LITTLE, Daniel (2016) New directions in the philosophy of science.

Editorial Rowman and

1. Foreword
1.1. I maintain that virtually all social entities are “plastic”: their properties change
significantly over time, as a result of the purposive and unintentional behaviors of the
socially constructed individuals who make up a society […] This points to a general
and important observation about the constitution of the social world: The properties
of a social entity or practice can change over time […] (p. x)
2. Introduction
2.1. Why “philosophy of social science”?
2.1.1. The importance of the philosophy of social science derives from two things: first,
the urgency and complexity of the challenge posed by the poorly understood
social processes that surround us in twenty-first-century society, and second, the
unsettled status of our understanding of the nature of the social world and the
ways we can best describe and explain it (p. xiii)
2.1.2. […] the complexity and opacity of the contemporary social world demand a
better understanding of the logic and methods of the social sciences. (p. xiv)
2.1.3. In short, a particular strength of her approach is that it emphasizes the
contingency, variation, and internal heterogeneity in social processes that we
should expect. “Theory” is a help but not a blueprint. (p. xv)
2.1.4. Instead, we must analyze the current social realities, recognize their novelties,
and perhaps discover some of the common causal processes that recur in other
times and places (p. xvi)
2.1.5. This hope for a comprehensive theory of social change is chimerical; it does not
correspond to the nature of the social world. It does not sufficiently recognize
several crucial features of social phenomena: heterogeneity, causal complexity,
contingency, path dependency, and plastic (p. xvi)
2.2. The thrust of this book
2.2.1. Social entities and processes are highly heterogeneous in their composition and
dynamics. There is a substantial degree of plasticity in the social world. And, social
outcomes –enduring structures, large-scales events like wars, famines, and
revolutions- display a high degree of contingency an path dependency in their
composition and unfolding. (p. xvi)
2.2.2. […] the books works generally within the perspective of what I call bellow an
actor-centered approach to the social sciences. The key idea worked out in
chapter 2 is that social entities, processes, and forms of influence are ultimately
rooted in individual actors. (p. xvii).
2.2.3. […] we cannot separate sharply between “social” and “individual”; the social
depends on individuals, and individuals depend on their formations and situations
within a social setting. (p. xvii)
 2.2.4. […] And, it suggests that there is a compositional character to social
arrangements; they are built up through a process of lamination and composition
from lower-level individual and social activities. (p. xvii)
2.2.5. […] I try to give sense to the fact that social structures and institutions
nonetheless have a degree of stability and causal force that allows us to regard
them as entities, not merely accidental configurations. (p. xvii)
2.2.6. In consider the central status that the discovery of causal mechanisms plays in
good explanatory research, and I consider recent arguments to the effect that we
need to discover the causal powers of things if we are to have coherent causal
explanations. Both views –mechanisms and powers- reject the Humean idea that
causation is constant conjunction, and I argue that they are compatible with each
other rather than otherwise. (p. xvii)
2.2.7. […] In chapter 7, it is argued that it is perfectly reasonable for sociologists and
political scientist to attribute reality and objectivity to the social entities,
structures, and practices that they study. (p. xviii)
2.2.8. Some philosophers have argued that causal explanation is inapt in the social
realm, and that we need instead pay close attention to the nature and role of
meanings within the social realm. These philosophers take the view that social
meanings are crucial and poorly understood, and they advocate a hermeneutic
approach to the study of the social world. (p. xviii)
2.2.9. But unlike the interpretive tradition in the philosophy of social science, I believe
the facts about meanings and mental frameworks are completely compatible
with, and necessary for, a satisfactory understanding of social causations. This is
so because the substrate of social causation is human social action and
interaction, and human action requires interpretation of the meanings and mental
frameworks that guide actors choices (p. xviii)
2.3. New philosophy of social science.
2.3.1. The three poles of Figure I.1 are analytical sociology, critical realism, and
assemblage theory. It is often believed that these are fundamentally incompatible
paradigms for understanding the social world and social explanation. Against this
incompatibilist view, I believe that each perspective has something to add to a
new and more adequate philosophy of the social world and the social sciences. (p.
xviii)
2.3.2. The scientific realism about social structures that I advocate creates a degree of
affinity with critical realism and, in any case, affirms the central view of critical
realism: that it is legitimate to attribute causal powers to concrete social
structures. (p. xxi)
3. Chapter 1. A BETTER SOCIAL ONTOLOGY
3.1. The social world has characteristics that fundamentally distinguish it from the natural
world –heterogeneity, plasticity, and contingency, to name several The social world is
not a system of law-governed processes […] (p. 1).
