scholarly journals Excuse and justification: What’s explanation and understanding got to do with it?

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102098675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Pleasants
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Moral Questions

A well-worn French proverb pronounces ‘ tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’ (‘to understand all is to forgive all’). Is forgiveness the inevitable consequence of social scientific understanding of the actions and lives of perpetrators of serious wrongdoing? Do social scientific explanations provide excuses or justifications for the perpetrators of the actions that the explanations purport to explain? In this essay, I seek clarification of these intertwined explanatory and moral questions.

Sex in the Parish: Social-Scientific Explanations for why it Occurs

1993 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 350-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Capps
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Total Institutions ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

Places Karen Lebacqz and Ronald Barton's ethical perspectives on sexual relations between pastors and their parishioners in the context of congregational processes and dynamics, and advocates the use of social-scientific theories to explain these processes and dynamics. Criticizes recent practical theological works which advocate “thick description” of congregations, contending that “thick description” has failed to unearth the underlying causes of the “sex in the parish” phenomenon. Presents Erving Goffman's theory of total institutions and Rene Girard's theory of scapegoating as useful theories to explain why pastors have sexual relations with their own parishioners.

Organizing Powers in Eventful Times

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth S. Clemens
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Network Ties ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Strategic Response ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Economic Collapse ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Sequential Comparison ◽  
Historical Periods

Historical and social scientific explanations often rely on major happenings and crises to define the topics of our inquiries or to delineate historical periods. But these models often prove limited and problematic. The challenge is to understand how action unfolds in a crisis and, in the process, reconfigures resources, opportunities, and horizons of possibility for new lines of strategic response. These questions are addressed through a comparison of Herbert Hoover and Harry Hopkins as they dealt with the onset of the Great Depression. Both men had the skills, network ties, and reputational resources that figure centrally in models of effective agency, but the contemporary assessments of their efforts differed dramatically. This pair of lives—Hoover and Hopkins—permits a cross-sectional comparison as both men wrestled with the onset of economic collapse and a sequential comparison as Hopkins inherited responsibility for relieving a crisis that had been shaped and reshaped by Hoover's actions.

Scientific understanding, representation, and explanation

EPISTEMOLOGIA ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 183-196
Author(s):  
Jan Faye
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Scientific Explanations

This paper attempts to show that scientific explanation relies not only on theoretical representation but also on scientific understanding. It introduces a distinction between ‘embodied' and ‘reflective' understanding and argues that both forms of understanding have an important role to play in the constitution of any scientific practise. Other significant features of a scientific practice are the act of explanation and interpretation. Thus, the paper claims that scientists' ability to produce scientific explanations and interpretations rests on both representational and non-representational knowledge.

Patterns of Radicalization in Political Activism

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donatella della Porta ◽  
Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Social Scientific

Research on political violence occurs in waves, generally corresponding to the successive swells of violence that in many ways define modern society. Critically, this violence is characterized as much by diversity as by uniformity. As each new spate in research on political violence has shown us, rarely can we generalize about either the aims or the repertoires of action of the purveyors of violence. Some similar mechanisms are in play, however, as violence develops from political conflicts between states and their opponents.This suggestion comes from social movement studies, whose influence is increasing in the analysis of political violence. These studies developed especially from a critique of ‘terrorism studies,’ which emerged within security studies as a branch of international relations and have traditionally been more oriented toward developing antiterrorist policies than toward a social scientific understanding of political violence.

scholarly journals Depression: Giver diagnosens tilgang mening?

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Ulrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Diagnostic Approaches ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The One

Videnskabens forståelse af depression kan deles ind i to forskellige tilgange. Den ene finder vi i psykiatrien, den anden i samfundsvidenskaben. I udgangspunktet fungerer begge tilgange som moddiskurs til hinanden. Hvor psykiatrien søger forklaringer i biologiske vilkår, søger samfundsvidenskaben svar i det kulturelle og sociale. Parallelt med videnskabens diskussioner af depression kan der desuden iagttages en ’hverdagsdiskurs’, som på afgørende punkter synes at adskille sig både fra psykiatriens og samfundsvidenskabens. I ’hverdagsdiskurser’ synes depression ikke alene eller først og fremmest at være forbundet med ’det sygelige’, men det kan også henvise til ’det raske’. ’Hverdagsdiskursers’ lægforståelse af depression synes på den måde at kunne tilbyde perspektiver, som rækker ud over psykiatriens og samfundsvidenskabens gennemgående tilgange til depression. Depression: Do diagnostic approaches make sense?Scientific understanding of depression can be divided into two different approaches. The one can be found in psychiatry, the other within social science. At the outset, the two approaches function as counter discourses. Whereas psychiatry seeks explanations in biology, the social scientific approach seeks explanations in culture and society. Alongside scientific discussions of depression a ‘commonplace’ discourse can be delineated which at decisive points seems to differ from both psychiatry and social science. In ‘commonplace’ discourse 174 Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom og Samfund, nr. 25, 173-182 depression seems neither solely nor foremost associated with ‘illness’, but can also signify ‘the healthy’. Laymen understandings of depression in ‘commonplace’ discourse therefore allow for the inclusion of perspectives that transcend standard approaches to depression within psychiatry and social science.

scholarly journals Culture and Choice: Toward Integrating Cultural Sociology with the Judgment and Decision-Making Sciences

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Vaisey ◽  
Lauren Valentino
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Social Scientific

Cultural sociologists frequently theorize about choices and decisions, although we tend to shy away from this language and from concepts that are used by the judgment and decision-making (JDM) sciences. We show that cultural sociology and JDM are compatible and complementary fields by dispelling some common misunderstandings about JDM. We advocate for a strategic assimilation approach in which cultural sociologists are able to translate their work into key JDM terms like beliefs, preferences, and endowments. Learning to speak the JDM language will allow cultural sociologists to make important, and uniquely sociological, contributions to social scientific explanations of choices and decisions.

Another Way of Looking at the Data: A Reaction to Phillips Stevens

1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-247
Author(s):  
R. Daniel Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Social Scientific

Shaw reacts to Stevens’ (1992) article, “Universal Cultural Elements in the Satanic Demonology,” in the Journal of Psychology and Theology(1992, Vol. 20, No. 3) special issue on SRA. While agreeing that Stevens adequately explains the data on demonology from a social scientific standpoint, Shaw holds that the same data can be explained equally well by applying Christian theological assumptions. Fear of “satanic demonology” may be universal, but it can also be understood theologically as implanted by God, and its manifestations can be perceived as emanating from the conflict between a recognition of, and rejection of, divine standards. Despite the ability of the social sciences to identify the mechanisms that stimulate the creation of new legends, in the final analysis these sciences do not provide an answer to the underlying causes. Christianity therefore can fill the spiritual void where social scientific understanding leaves off. It does so by freeing people from common human fears, restoring them to wholeness, and by establishing ritual as a medium for worshiping a God with whom they can have relationship and fellowship through the once-for-all sacrificial death of Christ.

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