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Realism, Regularity and Social Explanation
Author(s) -
Kemp Stephen,
Holmwood John
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5914.00212
Subject(s) - epistemology , realism , critical realism (philosophy of perception) , scientific realism , abstraction , sociology , social ontology , philosophy of social science , philosophy , social science , social relation , social philosophy
Stephen Kemp and John Holmwood, Realism, Regularity and Social Explanation, pp. 165–187.This article explores the difficulties raised for social scientific investigation by the absence of experiment, critically reviewing realist responses to the problem such as those offered by Bhaskar, Collier and Sayer. It suggests that realist arguments for a shift from prediction to explanation, the use of abstraction, and reliance upon interpretive forms of investigation fail to demonstrate that these approaches compensate for the lack of experimental control. Instead, it is argued that the search for regularities, when suitably conceived, provides the best alternative to experiment for the social sciences.