scholarly journals The New Mechanical Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Glennan
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Organized Activities ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Mechanistic Approach ◽  
Novel Approaches ◽  
Diversity Of Science

This book argues for a new image of nature and of science—one that understands both natural and social phenomena to be the product of mechanisms, and that suggests that much of the work of natural and social scientists involves discovering, describing, and explaining how these mechanisms work. The book explores the interplay between ontological questions about mechanisms as things in the world and methodological questions about how these mechanisms can be characterized. Ontologically, mechanisms are understood to be collections of entities whose organized activities and interactions give rise to phenomena. This minimal conception of mechanism is abstract enough to encompass most of the wide variety of things that scientists have called mechanisms. While mechanisms are particular things, localized in space and time, the models that scientists use to describe them must be abstract and idealized. The mechanistic approach provides new ways of thinking about traditional metaphysical questions—for instance, about the nature of objects, part-whole and cause-effect relations, properties and universals, natural kinds, and laws of nature. It also suggests novel approaches for thinking about methodological questions concerning scientific representation, causal inference, reduction, and scientific explanation. The New Mechanical Philosophy offers the promise of a better understanding of the sources of both the unity and diversity of science.

Corruption

2019 ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toke Aidt
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Preferential Treatment ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Special Means ◽  
Cross Country

Corruption, understood as a special means by which private agents may seek to pursue their interest in competition for preferential treatment by government officials or politicians and where the “means” are valued by the recipient, is viewed by most social scientists as a major obstacle to economic, political, and social development and a source of inefficiency. This chapter presents a framework and taxonomy for the study of corruption. Within this framework, corruption is conceptualized as a particular instance of the more general social phenomena we call influence-seeking activities. The chapter provides an overview of theoretical models of corruption, summarizes cross-country evidence on the causes and consequences of corruption, and evaluates the recent literature on laboratory, field, and quasi-natural experiments.

scholarly journals Samfundsforskning og tekst - det skotske tilfælde som metodisk problem

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Henrik Halkier
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Post Graduate ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Relationship

The present paper explores some possible links between linguistics and social science, departing from an example of textual analysis originating in research in progress. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of historical textual analysis and to the relationship between social phenomena and the concepts employed by social scientists. It is argued that the presence of common theoretical problems and shared methodologies provides an interesting starting point for future interdisciplinary research and for up-to-date teaching of post-graduate students.

The World Essence

Dialogue ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Joint Paper ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Necessity

Recently, Brian Ellis came up with a neat and novel idea about laws of nature, which at first I misunderstood. Then I participated, with Brian Ellis and Caroline Lierse, in writing a joint paper, “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature” (Ellis, Bigelow and Lierse, forthcoming). In this paper, the Ellis idea was formulated in a different way from that in which I had originally interpreted it. Little weight was placed on possible worlds or individual essences. Much weight rested on natural kinds. I thought Ellis to be suggesting that laws of nature attribute essential properties to one grand individual, The World. In fact, Ellis is hostile towards individual essences for any individuals at all, including The World. He is comfortable only with essential properties of kinds, rather than individuals. The Ellis conjecture was that laws of nature attribute essential properties to the natural kind of which the actual world is one (and presumably the only) member.

Emergence as a Metaphysical Fact

KronoScope ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Hervé Barreau
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
Anthropic Principle ◽  
The Other ◽  
Teleological Explanation ◽  
Cosmic Evolution ◽  
Modern Cosmology ◽  
The One

Abstract A metaphysical fact is a fact, clearly recognizable in the course of time, for which there is no scientific explanation, that is, no legal explanation or explanation deduced in the manner recommended by modern science. I contend that life’s emergence and human thought’s emergence are metaphysical facts in this sense. These emergences are not to be explained by Darwinian principles which themselves do not seem adequate to explain genetic evolutionism. But modern cosmology has given us leave to reflect on cosmic evolution in a manner which gives sense to overall finality. There is an anthropic principle which has two forms: in the weak form, it can help science discover new legal explanations; in the strong form, it offers a teleological explanation of the laws of nature. As F. Dyson noted, we have two styles of explanation: the one is scientific; the other is metascientific (or metaphysical). We have no reason to reject teleological explanations about ontological questions.

