Philosophy of Social Science: Course Outline/Lectures
There will be six lectures, given at 10 on Tuesdays in Weeks 1-3 and 5-7; there
will be no lecture in Week 4.
These six lectures have a simple structure: the first two lectures introduce the subject
by sketching some 19th Century arguments and their modern re-writings. The history
begins with Mill and reactions from philosophers (Dilthey) and sociologists
(Durkheim and to a degree Weber); it goes on to logical empiricists (Hempel and
Nagel) and the unplaceable Popper. Naturalism of the sort defended by Mill, Hempel,
and (up to a point) Popper was canonical in the anglophone world for forty years. It
comes with an ideal history of scientific progress – whether inductive or by
‘conjecture and refutation.’ The underlying question is whether the social sciences are
the natural sciences of the social world, so that the history of the successful physical
sciences can be taken as the model for progress in social science. This recipe for
progress is undermined by historians of science (Kuhn) who argue that the actual
history of the most respected sciences is at odds with the recipe; it is further
undermined by epistemological anarchists (Feyerabend) who maintain that all recipes
are flawed. Lectures 3 to 6 turn to issues dividing social scientists as well as
philosophers: hermeneutic analysis, holistic explanation, functionalism, and rational
choice theory. The reading for the lectures is Michael Martin and Lee C. McIntyre
(eds), Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science (MIT, 1994, 5th printing, 2001);
several of the lectures will rest heavily on arguments usefully reprinted there.
Everything in it will be referred to as M&M, by part and/or chapter.
1. Naturalism Mark I and Its Critics (Causal Explanation; the Fact-Value
Distinction; the Search for Laws; Geisteswissenschaften vs Naturewissenschaften)
Reading:Mill, A System of Logic, Books III (selectively) and VI (ditto)
Durkheim, “Social Facts,” M&M, ch 27 (otherwise all of The Rules of Sociological
Method). Dilthey, Introduction to the Human Sciences (Princeton UP, 1988)
Weber, Methodology of the Social Sciences, ed Shils and Finch (Free Press, 1949)
2. The Hypothetico-Deductive Conception of Explanation vs Epistemological
Anarchism
Reading: C.G. Hempel, “The Function of General Laws in History,” M&M, ch3; idem
& Oppenheim, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” in Aspects of Scientific
Explanation, ch 10.
Karl Popper, Conjecture and Refutation, ch 1
T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed.)
Imre Lakatos & Paul Feyerabend, Against Method
3. Winchcraft and Witchcraft: Anti-Naturalism and Interpretive Social Science;
the Hermeneutic Turn
Reading: Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science
Charles Taylor, “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man,” M&M, ch 13; Clifford
Geertz, “Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” M&M, ch 14
[M&M, Part III, throughout is useful.]
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4. Holistic Explanation and Methodological Individualism
Reading: Popper, The Poverty of Historicism [the ur-text]
M&M, chs 27 (Durkheim, above), 28, Watkins, “Historical Explanation in the Social
Sciences,” 29, Lukes, “Methodological Individualism Reconsidered.”
5. Functionalism: Left, Right, or Vacuous?
Reading: M&M, part V, omitting ch 26: ie, Hempel, “The Logic of Functional
Analysis,” Dore, “Function and Cause,” Cohen, “Functional Explanation in
Marxism,” Elster, “Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences.”
Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, ch 8
6. Rationalisation, Rationalism, and Rational Choice Theory
Reading: M&M, part IV, ch 18, Lukes, “Some Problems about Rationality,” ch 19,
Føllesdal, “The status of Rationality Assumptions in Interpretation and in the
Explanation of Action,” ch 20, Elster, “The Nature and Scope of Rational Choice
Explanation.”
Amartya Sen, Rationality and Freedom, ch 1.
Donald Green & Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice, (Yale UP, 1995)
Further Reading:
Martin Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science: An Introduction (Cambridge, 1994)
David Braybrooke, The Philosophy of Social Science (Prentice-Hall, 1987)
Alexander Rosenberg, The Philosophy of Social Science (Westview Press, 2nd ed,
1995)
Alan Ryan
16 February 2016
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