Explanatory and Non-explanatory Goals in the Social Sciences: A Reply to Reiss

Citation: Brante, Thomas (2008) Explanatory and Non-explanatory Goals in the Social Sciences: A Reply to Reiss. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 38: 271-278 (RSS)
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Summary

This article, the review of Reiss’ article, is consisted of three parts, (1) review and critique of Julian Reiss’s view of New Mechanist Perspective (NMP) in social science, (2) argument about common and ultimate goals for social science and (3) suggestion of using mechanisms.

In his article, “Do We Need Mechanisms in the Social Science?”, Reiss contended that NMPs maintain that the “only or ultimate” scientific goal is explanation by identifying causal mechanisms. Brante disagrees with Reiss’ assertion. Brante points out term, “only”. He says that science does not have only one goal and this problematic statement goes in the wrong direction of his overall assertion. Reiss also insisted that description, prediction, and control are the most important goals of the social science and he denied the benefit of the causal mechanisms, especially causal inferences, rejecting “the old symmetry thesis” since some examples of social science such as socioeconomic systems are subject to frequent structural breaks and there is no causal relationship. Brante disagrees with Reiss’ perspective of it. Especially, accurate prediction is hard to do because of complexity of society and the society has lots of causal determinants. Brante thinks that Reiss regarded science as tool which does not have to explain phenomena but depict. But Brante believes that science should explain the phenomena.

Brante illustrates three procedures of science (philosophy of science), (1) description, accurate measurement and meticulous estimation, (2) specific classification of study such as domain and sub classes, and (3) providing links (causal relations) between basic concepts and categories. All these procedures need explanation and identification of mechanisms and a causal relation is made by finding mechanism binding together cause and effect. There are two reasons why explanations are ultimate goal of science: (1) the great breakthroughs in science were occurred by concerning the identification of mechanisms which are beyond description and (2) although Reiss individual examples which focus on description are right but science should share basic approach (explanation) and common concern such as mechanisms to explore in a multi-disciplinary manner.

According to Brante, explanation should be based on mechanisms. There are several definitions of mechanism. It is hypothetical causal models, bits of sometimes true theory, a plausible hypothesis or a set of hypotheses, and analytical constructs. But these definitions as theory or hypothesis (firm-law like statement) are a little problematic because social science cannot be understood in the same way so he thinks that mechanism is reality encompassing infinite amount of causal relationships, is what a statistical association is based on, and is embedded in structures. Therefore ultimate goal of social science is the identification of social structures involving mechanisms.