The social sciences consist of a variety of disciplines, subject areas, and methods, and there is no reason to expect that these disciplines will eventually add up to a single unified theory of society. Political science, sociology, history, anthropology, economics, geography, and area studies all provide their own, largely independent, definitions of scope, research agenda, …
What kind of knowledge can philosophy offer?
Let us say that knowledge is "a set of true statements based on compelling reasons." (This is the same as the familiar definition of knowledge as "justified true belief".) Philosophers offer a variety of claims, and they offer arguments for their positions. But do they offer knowledge about anything? Is it possible to say that …
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What is a social structure?
Are there such things as "social structures"? In what do they consist? What sorts of social powers do they exercise? Consider a few candidates: the global trading system, the Federal government, the Chinese peasantry of the 1930s, the English class system, the Indian marriage system, race in the United States, the city of Chicago. Are …
How does rational choice theory relate to social facts and individual psychology?
Rational choice theory is a mid-level theory of human agency, intended to capture core features of human decision-making in order to provide a basis for abstract and generalized theories of the dynamics of various areas of social behavior. The disciplines of political science and economics make particularly extensive use of versions of rational choice theory …
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Why are tastes and aversions beyond rational control?
Rational choice theory is a powerful foundation for thinking about social behavior (at least in its moderate versions). People have beliefs and goals; they survey the environment of choice and they arrive at actions that are intelligently related to the achievement of their goals. However, as an exclusive, abstract description of human behavior, rational choice …
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Basis for the social science disciplines
Is there a reason or rationale underlying the scope and methods of the social science disciplines? Or is the current division of the subject matter arbitrary and contingent on accidents in the history of thought (as perhaps Michel Foucault believes in The Archeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language)? There are abbreviated definitions of …
Are social facts reducible to something?
What is the relationship between facts about society and facts about individuals? Reducibility means that the statements of one scientific discipline should be logically deducible from the truths of some other "more fundamental" discipline. It is sometimes maintained that the truths of chemistry ought in principle be derivable from those of quantum mechanics. A field …
How does transportation function as a mid-range social cause?
Transportation systems function to move people, goods, and ideas. Rail systems, road networks, airline systems, and water transport provide links between places that permit more reliable and low-cost movement of people and goods from point to point than previously available. The history of transportation is simultaneously a history of technology change, population movement, colonialism, economic …
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Varieties of social causation
What are some chief mechanisms through which social behavior is shaped and social outcomes are caused? Ideally the best answer to this question would result from a survey or inventory of many explanations. But consider some high level possibilities that could serve as a causal mechanism bringing about a social phenomenon of interest. Selection mechanisms. …
A simple sociology
What is involved in providing a scientific study of society--a scientific sociology? Several features of science are crucial. Scientific claims are intended to be true and rationally supportable. Scientific knowledge is based on empirical research and rigorous reasoning. Science provides a basis for explaining the phenomena it considers. And science depends upon the idea of …
Understanding Society 