Preface to the third edition
1. What is the philosophy of social science?
Philosophical problems of social science
Progress and prediction
A brief history of the philosophy of science
Lawlessness in social science
Rejecting prediction for intelligibility
Taking sides in the philosophy of social science
Naturalism versus interpretation
Introduction to the literature
2. The explanation of human action
Making folk psychology explicit
Reasons and causes
The holism of the mental
The logical connection argument
Intentionality
Intensionality and extensionality
Introduction to the literature
3. From behaviorism to rational choice, and back
Causation and purpose
The experimental analysis of behavior
The ghost in behaviorism's machine
Folk psychology formalized: the theory of rational choice
The economist as behaviorist
Instrumentalism in economics
The eclipse of behaviorism in psychology and economics
Introduction to the literature
4. Interpretation
The hermeneutics of human action
Can we reconcile rules and causes?
The social construction of society
The philosophy of history
Freud and the analysis of deep meanings
Marxism and meaning
Critical theory
Epistemological impasse?
Introduction to the literature
5. Functionalism and macrosocial science
Holism and human action
The autonomy of sociology
Holism and reductionism in psychology and sociology
Functional analysis and functional explanation
The trouble with functionalism
Introduction to the literature
6. Biology, human behavior, and social science
The prisoner's dilemma to the rescue?
Farewell to the standard social science model?
Blunting the threat of genetic determinism
Natural selection and mother-nurture?
Causation, statistics, laws and the relevance of biology
Introduction to the literature
7. Shall we commit a social science?
Moral problems of controlled research
Naturalism and utilitarianism
Kant: interpretation and deontology
Facts and values
Feminist philosophy of (social) science
Dangerous questions, moral obligations, and predictive knowledge
Introduction to the literature
8. Social science and the enduring questions of philosophy
The unavoidability of epistemology
Science and metaphysics
Reductionism and instrumentalism
Philosophy and the moral sciences
Conclusion.
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Philosophy of social science by Alexander Rosenberg. ISBN 9780813343518. Published by Westview in 2008. Publication and catalogue information, links to buy online and reader comments.
