Three Conceptions of a Theory of Institutions

Aydınonat, N. Emrah; Ylikoski, Petri

doi:10.1177/0048393118798619

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(15 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There is general knowledge to be had about institutions, but it does not arise from starting with highly abstract explananda. General knowledge will not be about functionally defined institution types, but about social mechanisms that are parts of institutions (Aydinonat & Ylikoski 2018). This understanding is often the result of painstaking analysis of particular institutions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Explaining Institutional Change

Aydınonat

Ylikoski

2023

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter addresses the challenge of explaining institutional change, asking whether the much-criticized rational-choice perspective can contribute to the understanding of institutional change in political science. It discusses the methodological reasons why rational-choice institutionalism (RCI) often assumes that institutional change is exogenous and discontinuous, and identifies and explores the possible pathways along which RCI can be extended to be more useful in understanding institutional change in political science. Finally, the Chapter reflects on what RCI theorizing would look like if it started to take endogenous change seriously: by giving up some of its simplifying assumptions, RCI can be a useful tool for analyzing institutional change, but choosing this path has consequences for the generality of the models in RCI as well as for the style of its theorizing.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For a discussion of Guala's ideas about institution types and tokens, see Aydinonat & Ylikoski (2018). 7 See Field (1979Field ( , 1981 for a critique of rational choice models of institutions from this point of view.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Institutional Change

Aydınonat

Ylikoski

2023

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One worry is that unified theories are difficult to confirm, because they are so coarse-grained (Cartwright, 1999;Morrison, 2007; but see Mäki and Marchionni 2009). Others believe that an adequate scientific understanding of specific phenomena is best achieved through local theories and models (Aydinonat & Ylikoski, 2018). Such philosophers celebrate theoretical diversity claiming that multiple incoherent scientific models are more useful for explanation or prediction than a unified theory.…”

Section: Unificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The nature and significance of social ontology

Guala

Hindriks

2023

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We propose a bridge-builder perspective on social ontology. Our point of departure is that an important task of philosophy is to provide the bigger picture. To this end, it should investigate folk views and determine whether and how they can be preserved once scrutinized from the perspective of the sciences. However, the sciences typically present us with a fragmented picture of reality. Thus, an important intermediate step is to integrate the most promising social scientific theories with one another. In addition to this, social ontology can provide input to and benefit from other philosophical disciplines that engage in normative theorizing. Thus, we propose that social ontology connects not only with folk ontology and scientific ontology but also with fields such as ethics and political philosophy. Building bridges between them serves to formulate a credible and encompassing worldview that is of theoretical and practical significance.

show abstract

“…One option for the collective acceptance theorists is hence to deny the dependence thesis as Guala formulates it and replace it with a weaker kind of dependence in which the kind depends on collective acceptance that does not concern the kind itself (e.g., all currencies in all possible communities) but only something that is part of what constitutes the kind (e.g., one currency in one particular community). (For an interesting discussion on types and tokens of institutions, see Aydinonat and Ylikoski 2018.) However, assuming that there are collective acceptance theorists who share Guala’s interest in the existence of general kinds and think that they are dependent on collective acceptance concerning the kind itself, this might not be a satisfactory solution.…”

Section: Ways To Block Guala’s Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Institutions without Collective Acceptance?

Mäkelä

Hakli

Amadae

2018

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Francesco Guala has written an important book proposing a new account of social institutions and criticizing existing ones. We focus on Guala’s critique of collective acceptance theories of institutions, widely discussed in the literature of collective intentionality. Guala argues that at least some of the collective acceptance theories commit their proponents to antinaturalist methodology of social science. What is at stake here is what kind of philosophizing is relevant for the social sciences. We argue that a Searlean version of collective acceptance theory can be defended against Guala’s critique and question the sufficiency of Guala’s account of the ontology of the social world.

show abstract

Three Conceptions of a Theory of Institutions

Cited by 11 publications

References 16 publications

Explaining Institutional Change

Explaining Institutional Change

The nature and significance of social ontology

Understanding Institutions without Collective Acceptance?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About