Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-26T02:33:46.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Causal regularities, action and explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Pierre Demeulenaere
Edited by
Pierre Demeulenaere
Pierre Demeulenaere
Affiliation:
University of Paris-Sorbonne
Pierre Demeulenaere
Affiliation:
Université de Paris IV
Get access

Summary

A prisoner who has neither money nor interest, discovers the impossibility of his escape, as well when he considers the obstinacy of the gaoler, as the walls and bars with which he is surrounded; and, in all attempts for his freedom, chooses rather to work upon the stone and iron of the one, than upon the inflexible nature of the other. The same prisoner, when conducted to the scaffold, foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards, as from the operation of the axe or wheel. His mind runs along a certain train of ideas: The refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape; the action of the executioner; the separation of the head and the body; bleeding, convulsive motions, and death; but the mind feels no differences between them in passing from one link to another.

(David Hume [1758] 1975: 90)

Nineteenth-century social studies are divided over a major issue: are they similar to the study of nature, introducing laws governing individual behaviors and social outcomes; or are they intrinsically different, since there are no major regularities and laws to be found in social life? Mill (1843) argued that there was an underlying similarity between the social and the natural sciences. Dilthey (1883) by contrast declared them to be fundamentally heterogeneous, the social world being mainly historical, to be apprehended through the description of particular events, the sciences of nature being characterized by their orientation to general laws.

Type
Chapter
Information
Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms , pp. 173 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, Andrew. 2001. Time Matters. On Theory and Method. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Abbott, Andrew. 2004. Methods of Discovery. Heuristics for the Social Sciences. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary. 2008. Government Equity in Private Companies: A Bad Idea. Becker–Posner Blog October 5.Google Scholar
Boudon, Raymond. 2006. Renouveler la démocratie. Eloge du sens commun. Paris: Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Bunge, Mario. 1967. Scientific Research. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunge, Mario. 2004. “How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34(2): 182–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Collingwood, Robin George (1946, revised edition 1993). The Idea of History. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Demeulenaere, Pierre. 2008. “La définition des coûts et avantages, entre identité et diversité des préférences,” Revue européenne des sciences sociales xlvi(140): 175–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1967. “Toward a theory of property rights,” American Economic Review 57: 347–59.Google Scholar
Descombes, Vincent. 1996. Les institutions du sens. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Dilthey, Wilhem. 1883. Introduction to the Human Sciences. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Dray, William H. [1964] 1993. Philosophy of History. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Eggertsson, Thrainn. 1990. Economic Behavior and Institutions. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon. 2007. Explaining Social Behaviour. More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gibbard, Allan. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Harré, Rom. 1972. The Philosophies of Science. An Introductory Survey. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hedström, Peter. 2005. Dissecting the Social. On the Principles of Analytical Sociology. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl (with Oppenheim, Paul) 1948. “Studies in the logic of explanation,” Philosophy of Science 15: 135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York and London: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Hollis, Martin. 1994. The Philosophy of Social Science. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1758. Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and the Principles of Morals, edited by Selby-Bigge, L.A., revised by Nidditch, P.H.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mantzavinos, Chrysostomos. 2001. Individuals, Institutions, and Markets. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menger, Carl. [1883] 1996. Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences. Grove City: Libertarian Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1843. System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vols. vii and viii. London and Toronto: Routledge and University of Toronto Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Opp, Karl-Dieter. 2005. “Explanations by mechanisms in the social sciences. Problems, advantages and alternatives,” Mind and Society 4: 163–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Passeron, Jean-Claude. 2006. Le raisonnement sociologique. Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Rickert, Heinrich. 1902. Die Grenzen des naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 1971. Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya K. 1977. “Rational fools: a critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6(4): 317–44.Google Scholar
Shackle, George L.S. 1972. Epistemics and Economics. A Critique of Economic Doctrines. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg. 1923. Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Studie. Munich and Leipzig: Von Duncker et Humblot.Google Scholar
Skorupski, John. 2001. “Rationality – instrumental and other,” in Boudon, R., Demeulenaere, P. and Viale, R. (eds.), L'explication des normes sociales. Paris: P.U.F.Google Scholar
Veyne, Paul. 2008. Foucault. Sa pensée, sa personne. Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Wright, G.H. 1971. Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. [1904] 1991. “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis,” in Schriften zur Wissenschaftslehre. Stuttgart: Reclam.Google Scholar
Winch, Peter. 1958. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Windelband, Wilhelm. [1894] 2000. “Histoire et science de la nature (Discours de Rectorat),” Les études philosophiques 1: 1–16.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×