The topics of microfoundations and causal mechanisms have come up frequently in this work. The microfoundations thesis maintains that social attributions and explanations based on macro-level entities and structures depend upon pathways at the level of the individual actors through which the entities and processes are maintained. The causal mechanisms thesis maintains that the best …
A survey of agent-based models
Federico Bianchi and Flaminio Squazzoni have published a very useful survey of the development and uses of agent-based models in the social sciences over the past twenty-five years in WIREs Comput Stat 2015 (link). The article is a very useful reference and discussion for anyone interested in the applicability of ABM within sociology. Here …
Range of reactions to realism about the social world
My recent post on realism in the social realm generated quite a bit of commentary, which I'd like to address here. Brad Delong offered an incredulous response -- he seems to think that any form of scientific realism is ridiculous (link). He refers to the predictive success of Ptolemy's epicycles, and then says, "But just …
Continue reading "Range of reactions to realism about the social world"
M I Finley on the dynamics of the Roman Empire
One of the books I found influential in graduate school in philosophy was M. I. Finley's The Ancient Economy, which appeared in 1973. Finley's book sought to explain important parts of the Roman world by piecing together the best knowledge available about the economic relations that defined its socioeconomic foundation. And the book proposes to consider …
Continue reading "M I Finley on the dynamics of the Roman Empire"
The case for realism in the social realm
Image. Orderly chaos in flight path of ocean-foraging albatross The case for scientific realism in the case of physics, microbiology, and chemistry is a strong one. The theories of physics, biology, and chemistry postulate unobservable entities, forces, and properties. These hypotheses are specified in a fair degree of precision. They are not individually testable, because …
Guest post by Doug Porpora on social structures
Here is a response to my earlier post on social ontology and structure from Doug Porpora, professor of sociology, Drexel University. Doug is the author of Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach. Thanks, Doug, for this thoughtful and considered reflection! FROM DOUG PORPORA: I have four comments in response. First, while I am happy to stand …
Continue reading "Guest post by Doug Porpora on social structures"
A flat social reality?
I've been inclined to talk about the social world in terms of levels or layers, with a few provisos -- multiple layers, causation across layers, fuzzy boundaries (link, link). But is this perhaps a misleading ontology? Would we be better served by thinking of the social world as "flat" -- involving processes and relations all …
Niiniluoto on scientific realism
Debates over realism have been at the center of the philosophy of science for at least seventy-five years. The fundamental question is this: what exists in the world? And how do we best gain knowledge about the nature and properties of these real things? The first question is metaphysical, while the second is epistemic. Scientific …
Critical realism and social heterogeneity
Is the metaphysics of critical realism compatible with the idea of a highly heterogeneous social world? Here is what I mean by heterogeneity in this context. First social causation is inherently multiple, with many kinds and tempos of social causation at work. It is therefore crucial that we avoid the impulse to reduce social change …
Continue reading "Critical realism and social heterogeneity"
Social construction of technical knowledge
After there was the sociology of knowledge (link), before there was a new sociology of knowledge (link), and more or less simultaneous with science and technology studies (link), there was Paul Rabinow's excellent ethnography of the invention of the key tool in recombinant DNA research -- PCR (polymerase chain reaction). Rabinow's monograph Making PCR: A …
Continue reading "Social construction of technical knowledge"
Understanding Society 