Getting past Hume in the philosophy of social science

Groff, Ruth

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199574131.003.0014

Cited by 21 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Case-based approaches are 'bottom-up' because the in-depth study of individual cases is the analytical point of departure. Here the goal is to learn about causal mechanisms and how they operate in particular cases (Russo and Williamson, 2011 (Groff, 2011;Waskan, 2011;Machamer, 2004: 31). A 'mechanism explanation for some happening that perplexes us is explanatory precisely in virtue of its capacity to enable us to understand how the parts of some system actually conspire to produce that happening' (Waskan 2011: 393).…”

Section: Bottom-up Case-based Approaches: How Causes Work In Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a case-based understanding, causal mechanisms are more than just lower-level counterfactual claims. If one takes mechanisms seriously, the goal is to explore what process actually was operative in a case (Groff 2011; Machamer 2004: 31; Waskan 2011). A ‘mechanism explanation for some happening that perplexes us is explanatory precisely in virtue of its capacity to enable us to understand how the parts of some system actually conspire to produce that happening’ (Waskan 2011: 393).…”

Section: Case-based Versus Variance-based Research Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A ‘mechanism explanation for some happening that perplexes us is explanatory precisely in virtue of its capacity to enable us to understand how the parts of some system actually conspire to produce that happening’ (Waskan 2011: 393). In the words of Jim Bogen (2005: 415), ‘How can it make any difference to any of this whether certain things that did not happen would have or might have resulted if other things that did not actually happen had happened?’ Ruth Groff (2011: 309) claims that mechanisms are real processes that involve the exercise of causal powers in the real world, not in logically possible counterfactual worlds. The essence of mechanistic explanations is that we shift the analytical focus from causes and outcomes to the hypothesized causal process in between them.…”

Section: Case-based Versus Variance-based Research Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-Method Research in the Social Sciences: A Review of Recent Frameworks and a Way Forward

Beach

2019

Gov. & oppos.

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This article reviews recent attempts to develop multi-method social scientific frameworks. The article starts by discussing the ontological and epistemological foundations underlying case studies and variance-based approaches, differentiating approaches into bottom-up, case-based and top-down, variance-based approaches. Case-based approaches aim to learn how a causal process works within a case, whereas variance-based approaches assess mean causal effects across a set of cases. However, because of the different fundamental assumptions, it is very difficult for in-depth studies of individual cases to communicate meaningfully with claims about mean causal effects across a large set of cases. The conclusions discuss the broader challenges this distinction has for the study of comparative politics more broadly.

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Section: Bottom-up Case-based Approaches: How Causes Work In Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case-based Versus Variance-based Research Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case-based Versus Variance-based Research Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-Method Research in the Social Sciences: A Review of Recent Frameworks and a Way Forward

Beach

2019

Gov. & oppos.

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“…Dupré 1993), and, in recent years, the philosophy of social science and social ontology (e.g. Archer 1995;Cartwright 1999;Lawson 1997Lawson , 2013Porpora 2008;Elder-Vass 2010;Groff 2011;Kaidesoja 2013; but see already Bhaskar 1979Bhaskar /1998. Indeed, there is now an interdisciplinary movement, called critical realism, which among other things applies powers to the social realm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal powers and social ontology

Wahlberg

2018

Synthese

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Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in social realm.

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“…If causal mechanisms are not thought to be real features of the world, then confusions surrounding their ontology are neither here nor there. The only point to be made, one that I have made in full elsewhere, is that a mechanism that does not actually exist cannot be the cause of anything (Groff, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Causal Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Causation

Groff¹

2016

J Theory Soc Behav

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There is a way of thinking about philosophy, and about social science, such that it doesn't actually matter, for the purposes of doing social science, how philosophical questions are answered. In one sense, of course, it doesn't. If one is a realist, at least -and one ought to be -then one will think that the fact that one believes p, for example, implies nothing very much about the world other than that one does hold that belief. The world is as it is, one will say, regardless of which philosophical positions are correct. Even concept-dependent features of the world do not simply pop into existence via solipsistic command. But the "irrelevancy thesis," as I'll call it, is not an elliptical expression of realism. The idea that empirical inquiry is or should be unencumbered by the preoccupations of philosophers is a meta-theoretical principle, not a first-order ontological claim. I'm interested in the irrelevancy thesis as applied to the question of what causation is. Social scientists needn't care about such a question, say proponents of the thesis. If nothing else, competing answers can be true simultaneously. And besides, one can certainly put forward a causal explanation without holding any beliefs about what causation is. Lest I be accused of setting up straw men, let me say that these are positions that were defended with great conviction at a recent academic conference on the future of American sociology.It is not very hard to show that the irrelevancy thesis is false. Manifestly, there are real differences between alternate accounts of causation (though the important ones are not between alternate iterations of Humeanism), and those theories that do genuinely differ from one another are patently irreconcilable. Moreover, insofar as a causal explanation is a causal explanation, it trades on a concept of causation, if only implicitly. And the approach that one takes to causation, even if one does so unreflectively, fixes what one may believe causes to be like, and by extension what sort of entity one will be in a position to think can even be a cause, as well as fixing what one will think is or is not happening when causation occurs. For these reasons alone, apart from various others, it is simply not true that one can offer up a causal explanation without thereby having committed oneself to a view about what causation is, i.e., without implicitly having weighed in on a fundamental question of metaphysics. At this level, in fact, there is not much more to be said. One either abides by certain principles of discursive reasoning or one does not. But the irrelevancy thesis does not just lead its proponents to say foolish things at conferences that they may not really mean. Disregard for philosophy has also led to muddled thinking about so-called "causal mechanisms." And here, at least, there is something to be sorted out.Towards that end, the discussion below is organized as follows: first, I establish a twopart typology that allows for a distinction to be made between passivist theories of causation and produ...

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Getting past Hume in the philosophy of social science

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Multi-Method Research in the Social Sciences: A Review of Recent Frameworks and a Way Forward

Multi-Method Research in the Social Sciences: A Review of Recent Frameworks and a Way Forward

Causal powers and social ontology

Causal Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Causation

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