Determinism, Predictions, and Probabilism

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
Francois Dépelteau
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Social Cause ◽  
Social Causes ◽  
The Universe

This chapter addresses determinism, which has been the predominant mode of perceiving the universe in modern sciences. The basic assumption is that any event is the effect of an external cause. Generally speaking, biological determinism focuses on the biological causes of events, whereas social sciences focus on the social causes. This mode of perceiving the social universe is typically associated with positivism and, more specifically, social naturalism — or the idea that there is no significant difference between social phenomena and natural phenomena. In this logic, it is assumed that social scientists can and should discover ‘social laws’ — or universal relations of causality between a social cause and a social effect. However, determinism in the social sciences has been criticized since its very beginning. In response to these critiques, many social scientists have adopted various forms of ‘soft’ determinism. The chapter then considers social predictions and probabilism.

Laws of Nature

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Lange
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aim Of Science ◽  
The Law ◽  
Intimate Relations

The discovery of the laws of nature has long been considered a principal aim of science. Of course, many laws that science discovers are not commonly designated “laws.” Alongside Boyle’s law, the law of universal gravitation, and the law of supply and demand, there are Archimedes’ principle, Maxwell’s equations, and the formulas of stoichiometry. Philosophy does not aim to account for the use of the term “law” or to discover the natural laws. Rather, philosophy strives to understand what it is that scientists discover when they discover laws. Philosophers have generally distinguished laws from “accidents” (that is, from contingent facts that are not matters of law) on several grounds. First, laws stand in especially intimate relations to subjunctive conditionals and counterfactual conditionals. Second, laws can explain why various facts hold. Third, laws help to give causes their powers to produce their effects. Fourth, laws restrict what is possible in nature; laws are universal and cannot be violated. (They possess “natural necessity.”) Fifth, laws specify the properties characteristic of various natural kinds. Sixth, when scientists confirm that some general hypothesis makes accurate predictions regarding each of the unexamined cases there might be, lying in a vast range, scientists are often basing their inductive reasoning on the presupposition that this hypothesis may be a law. Thus, laws are central to a wide range of core topics in metaphysics and epistemology. A philosophical account of natural law must refine these various respects in which laws are supposed to differ from accidents. It must then specify what laws are such that they are capable of playing their distinctive scientific roles. A wide variety of rival accounts of law has been proposed. Some philosophers defend “non-Humean” accounts, according to which laws are constituted by irreducible necessities, subjunctive facts, essences, or causal powers—or laws are themselves fundamental rather than reducible to other sorts of facts. Other philosophers defend “Humean” accounts, according to which the laws are reducible entirely to some non-modal features of the universe’s actual past, present, and future history, together perhaps with some features of scientists, their theories, or their practices. Yet other philosophers deny that the category of “laws of nature” is helpful for understanding science or reality. Some philosophers investigate the extent to which laws arise in the biological and social sciences. Although the nature of natural law was of great interest to early modern philosophers, this article is confined to works of analytic philosophy after 1945.

Capitalist Social Reproduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 320-340
Author(s):  
Martha E. Gimenez
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
First Century ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Abstract Feature

This entry will look at Marx’s theoretical contributions to social reproduction in relationship to critical assessments of his alleged “neglect” of reproduction and to the development of the social sciences, particularly the “radical” social sciences that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and continued to develop ever since. Marx, as well as Engels, offered important insights for understanding social reproduction as an abstract feature of human societies that, however, can only be fully understood in its historically specific context (i.e., in the context of the interface between modes of production and social formations). Social reproduction in the twenty-first century is capitalist social reproduction, inherently contradictory, as successful struggles for the reproduction of the working classes, for example, do not necessarily challenge capitalism. Finally, this article argues that radical social scientists, because they identify the capitalist foundations of the social phenomena they study, have made important contributions to the study of capitalist reproduction.

