Philosophy of the Social Sciences current issue

Economics Imperialism: Concept and Constraints

Maki, U. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

The paper seeks to offer [1] an explication of a concept of economics imperialism, focusing on its epistemic aspects; and [2] criteria for its normative assessment. In regard to [1], the defining notion is that of explanatory unification across disciplinary boundaries. As to [2], three kinds of constraints are proposed. An ontological constraint requires an increased degree of ontological unification in contrast to mere derivational unification. An axiological constraint derives from variation in the perceived relative significance of the facts explained. An epistemological constraint requires strong fallibilism acknowledging a particularly severe epistemic uncertainty and proscribing against over-confident arrogance.

Habermas and the Political Sciences: The Relationship between Theory and Practice1

Pedersen, J. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Jürgen Habermas’s theories have received enormous attention in the public sphere as well as in political science. It is therefore surprising that his method, rational reconstruction, is not more debated. In political science the method is of particular interest because of its ambition to bridge the gap between empirical and normative approaches. In this article the author traces Habermas’s interest in rational reconstruction by going back to his writings on theory and practice and subsequently shows what the method’s main principles are. He then specifies how this methodological conception is used in Habermas’s political theory. Finally, the introduction of an empirical design allows the author to discuss one of the fundamental tensions in Habermas’s approach: the hypotheses arrived at through rational reconstruction are empirical hypotheses but cannot be tested by empirical means.

Why Organizational Ecology Is Not a Darwinian Research Program

Reydon, T. A. C., Scholz, M. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed because organizational ecology theory lacks an evolutionary mechanism that could be identified as the principal cause of organizational diversity. The "evolution" of organizational populations by means of selection, which organizational ecologists put forward as the mechanism responsible for the extant diversity of organizational forms, is not evolution in any proper sense, because organizational populations do not have what it takes to participate in evolutionary processes. This implies that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program and that it cannot explain organizational diversity.

The Realist Approach to Explanatory Mechanisms in Social Science: More than a Heuristic?

Demetriou, C. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

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.

In Defense of Organizational Evolution: A Reply to Reydon and Scholz

Lemos, J. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Organizational ecology applies Darwinian principles of natural selection to understand the evolution of new forms of organizations over time. The idea here is that there are different forms of human organizations, such as different business organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, etc. The growth of new forms of organizations within each of these fields is to be understood in terms of a struggle for existence among organizations with different traits. In a recent article, Reydon and Scholz (2009) argue that this Darwinian view of the evolution of new organizational forms is highly problematic because organizational populations do not exhibit the levels of internal cohesion, isolation, and closure that are necessary for something like Darwinian evolution to occur. In this article, I defend organizational ecology by rebutting the arguments of Reydon and Scholz.

Racism: In Defense of Garcia

Valls, A. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Luc Faucher and Edouard Machery’s recent article in this journal uses evidence from psychological studies to criticize Jorge Garcia’s view of racism. This brief response argues that their critique fails because they misinterpret Garcia’s view and engage in some conceptual equivocation. It also argues that their focus on affect and human psychology is in fact compatible with Garcia’s view of racism as rooted in the human heart. Hence the evidence that they cite should be seen as empirical enrichment of Garcia’s basic view, rather than as evidence against that view.

Shrinking Merton

Turner, S. P. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Agassi, Sztompka, Kincaid, and Crothers argue, in various ways, that Merton should not be held responsible for his published views on theory construction, and they provide psychological or strategic explanations for his failure to resolve issues with these views. I argue that this line of defense is unnecessary. A better case for Merton would be that theories in his middle-range sense were a nontechnical alternative solution to the problem of spurious correlation. Middle-range theory was not, however, a solution to the problem of diverse approaches. Merton also did not resolve the problems with his account of functionalism, and the problems undermine the claim that he had a distinctive "structural" approach all along.

No Dilemma for Pancritical Rationalism: In Response to Hauptli

Rowbottom, D. P. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Hauptli (1991) presents a putative dilemma for Bartley’s (1984) pancritical rationalism that has remained unchallenged. This note sets the record straight by exposing two lacunae in Hauptli’s argument.

Review Essays: Whewell's Philosophy under Dispute

Curtis, R. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

William Whewell tried to explain how scientific knowledge of necessary and certain truth was possible by tracing it to ideas that arose not out of experience but had an independent origin in the mind. Although Whewell has generally been regarded as an a priorist in some sense and as a proponent of hypothetico-deductivism, Snyder tries to show that he can be assimilated to the twentieth-century inductivist mainstream. She fails to make her case, however, in part because she fails to pay sufficient attention to Whewell’s insistence that scientific discovery is beyond the reach of method and always involves happy guesses.

The Advantage of Theft over Honest Toil

Agassi, J. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Gregory Landini offers a new and an illuminating reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea about his own innovation: it is the invention of a notation that removes the mystery from all theorems of logic and of mathematics as it renders their proofs part of their wordings. This makes all theorems in principle as boring as "all four-legged animals are animals." This idea is Wittgenstein’s doctrine of showing. It is worthless; yet, as Landini shows, every time Wittgenstein offered an elaboration on it, Russell checked it carefully and found it of no value. This, let me add, shows that Russell was in error in suggesting that intellectually there is no "advantage of theft over honest toil": at times one may pay back and with high interest. Other cases may be due to misjudgment rather than to sloth.

Book Review: Sawyer, R. Keith. (2005). Social Emergence: Societies as Complex Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Ylikoski, P. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Book Review: Tuomela, Raimo. (2007). The Philosophy of Sociality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press

Wettersten, J. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Book Review: McFalls, Laurence (ed.). (2007). Max Weber's "Objectivity" Reconsidered. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press

Bruun, H. H. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT

Book Review: Ringer, F. (2004). Max Weber: An Intellectual Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Kedar, A. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:03:14 PDT