3.2. A central thrust here is this: it is important for social scientists to avoid the fallacy of
“naturalism” –the idea that social science should resemble natural science and the
idea that social entities have a similar constitution and ontology to natural entities (p.1)
3.3. And, finally, this approach highlights what I all “methodological localism”: the view
that the foundation of social processes, structures, and changes is the local, socially
located, and socially constructed individual person. (p. 2)
3.3.1. NEW METAPHORS FOR THE SOCIAL.
3.3.1.1. This new perspective implies, rather, that we need to understand the limits
on representation, abstraction, and prediction that are implied by the
fundamental nature of social things. (p. 4)
3.3.1.2. The Flea Market Analogy
3.3.1.2.1. But there is also a degree of order underlying the apparent chaos of
the jumble tables. All is not random in a flea market. (p. 4)
3.3.1.2.2. […] the order that can be discerned is the result of a large number of
overlapping, independent conditions and processes, not the
manifestation of a few simple forces or a guiding system of laws. (p. 4)
3.3.1.2.3. […] the patterns and regularities are themselves the result of multiple
social mechanisms, motives, and processes. And these processes are in
no way analogous to laws of nature. (p. 5)
3.3.2. HETEROGENEITY OF THE SOCIAL
3.3.2.1. I maintain that heterogeneity is a very basic characteristic of the domain
of the social (p. 5)
3.3.2.2. The properties of fruitcake depend on which sample we encounter (p. 5)
3.3.2.3.The basic claim about the heterogeneity of the social comes down to this: at
many levels of scale we continue to find a diversity of social things and
processes at work. Society is more similar to fruitcake than cheesecake. (p.
6)
3.3.2.4. First is the heterogeneity that can be discovered within social categories
of things […] Second is the heterogeneity of social causes and influences.
Social events are commonly the result of a variety of different kinds of
causes that come together in highly contingent conjunctions. […] This
feature of social causation leads us to describe social and historical
causation as “conjunctural”. […] Third is the heterogeneity that can be
discovered across and within social groups (p. 6) […] A fourth form of
heterogeneity take us within the agent herself, when we note the variety of
motives, moral frameworks, emotions, and modes of agency on the basis of
which people act. (p. 7)
3.3.2.5.[…] the social world is an ensemble, a dynamic mixture, and an ongoing
interaction of forces, agents, structures, and mentalities. Social outcomes
emerge from this heterogeneous and dynamic mixture, and the quest for
general laws is deeply quixotic. (p. 7)
3.3.2.6. […] we should look to a “concatenation” strategy. That is, we might
simply acknowledge the fact of molar heterogeneity and look instead for
some the different processes and mechanisms in play in a given item of
interest, and then build up a theory of the whole as a concatenation of the
particulars of the parts. (p. 7)
3.3.2.7.First is the idea of looking for microfoundations for observed social
processes. Here, the idea is that higher-level social processes, causes, and
events need to be placed within the context of n account of the actor-level
institutions and circumstances that convey those processes. Second is the
method of causal mechanisms [..] Punt simply, the approach recommends
that we explain an outcome or social circumstance as the contingent result
of the concatenation of a set of independent causal mechanisms. […] And,
third is the theory of a “assemblages,” derived from some of theories of
Gilles Deleuze, Manuel DeLanda describes this theory in A New Philosophy of
Society […] (p. 7)
3.3.2.8. In short, Cartwright´s philosophy of science lends support for the
important truth of the heterogeneity principle: that social outcomes are the
aggregate result of multiple lower-level processes and institutions that give
rise to them, and the social outcomes are contingent results of interaction
and concatenation of these lower-level processes (p. 8)
3.3.2.9. Composition of the Social
3.3.2.9.1.Heterogeneity suggests composition. Heterogeneous entities are
composed of disparate components. Our social ontology therefore
needs to reflect the insight that complex social happenings are almost
invariably composed of multiple causal processes and components
rather than existing as unitary systems (p. 8-9)
3.3.2.9.2. […] social analysis and description is always incomplete and
open (p. 10)
3.3.2.9.3. Social science is always “incomplete,” in the sense that there are
always social processes relevant to social outcomes that have not been
theorized (p. 10).