Early Modern Theology and Science

2014 ◽  
pp. 607-624
Author(s):  
John Henry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Natural Philosophers

This chapter surveys prominent aspects of historical relations between theology and science in the early modern period. It argues that the medieval “handmaiden tradition,” in which natural philosophy was seen as a support to theology, continued throughout the period but with apologetic complications caused by the fragmentation of religious authority, and the proliferation of alternative new philosophies. It considers the mechanical philosophy and the concomitant concept of laws of nature, and their impact on mind-body dualism, and the development of natural theology. It also considers the role of natural philosophy in the rise of atheism, arguing that it did not create atheists, but was appropriated by them. Devout natural philosophers played into the hands of atheists by arguing among themselves as to the best way to combat atheism, and by taking a naturalistic line in their arguments, relegating God to the role of a remote primary cause and increasingly denying Providence. Finally, it considers persistent suggestions that Protestantism played a greater role in the promotion of the natural sciences than Catholicism. We consider here claims about millennialism as a stimulus to science; the effect of Protestant attitudes to the Bible and how it should be read,; and the role of Augustinian post-lapsarian anthropology.

scholarly journals The Logic of Qualitative Comparative Analysis

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (S6) ◽  
pp. 105-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Ragin
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Science Theory ◽  
Common Strategy ◽  
The One ◽  
Interpretive Understanding

Social scientists often face a fundamental dilemma when they conduct social research. On the one hand, they may emphasize the complexity of social phenomena – a common strategy in ethnographic, historical and macro social research – and offer in–depth case studies sensitive to the specificity of the things they study. On the other hand, they may make broad, homo genizing assumptions about cases, and document generalities – patterns hold across many instances. Research strategies that focus on complexity are often labeled “qualitative”, “case–oriented”, “small–N”, or “intensive”. Those that focus on generality are often labeled “quantitative”, “variable–oriented”, “large–N”, or “extensive”. While the contrasts between these two types social research are substantial, it is easy to exaggerate their differences and t o caricature the two approaches, for example, portraying quantitative work on general patterns as scientific but sterile and oppressive, and qualitative research on small Ns as rich and emancipatory but journalistic. It is important to avoid these caricatures because the contrasts between these two general approaches provide important leads both for finding a middle path between them and for resolving basic methodological issues in social science Social scientists who study cases in an in–depth manner often see empiri cal generalizations simply as a means to another end – the interpretive understanding of cases. In this view, a fundamental goal of social science is t o interpret significant features of the social world and thereby advance our collective understanding of how existing social arrangements came about and why we live the way we do. The rough general patterns that social scientists may be able to identify simply aid the understanding of specific cases; they are not viewed as predictive. Besides, the task of interpreting and then representing socially significant phenomena (or the task of making selected social phenomena significant by representing them) is a much more immediate and tangible goal. In this view, empirical generalizations and social science theory are important – to the extent that they aid the goal interpretive understanding.

Zu M. T Aylors Analysen des Gefangenendilemmas

1982 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartmut Kliemt ◽  
Bernd Schauenberg
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Games ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Subsequent Paper ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Repeated Interaction ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Zero Sum

AbstractThe theory of games, though at first greeted with great expectations by some social scientists, soon became a source of frustrated hopes to many of them. Too much of the theory seemed to be devoted to “zero-sum” and “one-shot” games. But most social contexts are not zero-sum and involve repeated interaction too. There was a certain lack of such game theoretic models which could be successfully adapted to social phenomena as were apt to appear in reality. Recently the theory of games seems to be on its way to closing this gap within a special branch devoted to “repeated games” or “supergames”. Very promising is the approach of Michael Taylor which is surveyed and discussed in the subsequent paper. This approach has two main merits: First it can be understood with a modest mathematical background, secondly it can be adapted easily to a more precise reconstruction of classical topics in political theory. Though one might not agree with some of Taylor’s conclusions it seems to be worthwhile to get acquainted at least with the basics of his analysis and to take it as a first step to opening avenues for future social research.

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