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Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher best known for his contributions in the areas of political philosophy, philosophy of social science, and history of Western Modernity. Taylor has, due to his willingness to account for dimensions of human experience beyond natural science, along with his emphasis on how ideas shape history, and thus that history and philosophy are deeply intertwined, been linked to the philosophical tradition of Idealism.1 However, in his attempt to account for the historical developments of concepts and notions such as “the self” or “secularity,” Taylor seeks to balance between what he refers to as a “vulgar Marxist” materialism, that focuses solely on structural and material explanations and which tends to “bypass human motivations all together,” and on the other hand, a “vulgar Hegelian” view, in which ideas are seen as sufficient to explain the cases behind historical developments.2 Rejecting these two extremes, Taylor seeks to account for how ideas are “embedded in practices.”3 Taylor here includes practices at all levels of human social life, such as family, village, national politics, rituals of religious communities, and argues that “ideas articulate practices as patterns of dos and don’ts.”4

Human Studies is ajournai of philosophy and the social sciences, and it has been adopted as the official journal of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences (SPHS). It also serves as ethnomethodology's unofficial journal. Ethnomethodology is affiliated with no single professional society or academic journal, but Human Studies has been the most consistent outlet for ethnomethodological articles and special issues. As ethnomethodology's unofficial journal, Human Studies has enabled neo? phytes as well more prominent scholars to have an outlet for ethnometh? odological research, and it has also published several special theme issues on ethnomethodology in general (Coulter, 1980; Psathas, 1995), and specific topics such as interaction and language use (Button et al., 1986), representa? tion in scientific practice (Lynch and Woolgar, 1988), and ethnomethodology and conversation analysis in Japan (Psathas and Nasu, 1999). Because of its explicit attention to the philosophy of social science, Human Studies has given visibility to a style of ethnomethodological research characterized by a radi? cal treatment of foundational "philosophical" issues and debates. Consistent with the stated aims of Human Studies, ethnomethodology advances "the dia? logue between philosophy and the human sciences." Ethnomethodology is not a philosophy of social science, but is, rather, an empirical research program that investigates recurrent topics that have had long-standing interest in philosophy and social theory. These topics include action, argument, meaning, knowledge, perception, description, objectivity, and rationality, among many others. This empirical research program takes lessons from critiques by Peter Winch and other philosophers who criticize empiricist social science programs that turn ordinary linguistic concepts into "variables" and "factors" (Winch, 1958). In this brief essay, I hope to clarify what is distinctive about a "philosophical" style of ethnomethodology that owes a great deal to Human Studies, and specifically to founding editor George Psathas, whose combined interests in phenomenological sociology and ethno? methodology have left an indelible mark on the journal's quarter-century. I shall start with the familiar question: What is ethnomethodology? All too frequently, those of us who speak of (and for) ethnomethodology are asked to define the word, and it is tempting to challenge the recurrent call for d?fini

(2002). Regression Analysis and the Philosophy of Social Science. Journal of Critical Realism: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 119-142.

In this article I will challenge a received orthodoxy in the philosophy of social science by showing that Collingwood was right in insisting that reenactment is epistemically central for historical explanations of individual agency. Situating Collingwood within the context of the debate between simulation theory and what has come to be called “theory theory” in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology, I will develop two systematic arguments that attempt to show the essential importance of reenactment for our understanding of rational agency. I will furthermore show that Gadamer’s influential critique of the reenactment model distinguishes insufficiently between the interpretation of certain types of texts and the explanation of individual actions. In providing an account of individual agency, we are committed to a realistic understanding of our ordinary scheme of action-explanations and have thus to recognize the centrality of reenactment. Nevertheless, Collingwood’s emphasis on reenactment is certainly one-sided. I will demonstrate its limitations even for accounting for individual agency, and show how it has to be supplemented by various theoretical considerations, by analyzing the different explanatory strategies that Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen use to explain the behavior of the ordinary men in Reserve Battalion 101 during World War II.

Anthologies are often a blend of classic and contemporary readings. The main characteristic of Steel and Guala’s Philosophy of Social Science Reader is that it is massively focused on current debates in the field. This clear-cut editorial line is made explicit and justified in the general introduction to the book where the authors hold that “the philosophy of social science has changed quite dramatically over the last two decades. So a new anthology is required to keep track of the best resea...