3.3.2.10. Assemblage Theory and the Philosophy of Social Science.
3.3.2.10.1. The ontological properties of the natural and social realms are
substantially different.(p. 11)
3.3.2.10.2. Deleuze´s theory of “assemblage” as a way of thinking about
the social world is a genuinely novel one. (p. 11)
3.3.2.10.3. The concept of assemblage is defined along two dimensions:
One dimension or axis defines the variable roles which an assemblage´s
components may play, from a purely material role at one extreme of
the axis, to a purely expressive role at the other extreme…. The other
dimension defines variable processes in which these components
become involved and that either stabilize the identity of an
 assemblage, by increasing its degree of internal homogeneity or the
degree of sharpness of its boundaries, or destabilize it…. (p. 11)
3.3.2.10.4. […] assemblage theory is opposed to essentialism and
reification. . (p. 11)
3.3.2.10.5. DeLanda distinguishes between “interiority” and “exteriority” in
conceptualizing the component of a thing. For assemblage theory, the
relations among the parts are contingent, not necessary. And, crucially,
parts can be extracted from on whole and inserted into another. (p.
12).
3.3.2.10.6. I think we do best to understand assemblage theory as a high-
level and abstract ontological framework, an abstract description of
the nature of the social world (p.13)
3.3.2.10.7. So, assemblage theory is not a substantive social theory. (p.13)
3.3.2.10.8. […] we should be skeptical about the appearance of unity and
coherence in an extended social entity and look instead to discover
some of the heterogeneous and independent processes that underlie
the surface appearance. (p. 13)
3.4. PLASTICITY
3.4.1. […] the properties of a social entity or practice can change over time; they are
not rigid, fixed, or timeless. (p. 14)
3.4.2. Social constructs are caused and implemented within a substrate of purposive
and active agents whose behavior and mentality at a given time determine the
features of the social entity. (p. 14)
3.4.3.So, the individual´s basic characteristics of personality, belief, and motivation are
plastic. (p. 16)
3.4.4. Institution are human products and are embodied in human actions and beliefs.
(p. 16)
3.4.5. Social Continuity and Abrupt Change
3.4.5.1. What features of social causation and processes would either support or
undermine the expectation of continuity? (16)
3.4.5.2. Take first the stability of large social and political institutions (p. 17)
3.4.5.3. […] Internal forces that work actively to preserve the workings of the
institutions: the stakeholders wo benefit from the current arrangements. (p.
17)
3.4.5.4. Considerer next the ways in which attitudes and values change in a
population (p. 17)
3.4.5.5. So, there are some good foundational reason for expecting a degree of
continuity in the social environment; but there are also convincing models of
social behavior that lead to important instances of discontinuous outcomes.
(p. 18)
 3.4.5.6. One reason why social scientist expect social arrangements to be stable
over time is the idea that institutions and practices are commonly in a state
of “equilibrium” (p. 18)
3.4.5.7. We may refer to these corrective processes as “homeostatic”
processes”. (p. 18)
3.4.5.8. Perhaps a more common mechanism for stability of social arrangements
over time is […] the persistence of an alignment of interest and power in
various groups of stakeholders within the institution or practices. (p. 19)
3.4.5.9. In fact, it seems that equilibria are relatively rare in the social world. (p.
19)
3.4.6. Slow Institutional Change
3.4.6.1. […] institutions change when positions holders within them find
circumstances in which they have both an opportunity and an incentive to
change or reinterpret the rules in ways that serve their interests. (p. 20)
3.4.6.2. Incremental change occurs as the result of the opportunistic and
strategic choices made by a range of actors within the institution (p. 20)
3.4.6.3. We argue that institutional change often occurs precisely when
problems of rule interpretation and enforcement open up space for actors
to implement existing rules in new ways. (p. 21)
3.4.7. Liquid Modernity?
3.4.7.1. The key to the answer lies in formulating a more nuanced understanding of
the temporality of change. It is important not to assume all-or-nothing
liquidity: either the social world is wholly labile, from moment to moment; or
else there are “determinate” structures that are impervious to change. A
better answer might be couched in terms of different temporal scales (p. 21)
3.5. STEINMENTZ ON GERMAN COLONIAL REGIMES
3.5.1. It derives, fundamentally, from Bordieu´s theories of social capital. (p. 22)
3.5.2. This aspect of the account is compatible with a microfoundations approach: it is
straightforward to so hoy mobilization theory can be fleshed out in ways that
make it an agent-centered approach. (p. 22)
3.6. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS
3.6.1. Defining concepts
3.6.1.1. So, we have to say that we mean by the term; we have to indicate which bits
of the world are encompassed by the term; and perhaps we need to give
some reason to expect that these phenomena are relevantly similar (p. (25 –
26)
3.6.1.2. Several semantic act are relevant in trying to do this work. “Ostension” is
the most basic […] (p. 26)
