A Realist Philosophy of Social Science
Explanation and Understanding

In this volume, Peter Manicas brings the idea of causality to bear on inquiry in social sciences.

Peter T. Manicas (Author)

9780521861403, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 June 2006

236 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.52 kg

'Neo-positivist, interpretive, and postmodernist social science are often seriously confused about fundamental issues of explanation, causation, interpretation, and understanding. Critical realism offers the best alternative account of the social scientific task and the most sensible resolution of our widespread confusions. Peter Manicas makes an important contribution to developing such a critical realist approach to social science that can help to re-orient our scholarly visions in smarter, more realistic, and fruitful directions.' Christian Smith, Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame

This introduction to the philosophy of social science provides an original conception of the task and nature of social inquiry. Peter Manicas discusses the role of causality seen in the physical sciences and offers a reassessment of the problem of explanation from a realist perspective. He argues that the fundamental goal of theory in both the natural and social sciences is not, contrary to widespread opinion, prediction and control, or the explanation of events (including behaviour). Instead, theory aims to provide an understanding of the processes which, together, produce the contingent outcomes of experience. Offering a host of concrete illustrations and examples of critical ideas and issues, this accessible book will be of interest to students of the philosophy of social science, and social scientists from a range of disciplines.

1. Explanation and understanding
2. Theory, experiment and the metaphysics of Laplace
3. Explanation and understanding in the social sciences
4. Agents and generative social mechanisms
5. Social science and history
6. Markets as social mechanisms.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA], Philosophy [HP]