"Crisply written, comprehensive and packed with examples, Mark Risjord's new Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction is a wonderful achievement. What is most remarkable is how deeply the philosophical account is embedded in and informed by contemporary empirical work in behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology and cognitive science; to pull this off without sacrificing accessibility is something of a miracle. This is just what philosophy of social science should be and both teacher and student will benefit accordingly."
-Lee McIntyre, Boston University
"This book is a rare accomplishment-it is comprehensive, judicious, and clear. It is comprehensive in its coverage of the central issues in the philosophy of social science and thorough in its treatment of the central responses to each of these issues. It is judicious in that it provides a careful and sympathetic exposition of the various positions, and gives motivated ways of thinking about the relevant debate. It is clear, so that the reader is not unnecessarily tired by the dialectic. It reflects both traditional issues in the philosophy of social science and recent developments in the field. Both initiates and veteran investigators in the philosophy of science can benefit from reading it. It will provide a standard against which general texts in the philosophy of social science will be judged. I must say that I am very happy with the result, and I plan to use this book in my classes and recommend it to others."
-David Henderson, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
1. Introduction
1.1. What is the Philosophy of Social Science?
The Democratic Peace
Azande Witchcraft
Freedom Riders and Free Riders
Philosophy in the Social Sciences
1.2. A Tour of the Philosophical Neighborhood
Normativity
Naturalism
Reductionism
Excelsior!
2. Objectivity, Values, and the Possibility of a Social Science
2.1. The Ideal of Value-Freedom
The United States Census
Dimensions of Value-Freedom
A Moderate Thesis of Value-Freedom
2.2. Impartiality and Theory Choice
Risk and Error
What About Objectivity?
2.3. Essentially Contested Ideas
Value-Neutrality and Emancipatory Research
Objection: Values and the Logic of Discovery
Value Presuppositions and Implicatures
2.4. Wrap up
Chapter Summary
Discussion Questions
Further Reading
3. Theories, Interpretations, and Concepts
3.1. Aggression, Violence, and Video Games
3.2. Defining theoretical concepts
3.3. Interpretivism
3.4. Realism and Social Concepts
3.5. Wrap up
4. Interpretive Methodology
4.1. Evidence for Interpretation
4.2. Rationality, Explanation, and Interpretive Charity
4.3. Cognition, Evolution, and Interpretation
4.4. Wrap up
5. Action and Agency
5.1. Explaining Action
5.2. The Games People Play
5.3. Agency
5.4. Wrap up
6. Reductionism: Structures, Agents, and Evolution
6.1. Explaining Revolutions
6.2. Social Theory and Social Ontology
6.3. Agents and Social Explanations
6.4. Evolutionary Explanations
6.5. Wrap up
7. Social Norms
7.1. Disenchanting the social world
7.2. Norms and Rational Choices
7.3. Normativity and Practice
7.4. Reductionism and Naturalized Normativity
7.5. Wrap up
8. Intentions, Institutions, and Collective Action
8.1. Agency and Collective Intentionality
8.2. Joint Intentionality
8.3. Intentions and Institutions
8.4. Wrap up
9. Causality and Law in the Social World
9.1. The Democratic Peace Hypothesis
9.2. Are There Social Scientific Laws?
9.3. Conceptualizing Causation
9.4. Models and Mechanisms
9.5. Wrap up
10. Methodologies of Causal Inference
10.1. Bayesian Networks and Causal Modeling
10.2. Case Studies and Causal Structure
10.3. Experimentation
10.4. Extrapolation and Social Engineering
10.5. Wrap up