3.6.1.3. What do we intend to designate in pointing to this set of paradigm cases? (p.
26)
3.6.1.4.Either way, the theory goes beyond semantics and make substantive
empirical statement about the world (p. 26)
 3.6.1.5. […] a theoretical concept is useful if it helps the theorist to formulate
hypotheses about theunobservable mechanisms that underlie a
phenomenon and that help to provide some empirical order to the
phenomena (p. 26)
3.6.1.6. The semantic ideas of family resemblance, ideal type, and cluster
concept work best for concepts in the social sciences. (p. 27)
3.6.2. Conceptual Schemes
3.6.2.1. What is a conceptual scheme? It is a interrelated set of high-level, abstract
concept that allow us to break the empirically or historically given into a
discrete set of cognitive boxes. We might think of it as our high-level
concept vocabulary within which more specific descriptors are arranged. (p.
27)
3.6.2.2. A conceptual scheme is though in some way to be “comprehensive” all
the phenomena in a certain domain ought to find a place within the
conceptual scheme. (p. 27)
3.6.2.3. “Thing” and “objetc” are ontological categories that perhaps don´t
work as well in the social realm. Perhaps, more fluid categories such as
process, relation, or activity work better. (p. 28)
3.6.2.4. “descriptive metaphysics” (p. 28)
3.6.2.5. It is sometimes thought that our conceptual systems are simultaneously
contingent and deeply influential in determining how we analyze the world
around us. (p. 28)
3.6.2.6. Instead, it seems persuasive that ideas and statements that originate in
an ontology of socials wholes can be effectively restated in an ontology that
originates in a world of individuals […] (p. 30)
3.6.2.7. […] the idea of intertranslatability and mutual comprehension across
these large conceptual divides. (p. 30)
3.6.2.8. These specific concepts could be to a fairly short list of higher-level
social concepts or what we might call social “categories”: individuals and
their characteristics, social groups, structures, ideologies, events and
influence terms (power, prestige, status). (p. 30)
3.7. ARE THERE SOCIAL KINDS?
3.7.1. Philosophers of science sometimes define the idea of a natural kind as “a group of
things that share fundamental set of causal properties”. And, we expect there to
be important regularities or similarities across all instances of a natural kind term
[…] (p. 31)
3.7.2. Rather, they are plastic, variable, opportunistic, individually specific instantiations
across a variety of humans context. We need to be able to identify some topics of
interest, so we need language and concepts; but we must avoid reifying the
concepts and thinking they refer to some underlying discoverable essence. (p. 31)
3.7.3. Do these typical concepts used in the social sciences succeed in identifying a
social analog to natural kinds and a range of entities or processes that share a
 common structure or causal nature, which might be referred to as “social kinds”?
And, if not, is it possible to be realist about the social world but antirealist with
respect to “social kinds”? (p. 32)
3.7.4. An ideal-type is one that provides a specific model of something, and then
classifies entities within the class depending on their similarity to some aspect of
the model. And, a kind term is one that is supposed to classify entities as being
similar on the basis of some deep set of characteristics that they share, ideally a
common underlying causal structure. A concept is treated nominalistically if we
understand that it is to some degree an arbitrary grouping of entities. (p. 33)
3.7.5. A concept is treated realistically if we believe that the concept corresponds to an
ontologically real class of entities in the world (pp. 33)
3.7.6.Concepts are of course essential to social knowledge. The heart of social inquiry
has to do with coming up with concepts that allow us to better understand social
reality (p. 34)
3.7.7. Theory formation in the social sciences largely consists of the task of constructing
concepts and categories that capture groups of social phenomena for the
purpose of analysis. But even the most successful social concepts do not identify
groups of phenomena that should be called a “social kind” (p. 34)
3.7.8.The philosophical notions of “family resemblance” and “cluster concepts” serve
better to characterize these high-level social concepts than does “natural kind”.
(p. 34)
3.7.9. There is another import obstacle to the plausibility of social kinds: the point about
the plasticity of social entities that was argued above (p. 34)
3.8. MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES OF THE CITY
3.8.1. […] are not confined to a single field of the social sciences (p. 35)
3.8.2.[…] transdisciplinary organizations (p. 35)
4. CHAPTER 2. ACTOR-CENTERED SOCIOLOGY.
4.1. ACTOR-CENTERED SOCIOLOGY
4.1.1.