《Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences》是1996年Cambridge University Press出版的圖書，作者是Harold Kincaid。
基本介紹
- 中文名：Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences
- 作者：Harold Kincaid
- 出版社：Cambridge University Press
- 出版時間：1996年3月7日
- ISBN：9780521558914
內容簡介
This 1996 book defends the prospects for a science of society. It argues that behind the diverse methods of the natural sciences lies a common core of scientific rationality that the social sciences can and sometimes do achieve. It also argues that good social science must be in part about large-scale social structures and processes and thus that methodological individualism is misguided. These theses are supported by a detailed discussion of actual social research, including theories of agrarian revolution, organizational ecology, social theories of depression, and supply-demand explanations in economics. Professor Kincaid provides a general picture of explanation and confirmation in the social sciences and discusses the nature of scientific rationality, functional explanation, optimality arguments, meaning and interpretation, the place of microfoundations in social explanation, the status of neo-classical economics, the role of idealizations and non-experimental evidence, and other specific controversies.
