetary motion.
 “Naturalism” is the view of the social sciences
that insists on the analogies between the social
and natural sciences.
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Social contingency

Naturalism is a bad model for the social
sciences.
 Social outcomes are the result of individual
actions and the contingent properties of specific
social arrangements.
 So we should not expect strong regularities or
“laws of nature” in the domain of social
phenomena.
 We will find “weak” regularities; but these
derives entirely from the common features of
agency within structure.
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Prediction?





Social regularities “emerge” rather than
“govern”.
Does science support prediction?
My view is that the social sciences provide only
very weak grounds for making predictions
about future social outcomes.
The regularities that the social sciences
discover are weak and conditional.
The entities and structures of the social world
are plastic and changeable.
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Prediction and explanation

Both explanation and limited prediction
in the social sciences depend on our
ability to identify causal mechanisms
within the social process.
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Section 5. Conclusion

The social sciences need a better social
ontology.
 The natural sciences do not provide a
good analogy for the social sciences.
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A “post-positivist” theory for
the social sciences

Contingency
 Causal mechanisms
 The centrality of socially-constituted local
actors in all social explanation
 The diversity of the social world
 The multiplicity of the methods of
inquiry and explanation that the social
sciences can employ.
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Wreck at Montparnasse
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END
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