The Search for a Methodology of Social Science: Durkheim, Weber, and the Nineteenth-Century Problem of Cause, Probability, and ActionSpringer Science & Business Media, 1986 M02 28 - 251 pages Stephen Turner has explored the ongms of social science in this pioneering study of two nineteenth century themes: the search for laws of human social behavior, and the accumulation and analysis of the facts of such behavior through statistical inquiry. The disputes were vigorously argued; they were over questions of method, criteria of explanation, interpretations of probability, understandings of causation as such and of historical causation in particular, and time and again over the ways of using a natural science model. From his careful elucidation of John Stuart Mill's proposals for the methodology of the social sciences on to his original analysis of the methodological claims and practices of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, Turner has beautifully traced the conflict between statistical sociology and a science offactual description on the one side, and causal laws and a science of nomological explanation on the other. We see the works of Comte and Quetelet, the critical observations of Herschel, Buckle, Venn and Whewell, and the tough scepticism of Pearson, all of these as essential to the works of the classical founders of sociology. With Durkheim's essay on Suicide and Weber's monograph on The Protestant Ethic, Turner provides both philosophical analysis to demonstrate the continuing puzzles over cause and probability and also a perceptive and wry account of just how the puzzles of our late twentieth century are of a piece with theirs. The terms are still familiar: reasons vs. |
Contents
TWO GENERATIONS | 3 |
BEYOND THE ENLIGHTENMENT COMTE AND THE NEW PROBLEM OF SOCIAL SCIENCE | 6 |
Bacon as Presence | 8 |
Prevision Hypothesis and Induction | 10 |
The Classification of the Sciences | 14 |
Complexity and Teleology | 17 |
Function and Reciprocity | 20 |
Extending the Biological Model | 23 |
Function and maintenance | 117 |
COLLECTIVE FORCES CAUSATION AND PROBABILITY | 124 |
Technical Aspects of the Problem of Cause | 127 |
Probability and Concomitant Variation | 132 |
Mechanical Composition | 138 |
The Problem of Origins | 141 |
DURKHEIMS INDIVIDUAL | 144 |
The Realist Person | 148 |
The Historical Method | 27 |
MILL AND THE ASCENT TO CAUSES | 29 |
Ultimate Facts | 34 |
Chance and Cause | 36 |
Approximate Generalizations | 40 |
Tidology as a Model | 46 |
The Logical Structure of Social Science | 50 |
Sociology and the Collective Organism | 52 |
Statistics and History | 55 |
QUETELET RATES AND THEIR EXPLANATION | 60 |
Statistics as Scientific Method | 64 |
The Average Man | 69 |
The Law of Accidental Causes | 71 |
Practical Causal Reasoning | 73 |
The Twotier Model | 78 |
The Fictive Being and the Social System | 81 |
Herschel and Whewell | 84 |
A note on Buckle | 90 |
THE INTERREGNUM | 92 |
Other Currents | 94 |
Problems of Probability | 99 |
Cause and Its Problems | 102 |
REALISM TELEOLOGY AND ACTION | 107 |
Social Facts as Things | 108 |
Classification and Species | 113 |
The Critique of Teleology | 115 |
Rates and Individuals | 152 |
Currents and Resistance | 156 |
The Aftermath | 160 |
OBJECTIVE POSSIBILITY AND ADEQUATE CAUSE | 163 |
Cause and Jurisprudence | 165 |
Problems of abstraction | 170 |
Two Kinds of Description | 175 |
RATIONALITY AND ACTION | 180 |
Probability and Expectation | 184 |
The Triad of Reasons Causes and Expectations | 186 |
Webers Final Position | 192 |
LARGESCALE EXPLANATIONS AGGREGATION AND INTERPRETATION | 198 |
The Genetic Idealtype | 200 |
The Later Substantive Writings | 204 |
Teleological Readings of the Later Texts | 206 |
Causal Readings of the Later Texts | 210 |
Causal Interactions | 213 |
Statistical Patterns | 216 |
THE END OF THE ASCENT | 219 |
The Nomic World and the Correlational World | 221 |
Theory Statistics and Interpretation | 224 |
NOTES | 228 |
233 | |
239 | |
Other editions - View all
The Search for a Methodology of Social Science: Durkheim, Weber, and the ... S. Turner Limited preview - 2013 |
The Search for a Methodology of Social Science: Durkheim, Weber, and the ... S. Turner No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
accidental causes action adequate cause analysis approximate argued argument attribution Bacon biology Buckle causal causal explanation character circumstances claim classification collective complex composition Comte Comte's concept connection contexts correlation curve fitting decision theory derived determined discussion distinction doctrine Durkheim effect emphasis in original empirical laws epistemological essay ethology event example existence experience explanatory force Herschel historical homme moyen human hypothesis idea ideal-type individual induction influence intellectual interpretation John Venn Joseph Agassi kind Kries logical masse observations means metaphysical method methodological Mill Mill's Mill's methods nature neo-Kantian nomic nonteleological notion objective possibility observations organism outcome particular person phenomena philosophy practical principle probability problem produce Protestant Ethic Protestantism psychological question Quetelet rates rational reasoning result scientific sense social facts social science society sociology sort statistical structure suggested suicide teleological theory treated usages variable variation various Venn Weber Whewell writings