In the idealized version of science, the enterprise of scientific knowledge discovery follows its own logic without extraneous non-cognitive or non-rational influences. But this is unrealistic. Science is a social activity, conditioned by institutions, governments, and other social forces. So it is worth considering how politics influences the course of science and how these influences …
What was E P Thompson up to?
Let's think about E P Thompson. His 1963 book, Making of the English Working Class, transformed the way that historians on the left conceptualized "social class." But what, precisely, was it about? Whereas other Marxist historians focused particularly on the large structures of capitalism, Thompson's eye was turned to the specific and often surprising details …
Social science and social problems
Several of the interviews that I’ve conducted in recent weeks have agreed on an important point: that the social sciences ought to be directed towards addressing important social problems, and that the research agenda for social science ought to be influenced or shaped by the constituencies in society who are most affected by these social …
Agent-based modeling as social explanation
Logical positivism favored a theory of scientific explanation that focused on subsumption under general laws. We explain an outcome by identifying one or more general laws, a set of boundary conditions, and a derivation of the outcome from these statements. A second and competing theory of scientific explanation can be called "causal realism." On this …
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"Folk" sociology
All of us are sociologists, at some level. We have social concepts in terms of which we analyze the social world around us -- "boss," "working class guy," "politician," "evangelical", "millennial generation". (Stereotypes of groups defined in terms of race and class probably fall in that category.) We operate on the basis of stylized schemata …
A normative aspect to power
It sometimes seems as though there is a normative dimension to our concept of power. What if we defined "power" in these terms: an agent exercises power when he/she undertakes to compel individuals or groups to act in ways they prefer not to act, against their interests and without the justification of a legitimate state …
Structure, psychology, power
Political and social power involves the exercise of social resources to compel various kinds of unwilling behavior by others. What creates power in society? What are the sorts of social and structural factors that permit individuals to exercise power? And what features of personality lead a given individual to choose to use the instruments of …
Large social forces?
We often analyze the world around us in terms of large social forces and trends -- globalization, the rise of ethnic identities, the spread of global capitalism, the rise of China as a coming super-power. These large forces are the "folk theories" through which we try to make sense of the world as it changes …
Social progress in India?
How much social progress has India made since Independence sixty years ago? According to economist V. K. Ramachandran, not very much when it comes to life in the countryside. (Hear my interview with Ramachandran on iTunes and on my web page.) Ramachandran gives a profile of the social problems faced by India at the time …
Reasoning about agents
Rational choice theory usually advances a highly abstract theory of decision-making -- utility-maximizing choice among discrete options -- and then draws deductive conclusions. But actual human reasoners don't look much like this abstract ideal. It is interesting to consider how much one can explain while weakening the heroic assumptions about agent rationality. It turns out …
Understanding Society 