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Philosophy of the Social Sciences
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The Realist Approach to Explanatory Mechanisms in Social Science

More than a Heuristic?

Chares Demetriou

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

The mechanism-realist paradigm in the philosophy of science, championed by Mario Bunge and Roy Bhaskar, sets certain expectations for the substantive social-scientific application of the paradigm. To evaluate the application of the paradigm in accomplished substantive research, as well as the potential for future research, I examine the work of Charles Tilly, the exemplary substantive work in the mechanism-realist tradition. Based on this examination, I argue for the usefulness of explanatory mechanisms, provided that they are couched in terms of a heuristic. Such a position is the most reasonable one to adopt given the expectations set by the paradigm in relation to complexity stemming from mechanism interaction and to a notion of causality that is deeper than that acknowledged by empiricism and positivism.

Key Words: mechanisms • social-scientific explanations • Charles Tilly • Mario Bunge • Roy Bhaskar

This version was published on September 1, 2009

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 39, No. 3, 440-462 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0048393108329268
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