Synopses & Reviews
Philosophy of Social Science provides a tightly argued yet accessible introduction to the philosophical foundations of the human sciences, including economics, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, history, and the disciplines emerging at the intersections of these subjects with biology. Philosophy is unavoidable for social scientists because the choices they make in answering questions in their disciplines force them to take sides on philosophical matters. Conversely, the philosophy of social science is equally necessary for philosophers since the social and behavior sciences must inform their understanding of human action, norms and social institutions. The third edition retains from previous editions an illuminating interpretation of the enduring relations between the conduct of inquiry in the social sciences and the fundamental problems of philosophy, with accessible considerations of positivism, European philosophy of history, causation, statistical laws, quantitative models, and postempiricist social science. Features new to this edition include: Overview of the eclipse of behaviorism in psychology and the rise of game theory in economics; Consideration of problems for functionalism in social science that must be addressed by an appeal to biology and especially Darwinian thinking; Analysis of the debate between ?nativists” and exponents of the ?standard social science model” that emphasizes nurture over nature as the source of significant human traits; Expanded discussion of feminism in the human sciences; These issues reflect developments in social research over the last two decades that have informed and renewed debate in the philosophy of social science
Synopsis
An introduction to the philosophical foundations of the human sciences
About the Author
Alexander Rosenberg professor of philosophy at the University of Georgia. He is author of many books and papers in the philosophy of social and biological sciences, including The Structure of Biological Science and Economics?Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns (winner of the prestigious Lakatos Prize for 1993).
Table of Contents
Preface to the third edition -- 1. What is the philosophy of social science? -- Philosophical problems of social science -- Progress and prediction -- A brief history of the philosophy of science -- Lawlessness in social science -- Rejecting prediction for intelligibility -- Taking sides in the philosophy of social science -- Naturalism versus interpretation -- Introduction to the literature -- 2. The explanation of human action -- Making folk psychology explicit -- Reasons and causes -- The holism of the mental -- The logical connection argument -- Intentionality -- Intensionality and extensionality -- Introduction to the literature -- 3. From behaviorism to rational choice, and back -- Causation and purpose -- The experimental analysis of behavior -- The ghost in behaviorism's machine -- Folk psychology formalized: the theory of rational choice -- The economist as behaviorist -- Instrumentalism in economics -- The eclipse of behaviorism in psychology and economics -- Introduction to the literature -- 4. Interpretation -- The hermeneutics of human action -- Can we reconcile rules and causes? -- The social construction of society -- The philosophy of history -- Freud and the analysis of deep meanings -- Marxism and meaning -- Critical theory -- Epistemological impasse? -- Introduction to the literature -- 5. Functionalism and macrosocial science -- Holism and human action -- The autonomy of sociology -- Holism and reductionism in psychology and sociology -- Functional analysis and functional explanation -- The trouble with functionalism -- Introduction to the literature -- 6. Biology, human behavior, and social science -- The prisoner's dilemma to the rescue? -- Farewell to the standard social science model? -- Blunting the threat of genetic determinism -- Natural selection and mother-nurture? -- Causation, statistics, laws and the relevance of biology -- Introduction to the literature -- 7. Shall we commit a social science? -- Moral problems of controlled research -- Naturalism and utilitarianism -- Kant: interpretation and deontology -- Facts and values -- Feminist philosophy of (social) science -- Dangerous questions, moral obligations, and predictive knowledge -- Introduction to the literature -- 8. Social science and the enduring questions of philosophy -- The unavoidability of epistemology -- Science and metaphysics -- Reductionism and instrumentalism -- Philosophy and the moral sciences -- Conclusion.