Let's say we've absorbed the anti-positivism argued many times here -- sociology should not be modeled on the natural sciences, we shouldn't expect social phenomena to have the homogeneity and consistency characteristic of natural phenomena, and we shouldn't expect to find social laws. What remains for the intellectual task of post-positivist sociology? What do we …
Scientific realism for the social sciences
What is involved in taking a realist approach to social science knowledge? Most generally, realism involves the view that at least some of the assertions of a field of knowledge make true statements about the properties of unobservable things, processes, and states in the domain of study. Several important philosophers of science have taken up this …
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"Theory" in sociology
What is a sociological theory? And how does it relate to the challenge of providing explanations of social facts? In the natural sciences the answer to this question is fairly clear. A theory is a hypothesis about one or more entities or processes and a specification of their operations and interactions. A theory is articulated …
Scott’s social imagination
Image: Le Corbusier, Paris plan What is most remarkable about Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is the texture and grain of the argument that Scott makes. This is a high-resolution argument that leaves little to doubt. The guiding thesis is original and striking enough -- that …
The inexact science of economics
Image: social accounting matrix, Bolivia, 1997 Economics is an "inexact" science; or so Daniel Hausman argues in The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics (Google Books link). As it implies, this description conveys that economic laws have only a loose fit with observed economic behavior. Here are the loosely related interpretations that Hausman offers for …
The disciplines of economics
Economics is sometimes presented as the most "scientific" of the social science disciplines. It is mathematical, it involves sophisticated models, it makes use of enormous data sets, and it is invoked in the formulation of social and economic policies in much the way that the science of mechanics is invoked in the building of bridges. …
Separate social worlds
It is an interesting and important fact that most of us live our lives on orbits that seldom intersect with the orbits of some other categories of people in society. The boundaries of our social worlds are often marked by major forms of social separation -- race, income, residence, work, region, or age. And this …
What makes a sociological theory compelling?
In the humanities it is a given that assertions and arguments have a certain degree of rational force, but that ultimately, reasonable people may differ about virtually every serious claim. An interpretation of Ulysses, an argument for a principle of distributive justice, or an attribution of certain of Shakespeare's works to Christopher Marlowe -- each …
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Merton’s sociology of science
The organized study of "science" as an epistemic practice and a knowledge product has taken at least three major forms in the past century: the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the sociology of science. Philosophers have been primarily interested in the logic of scientific inquiry and the rational force of scientific knowledge. …
Current historical sociology: George Steinmetz
http://www.youtube.com/p/9565EDA9C3488652&hl=en_US&fs=1 George Steinmetz, professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, is a leading scholar in the contemporary field of historical sociology. His most recent book is The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa, and his volume The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and …
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