PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND THE METHODOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS
David M. Woodruff
This seminar gives a selective introduction to major ideas in the philosophy of science as they bear on the subfield of comparative politics. It is intended to give students a chance to make explicit, considered decisions on the important philosophical issues that will confront them as they decide how to practice political science. Though the readings and intellectual organization of this course are shaped by the subdiscipline of comparative politics, most of the topics discussed will have important bearing on the other subdisciplines of political science, and on other social sciences such as economics and sociology.
The course is divided into three sections. The first treats fundamentals. We discuss how to conceive of the categories social scientists use to divide up the social world, the nature of causality, whether there are basic differences between the social and natural sciences, and whether adequate explanation in social science must be phrased in terms of individuals. These fundamentals form a backdrop to the second section of the course, which analyzes popular sorts of arguments in comparative politics with an eye to the vision of social science and the nature of the social world they embody. Specifically, we will deal with rational choice arguments, interpretivist arguments, functionalist arguments, arguments from inductive comparison, and ideal-typical arguments. Readings for this portion of the course will include both general philosophical and methodological discussions of the various styles of argument and examples of their application in comparative politics. The final section asks what it means for science to progress, examining this question both on the level of the discipline as a whole and on the level of the individual scientist.
Requirements will include several very short papers on the readings, and a longer final paper of 20-25 pages.
The following books are available for purchase at the Coop (all books will also be on reserve at Dewey library):
King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton 1994).
Laudan, Larry. Science and Relativism (Chicago 1990).
Martin and McIntyre, eds., Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science (MIT 1994). [Note: this may also be available at the MIT Press bookstore; in past years they have had 20% off coupons in campus publications].
Mohr, Lawrence. The Causes of Human Behavior: Implications for Theory and Method in the Social Sciences (Michigan 1996).
Rosenberg, Alexander. Philosophy of Social Science (2nd edition; Westview 1995).
NOW OUT OF PRINT: Weber, Max. The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Free Press 1949). This will be on reserve, but you may want to try to track down a used copy.
Very highly recommended: Robert Martin, The Philosopher's Dictionary (Broadview 1994). [Helpful for reading texts in an unfamiliar discipline.]
All other readings are available in a coursepack on reserve in two copies at Dewey; you will probably want to make a copy for your own use.
Quine, W. V. "Natural Kinds." In Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (Columbia 1969): 114-138.
Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (Penguin 1990): 336-338, 444-452.
Dupré, John. The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science (Harvard 1993): 1-59.
Kotowski, Christoph. "Revolution." In Sartori, ed., Social Science Concepts (Sage 1984): 403-451.
**NO CLASS** 2/20
King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing, 75-114.
Weber, Max. Methodology, 164-188.
Mohr, Causes, 13-56.
Huang, Yasheng. "Information, Bureaucracy, and Economic Reforms in China and the Soviet Union." World Politics (October 1994): 102-134.
McCloskey, Donald. The Rhetoric of Economics (University of Wisconsin Press 1985): 87-105.
Doestoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. (Bantam 1974): 29-36.
Hempel, "The Function of General Laws in History." In Martin and McIntyre, Readings, 43-54.
Rosenberg, Alexander. "If Economics Isn't Science, What Is It?" In Martin and McIntyre, 661-674.
Fay, Brian. "General Laws and Explaining Human Behavior." In Martin and McIntyre, Readings, 91-110.
Kincaid, Harold. "Defending Laws in the Social Sciences." In Martin and McIntyre, 131-144.
Mohr, Causes, 131-150.
Durkheim, Emile. "Social Facts," in Martin and McIntyre, 433-440.
Watkins, J.W.N. "Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences," in Martin and McIntyre, 441-450.
Lukes, Steven. "Methodological Individualism Reconsidered," in Martin and McIntyre, 451-458.
Kincaid, Harold. "Reduction, Explanation, and Individualism," in Martin and McIntyre, 497-514.
Putnam, Robert D. with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton 1993):163-185.
Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description." In Martin and McIntyre, 213-232.
King, Keohane, Verba, Designing, 34-43.
Friedman, Milton. "The Methodology of Positive Economics." in Martin and McIntyre, 647-660.
Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." In Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic 1973): 412-454.
Fearon, James D. and David. D Laitin. "Explaining Interethnic Cooperation."
American
Political Science Review v. 90, n.4 (1996): 715-735. [Note:
the reference to Geertz 1973, 7-9 in this article is equivalent to pp.
216-217 in McIntyre and Moore.]
** SPRING BREAK ** 3/27
Hempel, Carl. "The Logic of Functional Analysis." In Martin and McIntyre, Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science, 43-54.
Elster, Jon. "Marxism, Functionalism, and Game Theory." Theory and Society v.11, n.4 (July 1982): 453- 479. [Note: Pp. 453-463 most important.]
Van Parijs, Philippe. "Functionalist Marxism Rehabilitated: A Comment on Elster." Theory and Society v.11, n.4 (July 1982): 497-511.
Elster, Jon. "Functional Explanation: In Social Science." In Martin and McIntyre, 403-414.
Merton, Robert. On Theoretical Sociology (Free Press 1967): 104-108.
Kincaid, Harold. "Assessing Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences." In Martin and McIntyre, 415-428.
Weingast, Barry. "A Rational Choice Perspective on the Role of Ideas: Shared Belief Systems and State Sovereignty in International Cooperation." Politics & Society v.23,n.4 (December 1995): 449-464.
Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation (Beacon 1957): 130-162.
Ragin, Charles. The Comparative Method (UC Press 1987): 34-52; 85-102.
Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge UP 1979): 3-43; 80-81; 99; 109-111; 140-147; 155-157; 284-293.
Trotsky, Leon. The Russian Revolution (Doubleday Anchor 1959): 1-13.
Burawoy, Michael. "Two Methods in Search of Science: Skocpol versus Trotsky." Theory and Society v. 18 (1989): 759-805.
Skocpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World (Cambridge 1994): 301-344.
Geddes, Barbara. "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answer You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics." Political Analysis v. 2 (1990): 131-150.
Collier, David and James Mahoney. "Insights and Pitfalls: Selection Bias in Qualitative Research." World Politics v. 49, no. 1 (1996): 56-91.
Mohr, Causes, 97-129.
Walton, John, "Making the Theoretical Case," in Ragin and Becker, eds., What is a Case? (Cambridge 1992): 121-139.
Burger, Thomas. Max Weber's Theory of Concept Formation: History, Laws, and Ideal Types. 154-180.
Weber, Methodology :
"A Critique of Eduard Meyer's Methodological Views." 113-117; 129-163
"'Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy." 49-112.
________. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (Scribner's 1958): 47-51; 175-183.
________. Economy and Society (California 1978): 3-22.
________. "Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions." In Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber (Oxford 1946): 323-324 only.
Whitley, Richard. The Intellectual and Social Organization of the
Sciences (Clarendon Press,1984): 1-41; 219-265.
Friedman, Jeffrey. "Introduction: Economic Approaches to Politics," in Jeffrey Friedman, ed., The Rational Choice Controversy: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered (Yale 1996): 1-24.
Fiorina, Morris P. "Rational Choice, Empirical Contributions, and the Scientific Enterprise," in Friedman, Rational Choice, 85-94.
Green, Donald P. and Ian Shapiro, "Pathologies Revisited: Reflections on Our Critics," in Friedman, Rational Choice, 255-276. [Note: this is an excerpt from a longer article.]
Weber, Max. "Science As a Vocation." In Gerth and Mills, 129-158.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" In On the Genealogy of Morals (Vintage 1969): 97-166.