Explanation in the Social Sciences
Despite some contentiousness between both working social scientists and many philosophers, ideas about explanation in social science are remarkably taken-for-granted. A good deal of the responsibility for the handed down and taken-for-granted ideas about explanation among social scientists owes directly to philosophers in the latter half of this century, although the antecedents are found as early of Comte. He argued that "the explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.'" Richly elaborated in this century by philosophers of science, it remains the dominant view. It appears in innocent-appearing phrases like "the search for laws and generalizations is the goal of science," "science aims at prediction and control," "a theory is a deductively organized set of propositions and law- like statements," "a good theory predicts."
There is an alternative conception, also of 19th century lineage. It rejects the idea that social science can model itself on the natural sciences. On this view, explanation is not "causal explanation," but depends on the capacity to "understand" the actions of persons.
This book starts by challenging both received views. It offers a rethinking of explanation in both the natural and social sciences. First, drawing on recent critical literature, I show that the conventional wisdom regarding explanation in the natural sciences cannot be sustained. Not only must "the covering law" account fail, but more radically, natural scientists do not seek to provide explanations of events. Rather by providing an account of the causal mechanisms at work in the world, theory in the natural science provides understanding of the natural world. This requires a rethinking of causality, and of theory.
This analysis is then applied to the social world. But doing this requires a thorough account of the key differences in the domains of concern: nature vs society. Defenders of Verstehen show that there is an exact analogue to understanding in the natural sciences to understanding in the social sciences. with an extended analysis of persons and society