This chapter addresses a long-standing issue in the sociology of education — the problem of knowledge. It argues that the way in which the problem has been a problem for so long constitutes a problem in its own right — hence, ‘the problem of the problem’. Its persistence represents a ‘blind spot’ within the field regarding the question of knowledge (Moore and Maton, 2001). However, as questions of knowledge and curriculum return to the centre stage of educational policy and debate, the sociology of education urgently requires a powerful theory of knowledge in order to positively engage with and influence them (Beck, 2012b).

An observed discrepancy in the behaviour of Economics students and non-Economics ones in game theoretical experiments indicates that the former are more selfish. The prevalent explanation for this is that they are 'born economists' and thus self-select themselves into the discipline. This belief is supported by the observation that Econ-students already differ from non-Econ ones at the very beginning of the their training. We argue that the difference can also be explained by second-order expectations afforded by the economist's stereotype and by the adherence to such stereotype.

Academic rankings mediate between the differing goals of the “republic of science” and of “new public management”. Nevertheless, rankings recently have come under scrutiny. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of academic rankings, in particular, their unintended negative consequences on the research process, and conclude that academic rankings do not fulfil their intended goal. We discuss input control, that is, rigorous selection and socialization, supplemented by periodic self-evaluation and awards as a way to mitigate the tensions between the concept of the “republic of science” and “new public management”. (89 words)

Ian JARVIE erzählt in einem Interview, das Francisco OSORIO mit ihm führte, aus seiner Perspektive als Herausgeber der Zeitschrift Philosophy of the Social Sciences seit den 1970 Jahren über das Verhältnis zwischen Sozialwissenschaften und Philosophie. Im Gespräch werden Änderungen im Zeitschriftenpublizieren seit dieser Zeit bis heute exploriert, u.a. der Übergang vom analogen zum digitalen Publizieren, von Subskriptionsmodellen hin zu Open Access, vom logischen Empirismus zu zeitgenössischen epistemologischen Trends sowie weitere soziale und politische Fragen im Kontext wissenschaftlicher Fachzeitschriften behandelt.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140242, In an interview with Francisco OSORIO, Ian JARVIE talks about social sciences and philosophy in his role as an editor of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences. The conversation between JARVIE and OSORIO explores the changes in journal publishing from the 1970s to the current century, such as the transition from the analogue to digital, from subscription models to open access, from logical empiricism to current trends in epistemology, as well as other social and political issues.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140242, En su papel como editor de la revista Filosofía de las Ciencias Sociales desde los años 70s Ian JARVIE habla de ciencias sociales y filosofía en una entrevista con Francisco OSORIO. La conversación entre JARVIE y OSORIO explora los cambios en la edición de la revista desde los años 70s al siglo en curso, como la transición de lo análogo a lo digital, de modelos de suscripción al acceso abierto, del empirismo lógico a tendencias actuales en la epistemología, así como otros temas sociales y políticos.URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140242

Cause is a problematic concept in social science, as in all fields of knowledge. We organise information in terms of cause and effect to impose order on the world, but this can impede a more sophisticated understanding. In his latest book, Richard Ned Lebow reviews understandings of cause in physics and philosophy and concludes that no formulation is logically defensible and universal in its coverage. This is because cause is not a feature of the world but a cognitive shorthand we use to make sense of it. In practice, causal inference is always rhetorical and must accordingly be judged on grounds of practicality. Lebow offers a new approach - 'inefficient causation' - that is constructivist in its emphasis on the reasons people have for acting as they do, but turns to other approaches to understand the aggregation of their behaviour. This novel approach builds on general understandings and idiosyncratic features of context.

Methodological triangulation is the use of more than one method to investigate a phenomenon. Nurse researchers investigate health phenomena using methods drawn from the natural and social sciences. The methodological debate concerns the possibility of confirming a single theory with different kinds of methods. The nursing debate parallels the philosophical debate about how the natural and social sciences are related. This article critiques the presuppositions of the nursing debate and suggests alternatives. The consequence is a view of triangulation that permits different methods to confirm a single theory. The article then explores the consequences for the philosophy of social science.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) insists upon the importance of democratizing social inquiry by actively engaging the subject in the design and conduct of research. Drawing on four examples of PAR-based social science and a democratic reconstruction of “epistemic privilege,” this article argues that philosophers need to take seriously PAR’s notion that democratic norms should guide social inquiry. But it does not advocate replacing mainstream or expert-directed social science by PAR. Instead, it maintains that it is both possible and sensible for PAR practitioners to collaborate with conventional research. Indeed, certain forms of nonparticipatory social science seem indispensable for any extensive application of the PAR framework. The article concludes by drawing out its (controversial) implications for two central issues in the philosophy of social science: first, that the methods of social inquiry are distinct from those in the natural sciences and, second, that there is a sense in which social research can and should be “value neutral.”

