PLEASE NOTE this is a sample reading list for the 2015-16 academic year – precise seminar content
may change from year to year.
Philosophy of Social Science - Background readings
General
In addition to the Philosophy of Social Science Reader edited by Daniel Steel and Francesco Guala
(indicated as S&G below), the following is also an excellent source for readings in the philosophy of
social science: Michael Martin and Lee C. McIntyre (eds.): Readings in the Philosophy of Social
Science(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994, indicated as M&M below).
If you want to read one general book about the philosophy of social science cover to cover, I can
recommend Jon Elster: Explaining Social Behaviour: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social
Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Brian Fay: Contemporary Philosophy of Social
Science (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), or Alexander Rosenberg: Philosophy of Social Science (Westview
Press, 2008).
Week 1: Defining the 'social'

Durkheim, Emile: "Social Facts". M&M, ch. 27

Weber, Max: Economy and Society, vol 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 4-7 and
pp. 22-31.

Greenwood, John: 'Social Facts, Social Groups, and Social Explanation.' Nous 37, pp. 93-112.

Gilbert, Margaret: On Social Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press. esp. ch. II.

Haslanger, Sally: Social Construction: The "Debunking" Project. In Socializing Metaphysics,
ed., Frederick Schmitt.
Week 2: Values in Social Science

Taylor, Charles. “Neutrality in Political Science.” M&M, ch. 35.

Weber, Max. “’Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Policy.” M&M, ch. 34. (also here)

Nagel, E. (1961): The Value-Oriented Bias of Social Inquiry. M&M, ch. 36. Also in: The
structure of science: problems in the logic of scientific explanation. Routledge & Kegan Paul,
pp. 485-502.

Wyle, Alison. “The Feminism Question in Science: What Does it Mean to 'Do Social Science
as a Feminist'?" S&G, ch. 4.

Anderson, Elizabeth. “Uses of Value Judgments in Science: A General Argument, with
Lessons from a Case Study of Feminist Research on Divorce.” Hypatia 19: 1 – 24.
(online here)

Bishop, Robert. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, ch. 6.
Week 3: Values and Descriptions

Putnam, Hilary. The entanglement of fact and value. In: The collapse of the fact/value
dichotomy and other essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Ch.2 (also here)

Hacking, Ian. The Looping Effects of Human Kinds. S&G, ch. 2. (also here)

Miranda Fricker: Powerlessness and Social Interpretation. S&G, chapter 3. (original here)

Rosenberg, Alexander. Philosophy of Social Science. ch. 7.

Anderson, Elizabeth. Values in Ethics and Economics. esp. ch. 5.

Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.
Week 4: Interpretation

Taylor, Charles. “Interpretation and the Science of Man.” M&M ch. 13.

Gordon, Robert 2009. Folk Psychology as Mental Simulation. Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/folkpsych-simulation/

Davidson, Donald. 1963. “Actions, Reasons, and Causes.” M&M ch. 43.

Geertz, Clifford. 1994 [1973]. “Thick Descriptions: Towards an Interpretative Theory of
Culture.” M&M ch. 14; S&G ch. 10.

Kincaid, Harold. 1994 [1990]. “Defending Laws in the Social Sciences.” M&M ch. 8.

Rosenberg, Alexander. Philosophy of Social Science. chs 2 and 4.

Winch, Peter. 1995. The Idea of Social Science. 2nd edition. New York and London:
Routledge, especially chapters 1 and 3.
Week 5: Rational choice explanations

Becker, Gary. 1996. “The Economic Way of Looking at Life.” In: Accounting for Tastes.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press., pp. 139 – 161. (alsohere)

Hollis, Martin and Robert Sugden. 1993. “Rationality in Action.” Mind 102: 1 – 35.

Elster, Jon. 1985. “The Nature and Scope of Rational-Choice Explanation.” M&M ch. 20.
(also here)

Follesdal, Dagfinn. 1994. “The Status of Rationality Assumptions in Interpretation and in the
Explanation of Action.” M&M ch. 19. (also here)

Rosenberg, Alexander. Philosophy of Social Science. ch. 3.
Week 7: The empirical challenge

Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of
Choice.” Science 211(4481): 453 – 458.

Fehr, Ernst and Klaus M. Schmidt. 1999. “A Theory of Fairness, Competition and
Cooperation.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114: 817 – 868.

Gigerenzer, Gerd, Peter M. Todd, and the ABC Research Group. 1999. Simple Heuristics that
Make Us Smart. Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. chapter 1. (also here)

Bishop, Robert C. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences. ch 10.

Guala, Francesco. 2006.”Has Game Theory Been Refuted?” Journal of Philosophy 103: 239 –
63.

Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky. 2000. Choices, Values, and Frames. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Sen, Amartya. 1977. "Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioural Foundations of Economic
Theory." Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 317 – 344 (available through Jstor).

Simon, Herbert. 1955. “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice.“ Quarterly Journal of
Economics 59: 99 – 118.
Week 8: Defending Rational Choice Models

Woodward, Jim. 2009. “Experimental Investigations of Social Preferences.” In Kincaid, H. and
D. Ross (eds.) Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 189 – 222. (also here)

Hausman, Daniel. 2005. "Sympathy, Commitment, and Preference" Economics and
Philosophy 21: 33-50.

Pettit, Philip. 2005. "Construing Sen on Commitment" Economics and Philosophy 21, 15-32.

Camerer, Colin F. and Ernst Fehr. 2006. “When Does „Economic Man‟ Dominate Social
Behavior?” Science 311: 47 – 52.

Elster, Jon. 1989. The Cement of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Searle, John R. 2001. “The Classical Model of Rationality and its Weaknesses.” In Rationality
in Action. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 1 – 32.
Week 9: Conventions and Institutions

Lewis, David: "Coordination and Convention." S&G ch. 21.

Searle, John: "What is an Institution?" S&G ch. 23.

Rescorla, Michael: "Convention." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online)

Sugden, Robert. 2000. “Team Preferences.” Economics and Philosophy 16: 175 – 204.

Anderson, Elizabeth. 2000. “Beyond Homo Economicus: New Developments in Theories of
Social Norms.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 29: 170 – 200.

Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press, esp. part I.

Cubitt, R and Robert Sugden. 2003. “Common Knowledge, Salience, and Convention: A
Reconstruction of David Lewis’ Game Theory.” Economics and Philosophy 19: 175 – 210.

Lewis, David. 2002 [1969]. Convention. Oxford: Blackwell.
Week 10: Collective agency

Roth, Abraham Sesshu. 2011. Shared Agency. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2011 Edition), online

Toleffsen, D. 2004. Collective intentionality. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online

Pacherie, E. 2003. Is collective intentionality really primitive? American Journal of Economics
and Sociology, 62(1).

Anderson, Elizabeth. 2001. “Unstrapping the Straitjacket of 'Preference': on Amartya Sen's
Contributions to Philosophy and Economics.” Economics and Philosophy 17: 21 – 38.

Searle, J. 1990. Collective intentions and actions. In P. R. Cohen, J. Morgan, & M. E. Pollack
(eds), Intentions in Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (also on Searle's
webpage)

Bratman, Michael. 1993. “Shared Intention.” Ethics 104: 97 – 113.

Gilbert, Margaret. 1992. On Social Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, esp. chapters
4 and 7.

Tuomela, Raimo. 1995. The Importance of Us. Stanford: Stanford University Press.