There is a long history of the use of directed causal diagrams to represent hypotheses about causation. Can the mathematics and graphical systems created for statistical causal modeling be adapted to represent and evaluate hypotheses about causal mechanisms and outcomes? In the causal modeling literature the structure of a causal hypothesis is something like this: …
Causal concepts
source: D. Little, “Causal Explanation in the Social Sciences,” Southern Journal of Philosophy (1995) (link) It may be useful to provide a brief account of some of the key ideas that are often invoked in causal explanations in the social sciences. (Here is an earlier post that summarized some current issues in causation research; link. And …
Causal inference and random trials
image: Tamil Nadu nutrition study Nancy Cartwright has spent much of her career probing the assumptions scientists make about causation. She has helped to demonstrate that the Humean assumptions about causation that philosophers (including Carl Hempel) carried into twentieth century philosophy of science don't come close to answering the question correctly, and she has provided …
Causal realism for sociology
The subject of causal explanation in the social sciences has been a recurring thread here (thread). Here are some summary thoughts about social causation. First, there is such a thing as social causation. Causal realism is a defensible position when it comes to the social world: there are real social relations among social factors (structures, …
The historian’s task
What are the intellectual tasks that define the historian's work? In a sense, this question is best answered on the basis of a careful reading of some good historians. But it will be useful to offer several simple answers to this foundational question as a sort of conceptual map of the nature of historical knowing. …
MacIntyre and Taylor on the human sciences
There is a conception of social explanation that provides a common starting point for quite a few theories and approaches in a range of the social sciences. I'll call it the "rational, material, structural" paradigm. It looks at the task of social science as the discovery of explanations of social outcomes; and it brings an …
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Many small causes
When large historical events occur, we often want to know the causes that brought them about. And we often look at the world as if these causes too ought to be large, identifiable historical factors or forces. Big outcomes ought to have big, simple causes. But what if sometimes the historical reality is significantly different …
Subsistence ethic as a causal factor
In his pathbreaking 1976 book, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, James Scott offers an explanation of popular politics based on the idea of a broadly shared "subsistence ethic" among the underclass people of Vietnam and Malaysia. Earlier postings (hidden transcripts, moral economy) have discussed several aspects of Scott's …
Causal difference
Source: Federica Russo, Causality and Causal Modelling in the Social Sciences, p. 164 I've recently read a very interesting recent book by Federica Russo, Causality and Causal Modelling in the Social Sciences: Measuring Variations (Methodos Series) on the philosophical issues that arise in causal reasoning about social phenomena. Russo is obviously a talented and dedicated …
A range of causal questions
In considering important issues in the philosophy of the special sciences, I think it is always helpful to consider a variety of the kinds of intellectual challenges that arise in the area. This gives the philosopher something to work with -- not simply an apriori specification of an issue, but a nuanced set of examples. …
Understanding Society 