Friedel Weinert: Philosophy of the Social Sciences Year II: Semester II

1
Friedel Weinert Philosophy of the Social
SciencesYear II Semester II

• Three Models, Continued
• Lecture V

2
Interpretative Model

• Interpretative Model
• general opposition to unity of method
• categories to conceptualise social events
  (purpose, value, development, ideal as aspects of
  meaning) are logically incompatible with
  categories belonging to scientific explanation
  (law, causality)
• Reason
• categories to describe social life enter into
  social life itself, not merely into the
  observers description of it (war versus
  gravity)
• Thesis If you do not understand the meaning of
  social life, you do not understand social life
• social phenomena must not be regarded as
  external objects social relations are internal
  relations

3
Interpretative Model

• Distinguish between external relations and
  internal relations

• Internal Relations Reason-Action
• intentional actions
• there must be a logical relation between reason
  and action the intention to do X and doing X
  are logically related
• explanation of human behaviour as
  re-description
• reason and action cannot be analysed separately
  Logical Connection Argument

• External Relations Cause-Effect
• natural process
• causal link is contingent, i.e. it is empirical
  relation
• cause and effect can be analysed separately

Naturalism
Interpretative Model
4
Interpretative Model Reasons and Causes

• Some differences between reasons and causes
• reasons can be good or bad there is no good or
  bad cause
• appeal to reasons in decision-making
• causes seem to be generalisable, reasons
  non-generalisable
• Principle Same cause, same effect, also Same
  reason, same action?

5
Interpretative Model Reasons and Causes

• Logical Connection Argument
• Level of Society
• State cluster of sufficient conditions as
  candidates for causal antecedents (examples)
• Level of Individual
• Logical Connection Argument links reasons and
  actions giving a reason is a re-description of
  the action
• but even if the description of an action cannot
  be separated from the reason, reasons may still
  have a causal component
• Example a jogger

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Interpretative Model Reasons and Causes

• Reconstruct as logical argument
• Premise I (belief) If you want to stay healthy,
  jog
• Premise II (desire) You want to stay healthy
• Conclusion JOG
• Belief and desire justify the action, but the
  reason may also be the cause of the action.
• Reasons, as causes, can be logically separate
  from action
• intention to do x and not do x
• the reason for doing x is not the cause for
  doing x

7
Interpretative Model Reasons and Causes

• Normal intentional action
• there must be a logical relation between the
  reason and the action
• the reason must play a causal role in the
  occurrence of the action
• There is a causal component in reason-explanations
  . There are also disanalogies between causal
  explanations in the social and natural sciences
• there are neither strictly deterministic nor
  probabilistic laws connection reasons and actions
• we cannot state necessary and sufficient
  conditions for acting on a reason
• Social sciences can achieve adequate causation
  - Ideal Types

8
Interpretation of Social Life

• Prejudices on the part of the social actors
  cannot be excluded from the analysis. Instead of
  completely objective terms social science
  researcher must speak the participants language
• social relations are context-dependent there are
  no universal, cross-cultural social entities
  Relativism
• interpret social life in terms of social rules,
  norms and conventions (cultural variability of
  human meanings)
• Examples
• Balinese cockfighting
• religious practices
• emergence of English working class
• Freuds theory of hidden meaning

9
Interpretation of Social Life

• Understanding a social phenomenon is
  understanding a form of life Wittgenstein
• Human behaviour is governed by reasons, not
  causes recall cause/reason distinction
• Is the understanding of social phenomena to be
  grounded in the individual actors or in social
  institutions?
• Weber social action as sum of meaningful
  actions of individuals
• Individualism
• Winch meaningful action is social, since it is
  governed by rules
• Holism

10
Weber

• Is there a compromise?
• A modified view of the social sciences
• Weber social sciences work with ideal types
  they deliver understanding and explanation
• Elster shift from laws to psychological
  mechanisms (ex. Cognitive dissonance)
• advantage mechanisms make no claim to
  exceptionless generality

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Weber and Ideal Types

• The Ideal Types Model (Weber)
• Social action manifests regularities
• Social regularities have meaning
• Ascribing meaning to human action (?
  understanding) does not show that the ascription
  has empirical validity
• Two identical types of actions may be based on
  quite different intentions
• method of understanding to be counterbalanced by
  method of causal explanation ascription of
  rational motives to action
• rational constructions or ideal types
  (rational-purposive action)

12
Weber and Ideal Types

• Ideal types checked against empirical reality
• Example rational economic behaviour
• Ceteris paribus statements