New Directions in the Philosophy of Social Science

Daniel Little is Chancellor and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. His many publications include New Contributions to the Philosophy of History (2010), The Paradox of Wealth and Poverty (2003), and Microfoundations, Method, and Causation: Essays in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1998).

• List of Figures and Tables / Foreword / Introduction / 1. A Better Social Ontology / 2. Actor-Centered Sociology / 3. Social Things / 4. Reduction and Emergence / 5. Generativity and Complexity / 6. Social Causation / 7. Social Realism / Conclusion / References / Index

Before he coined the Latin and Greek hybrid term “sociology” for his new science, Auguste Comte used the label “social physics.” In contrast, Little (philosophy and sociology, Univ. of Michigan) argues that “sociology is not like physics.” And what he says about sociology applies to other social sciences, from ethnography to economics. Social scientists who search for general theories a la physics demonstrate a failure to understand several critical aspects of social phenomena: heterogeneity, causal complexity, contingency, path dependency, and plasticity. Little calls for the use of “methodological localism,” in which institutions and organizations (meso-level) provide the grounding for an understanding of the meaning of actor behavior (micro-level). Finally, he supports Robert K. Merton’s call for middle-range theories... Little’s ability to explore basic issues from philosophy with contemporary examples from various social sciences will make this work a valued source for social scientists, and philosophers will gain insight into the applicability of their concepts to the work of practicing contemporary social scientists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty in the philosophy of social science and in the social sciences.