The concept of holism is of great use in philosophy of science. But its meaning does not correspond to the traditional use of holism in social sciences. The aim of the paper is to criticize an attempt to link the two meanings. Such a confusion derives from a misunderstanding of methodological individualism which is erroneously considered to be an atomism. Since the concepts of holism can be related to many different meanings, and since there are many different models of action (including different models of rationality) behind the concept of methodological individualism, the debate should be cautious of all those differences. The papers gives a brief survey of these and discusses specific theses expressed by Vincent Descombes to support holism in social sciences.

The article describes critical realism as a philosophical approach that stresses some themes central to all sociological thought: the relation between philosophy and sociology; the notion of cause; the problem of naturalism; the relation between concepts, models, and reality; the relation between agency and structure, and so on. It is further argued that in positing the non-dissolution of the ontological and epistemological dimensions of knowledge, critical realism may represent a viable alternative to the dead-ends of conventionalism and skepticism found in the positivist and pragmatist approaches. Cet article cherche à montrer le réalisme critique comme une démarche philosophique qui souligne quelques thèmes importants pour la réflexion sociologique: la relation entre philosophie et sociologie; la notion de cause; le problème du naturalisme; la relation entre concepts, modèles et réalité; la relation entre agence et structure etc. En outre, il cherche à établir que le réalisme critique, une fois posée la non dissolution entre les dimensions ontologique et épistémologique de la connaissance, peut représenter une alternative possible aux impasses du conventionalisme et du scepticisme présentes dans les approches positivistes et pragmatistes.

We argue that Ferraro, Pfeffer, and Sutton build on a scientifically problematic conception of the relationship between theory and social reality. Specifically, the performativity perspective that they build on makes tenuous assumptions about the role that theories, whether true or not, play in strongly constructing social reality, but the perspective fundamentally ignores central matters related to human nature and the boundaries of possibility. We argue for a more realistic approach to theory building and social science, one that recognizes the role that true theories play in helping us understand and explain reality, but also in turn shaping that reality given this better theoretical understanding.

Two questions are central to the “rationality debate” in the philosophy of social science. First, should we acknowledge differences in basic norms of epistemic and agential rationality, or in the content of perceptual experience, as the “best explanation” of radical differences in belief and practice? Second, can genuine understanding be achieved between cultures and research traditions that so differ in their beliefs and practices? I survey a number of responses to these questions, and suggest that one of these, “dialogical optimism”, while attractive, is in need of further clarification. Such clarification may be forthcoming if we attend to recent work by John McDowell. McDowell claims that perceptual experience, as our primary mode of epistemic access to the world, must be located within what Sellars termed the “space of reasons” if we are to make sense of our conception of ourselves as thinking creatures. I develop a reading of this claim in terms of a fundamental duality in human perceptual ...

Rule following is often made an unnecessary mystery in the philosophy of social science. One form of mystification is the issue of 'rule finitism', which raises the puzzle as to how a learner can possibly extend the rule to applications beyond those examples which have been given as instruction in the rule. Despite the claim that this problem originated in the work of Wittgenstein, it is clear that his philosophical method is designed to evaporate, not perpetuate, such problems. The supposed problem of rule finitism is malformed, deriving from misconceptions about the relation between understanding a rule and making an application of it.

Philosophical considerations and positions underlie all of the natural and social sciences. In the latter case philosophical foundations and their emergent issues have a profound impact on methodology and empirical practice. Design decisions will usually depend on philosophical perspectives or assumptions, such as the very fundamental decision to employ a quantitative design or an interpretive design. The 'philosophy of social research' is thus a subset of the philosophy of social science, but also an important subject area that spans methodology and method. The articles making up this timely collection are the best exemplars of key positions in a very wide disciplinary field. The selection is designed to begin each section with an 'entry level' article to introduce the reader to the topic area and to ground the approach a research problem. Topics covered include science and art in the history of social research, positivism and antipositivism, language and the linguistic turn, realism and anti-realism, theory and theory choice, logic and models, prediction and laws, interpretation, probability and complexity. With the study of the philosophical foundations of methods and methodology gaining increasing priority in university courses, this will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers across the social sciences.

