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  • 2016

  • Mäki, Uskali (2016): Explanatory Unification. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 31 (4), S. 488-506. DOI: 10.1177/004839310103100402

    Abstract: Explanatory unification-the urge to "explain much by little"-serves as an ideal of theorizing not only in natural sciences but also in the social sciences, most notably in economics. The ideal is occasionally challenged by appealing to the complexity and diversity of social systems and processes in space and time. This article proposes to accommodate such doubts by making a distinction between two kinds of unification and suggesting that while such doubts may be justified in regard to mere derivational unification (which serves as a formal constraint on theories), it is less justified in the case of ontological unification (which is a result of factual discovery of the actual degree of underlying unity in the world).

    Keywords: Disziplin, Einheit, Erklärung, Ethics, Metatheorie, Ontologie, Philosophie, social sciences, social systems, ethics, Theorie der Theorie
  • Wight, Colin (2016): Theorizing the Mechanisms of Conceptual and Semiotic Space. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (2), S. 283-299. DOI: 10.1177/0048393103262554

    Abstract: In this piece the author takes issue with Mario Bunge's claims that conceptual and semiotic systems have "compositions, environments and structures, but no mechanisms." Structures, according to Bunge, can never be mechanisms in conceptual and semiotic systems. Contra this the author argues that in social systems, social structures (which are concept-dependent and reproduced and/or transformed, at least in part, semiotically), can be mechanisms in the sense that such structures are one of the processes in a concrete system that makes it what it is. As such, not only may conceptual and semiotic systems have mechanisms, but they may also themselves be considered some of the mechanisms that make the social what it is. As such, they can be said to possess powers and liabilities that neither reside at lower levels nor are explainable in terms of the lower level. To hold out the prospect of social explanation by conceptual and/or semiotic mechanisms does not represent an attempt to decouple these systems from material factors. What it does mean is that conceptual and/or semiotic systems can, potentially at least, play a role in social explanation; and themselves be subject to explanation.

    Keywords: Bunge, cause, conceptualism, Disziplin, emergence, Emergenz, Erklärung, Erklärung des Sozialen, explanation, Interaktion, Konzept, mechanisms, Ontologie, Philosophie, realism, Realismus, reductionism, Reduktionismus, semiotics, Semiotik, social, social realism, Sozialverhalten, structures, Strukturalismus, Strukturen, Systemtheorie, Theoriebegriffe, Überblick
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