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Philosophy of the Social Sciences

This volume is a unique contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences, presenting the results of cutting-edge philosophers research alongside critical discussions by practicing social scientists. The book is motivated by the view that the philosophy of the social sciences cannot ignore the specific scientific practices according to which social scientific work is being conducted, and that it will be valuable only if it evolves in constant interaction with theoretical developments in the social sciences. With its unique format guaranteeing a genuine discussion between philosophers and social scientists, this thought-provoking volume extends the frontiers of the field. It will appeal to all scholars and students interested in the interplay between philosophy and the social sciences.

PROFESSOR MANTZAVINOS holds the Chair of Economics and Philosophy at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany. He is the author of Wettbewerbstheorie (Berlin, 1994), Individuals, Institutions, and Markets (Cambridge, 2001) and Naturalistic Hermeneutics (Cambridge, 2005).

Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice

C. Mantzavinos

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521739061

Cambridge University Press 2009

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in print format 2009

ISBN 978-0-511-75789-1 mobipocket

ISBN 978-0-511-75825-6 eBook (Kindle edition)

ISBN 978-0-521-51774-4 hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-73906-1 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

C. Mantzavinos

John R. Searle

Mark Turner

Michael E. Bratman

Pierre Demeulenaere

Philip Pettit

Diego Rios

David Papineau

Robert G. Shulman and Ian Shapiro

Sandra Mitchell

James Alt

Daniel Little

Jack Knight

Nancy Cartwright

Gerd Gigerenzer

James Woodward

Werner Gth and Hartmut Kliemt

Ernest Sosa

Steven Lukes

C. Mantzavinos

David-Hillel Ruben

C. Mantzavinos

Contributors

James Alt Harvard University Department of Government

Michael E. Bratman Stanford University Department of Philosophy

Nancy Cartwright London School of Economics Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

Pierre Demeulenaere Universit de Paris-Sorbonne Department of Philosophy and Sociology

Gerd Gigerenzer Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin

Werner Gth Director, Max Planck Institute for Economic Research, Jena

Hartmut Kliemt Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Jack Knight Duke University Department of Political Science and School of Law

Daniel Little University of Michigan-Dearborn Department of Philosophy

Steven Lukes New York University Department of Sociology

C. Mantzavinos Witten/Herdecke University Chair of Economics and Philosophy

Sandra Mitchell University of Pittsburgh Department of History and Philosophy of Science

David Papineau Kings College London Department of Philosophy

Philip Pettit Princeton University University Center for Human Values

Diego Rios Witten/Herdecke University Economics and Philosophy

David-Hillel Ruben Birkbeck College, University of London and NYU in London

John R. Searle University of California, Berkeley Department of Philosophy

Ian Shapiro Yale University Department of Political Science

Robert G. Shulman Yale University Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry

Ernest Sosa Rutgers University Department of Philosophy

Mark Turner Case Western Reserve University Department of Cognitive Science

James Woodward California Institute of Technology Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasant duty to thank those who have helped me in the process of editing this book. I would first like to thank all the authors, some of them friends, for being so collaborative. Special thanks go to Diego Rios with whom I have discussed all the strategic steps that led to the book for his advice and his goodwill. For helpful discussions on chapters of the book, I would also like to thank my graduate students, Pablo Abitbol and Catherine Herfeld. I am also grateful to Darrell Arnold who was responsible for linguistic corrections of my own texts, my secretary, Julia Pusch who provided her unfailing help for the project, and my student, Julia Khn, to whom I am particularly grateful for her excellent help with the preparation of the manuscript during the final stages.

For their active interest in the project and their excellent collaboration, I would like to express my gratitude to my editors at Cambridge University Press, Chris Harrison and especially John Haslam, who was responsible for the book. Thanks are also due to Carrie Cheek and Karen Matthews for their help during the editing process. I would also like to thank my production editors Christopher Hills and Jodie Barnes of Cambridge University Press and Paula Devine for copyediting the book.

A major step towards preparing the volume was the organisation of a conference that I initiated at Herdecke in June 2007. I would particularly like to thank the Witten/Herdecke University and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for their generous financial support.

Lastly, I want to thank my wife and my family for their love and care during the time I have been working on this project.

Introduction

C. Mantzavinos

Philosophy of science examines scientific knowledge. It tries to illuminate the specific characteristics of science, the way it is produced, the historical dimensions of science, and the normative criteria at play in appraising science. The discussions mostly take place with reference to the natural sciences, which are still at the core of the philosophy of science as a discipline. The examples used are often taken from one of the natural sciences (usually physics); and it is characteristic that the training of most contemporary philosophers of science has been at least partly in one of the natural sciences. The philosophy of the social sciences, on the other hand, traditionally deals with such problems as the role of understanding ( Verstehen ) in apprehending social phenomena, the status of rational choice theory, the role of experiments in the social sciences, the logical status of game theory, as well as whether there are genuine laws of social phenomena or rather social mechanisms to be discovered, the historicity of the social processes, etc.

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