Cet article est une traduction partielle de "Critique et pragmatique en sociologie. Quelques principes de lecture", Annales (Histoire Sciences Sociales), vol. 54, n° 2, mars-avril 1999, pp. 281-317.; International audience; This paper draws a parallel between two contemporary French conceptions of sociology. Each is first considered in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method. Through an analogy with Marx's philosophy of social science, critical sociology is shown to make an heuristic use for the analysis of cultures and social structures of the resistance to sociology that the sociologist encounters in the social objects, whereas pragmatic sociology adopts a pluralistic and descriptive strategy towards actions, actors and things. The paper then tries to show how common interests or trading zones could allow both critical and pragmatic sociology to profit from their competitive relation by taking each other as objects of sociological analysis.

This article argues that the agent-based computational model permits a distinctive approach to social science for which the term “generative” is suitable. In defending this terminology, features distinguishing the approach from both “inductive” and “deductive” science are given. Then, the following specific contributions to social science are discussed: The agent-based computational model is a new tool for empirical research. It offers a natural environment for the study of connectionist phenomena in social science. Agent-based modeling provides a powerful way to address certain enduring—and especially interdisciplinary—questions. It allows one to subject certain core theories—such as neoclassical microeconomics—to important types of stress (e.g., the effect of evolving preferences). It permits one to study how rules of individual behavior give rise—or “map up”—to macroscopic regularities and organizations. In turn, one can employ laboratory behavioral research findings to select among competing agent-based (“bottom up”) models. The agent-based approach may well have the important effect of decoupling individual rationality from macroscopic equilibrium and of separating decision science from social science more generally. Agent-based modeling offers powerful new forms of hybrid theoretical-computational work; these are particularly relevant to the study of non-equilibrium systems. The agentbased approach invites the interpretation of society as a distributed computational device, and in turn the interpretation of social dynamics as a type of computation. This interpretation raises important foundational issues in social science—some related to intractability, and some to undecidability proper. Finally, since “emergence” figures prominently in this literature, I take up the connection between agent-based modeling and classical emergentism, criticizing the latter and arguing that the two are incompatible. ! 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

It is argued that the philosophical approach of ‘critical realism’ is of considerable importance in providing a framework to guide the development of useful social science analyses, but that its impact is limited by its poor ‘public relations’ and lack of engagement with ongoing social analyses. There are several major issues which critical realism has not adequately tackled. These are identified and possible routes for overcoming these indicated. The whole essay is set within a particular viewpoint on the relationship between social theory and the philosophy of social science.

Advocates of the theory of rational action are divided in regard to the version of the theory they accept. This paper distinguishes between a narrow version, claiming that the kinds of preferences and constraints to be used in explanations must be restricted, and a wide version imposing no such restrictions, and thus including beliefs, altruism, norms and social sanctions in explaining behavior. The paper begins by describing the major assumptions of both versions and then discusses the key arguments that are adduced in favor of a narrow and against a wide version: (1) preferences and beliefs cannot be measured; (2) the wide version is tautological, circular, empty or trivial; (3) predictions with the wide version are difficult; (4) the assumptions of the narrow version are sufficient to explain behavior; (5) when problems are encountered, the narrow version should only be applied to situations where it works. It is argued that those arguments do not provide an adequate defense, and thus suggest that the narrow version is inadequate. The last part of the paper offers some methodological considerations, suggesting how different types of assumptions can be combined.

Proceeding from the debate opened by Beck, Giddens and Lash’s Reflexive Modernization (1994), this paper seeks to clear the way for a more consistent and coherent concept of reflexivity in relation to the cultural-symbolic foundations of society. Seeing that Lash in his contribution to the debate inadvertently raises a key problem, i.e., the broad cognitive problem, the paper develops a critique of his hermeneutic culturalism. It focuses on the disparity between the position explicitly put forward in the debate with Beck and Giddens and the cognitive one which more or less implicitly comes into play throughout his relevant essays. The disparity shows up already in his treatment of the problem of mediation, but it comes graphically to a head in his appropriation of Bourdieu. To lend the analysis some profile and depth, the argument is supported by elements of a socio-cognitive theory which has been gaining visibility in both social theory and the philosophy of social science. While the paper is critical of Lash, its overall aim is to strengthen his contribution to the debate.

The debate on the role of laws in explaining human behavior has been a central topic of the philosophy of social science since its inception. At least since the Enlightenment, social scientists have looked with envy at the success of the natural sciences, and have wondered whether they might equal this success by emulating their methodology. By focusing on the central role of laws in scientific explanation, it was hoped that the social sciences would find the key to becoming more scientific. In philosophy, this program found inspiration in the efforts of the logical positivists to achieve a unified science, culminating in the work of Carl Hempel, who set out to demonstrate the parallel role of laws in explaining both natural and social scientific phenomena. With the eclipse of the fortunes of logical positivism, however, the game in the philosophy of social science has become quite different. For the last several decades, it has been widely assumed that nomological explanation is a misguided goal in the social sciences, in that social scientific laws are probably either impossible, impractical, or irrelevant. Thus, recent work on this topic has consisted largely of evaluating the adequacy of various arguments against social scientific laws. The issue no longer seems to be whether there possibly could be any laws governing human behavior. Rather, the debate has been over finding the right peg upon which to hang the failure of social scientists to produce them. And if no definitive argu ment has yet been identified to show that social scientific laws cannot exist, it has been cause for little concern; for, like the search for an elusive math ematical proof, the question has not been whether the theorem is correct, but only to whom shall fall the good fortune of finally demonstrating its truth. It is now believed by many philosophers that, in the argument against social scientific laws, this honor should go to Donald Davidson. For despite the plethora of arguments leveled against a science of human behavior

This opinion paper is the outcome of one week of intense discussions within the working group on “Modeling of Financial Markets” at the 98th Dahlem Workshop, 2008. David Colander served as moderator of this group and Thomas Lux served as Rapporteur. We are grateful to Carlo Jaeger and Rupert Klein for organizing this stimulating meeting and to Deirdre McCloskey and Peter Sørensen and other participants for helpful comments. The present version is the reprint of Kiel Working Paper, 1489, Institute for the World Economy, Kiel, 2009, that also appeared in electronic format in many other places. A revised version of this manuscript appeared in print as Colander, D., Haas, A., Goldberg, M., Juselius, K., Kirman, A., Lux, T., Sloth, B. (2009). “The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of the Economics Profession.” Critical Review, 21 (2–3), 249–267. Introduction The global financial crisis has revealed the need to rethink fundamentally how financial systems are regulated. It has also made clear a systemicfailure of the economics profession. Over the past three decades, economists have largely developed and come to rely on models that disregard key factors – including heterogeneity of decision rules, revisions of forecasting strategies, and changes in the social context – that drive outcomes in asset and other markets. It is obvious, even to the casual observer that these models fail to account for the actual evolution of the real-world economy. Moreover, the current academic agenda has largely crowded out research on the inherent causes of financial crises. There has also been little exploration of early indicators of system crisis and potential ways to prevent this malady from developing. In fact, if one browses through the academic macroeconomics and finance literature, “systemic crisis” appears like an otherworldly event that is absent from economic models. Most models, by design, offer no immediate handle on how to think about or deal with this recurring phenomenon. In our hour of greatest need, societies around the world are left to grope in the dark without a theory. That, to us, is a systemic failure of the economics profession.

In this paper I make argument which states that social science, at its current state, is not really science at all. This is because real connection with real world is lost in social sciences, due to lack of experimental results and lack of morality neutral analysis. A potential solution to the problem is proposed in form of giving more emphasis to experience than to over rationality of the less than rational human mind, which dominates the social sciences. Moreover how we can mix rational thinking with experimental result is explained to make science out of social ‘sciences’.

In an interview with Francisco OSORIO, Ian JARVIE talks about social sciences and philosophy in his role as an editor of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences. The conversation between JARVIE and OSORIO explores the changes in journal publishing from the 1970s to the current century, such as the transition from the analogue to digital, from subscription models to open access, from logical empiricism to current trends in epistemology, as well as other social and political issues. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140242, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol 15, No 2 (2014)

There is an old Russian proverb, quoted in Vladimir Medem’s autobiography, that says: “an individual in Russia was composed of three parts: a body, a soul, and a passport”. It isn’t only that there are these three aspects of a person, but moreover that somehow the three are connected or related in some way.