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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Logic of Social Science

The Logic of Social Science

Mahoney, James

Paperback

General Political ScienceGeneral Sociology

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ISBN10: 0691214956
ISBN13: 9780691214955
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Published: Aug 17 2021
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.20
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.91 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

A groundbreaking logic-based approach to bridging the scientific-constructivist divide in social science

The Logic of Social Science offers new principles for designing and conducting social science research. James Mahoney uses set-theoretic analysis to develop a fresh scientific constructivist approach that avoids essentialist biases in the production of knowledge. This approach recognizes that social categories depend on collective understandings for their existence, but it insists that this recognition need not hinder the use of explicit procedures for the rational assessment of truth. Mahoney shows why set-theoretic analysis enables scholars to avoid the pitfalls of essentialism and produce findings that rest on a firm scientific foundation.

Extending his previous work and incorporating new material, Mahoney presents specific tools for formulating and evaluating theories in the social sciences. Chapters include discussions of models of causality, procedures for testing propositions, tools for conducting counterfactual and sequence analysis, and principles for knowledge accumulation. Equal focus is placed on theory building and explanatory tools, including principles for working with general theoretical orientations and normative frameworks in scientific research. Mahoney brings a novel perspective to understanding the relationship among actors, social rules, and social resources, and he offers original ideas for the analysis of temporality, critical events, and path dependence.

Bridging the rift between those who take a scientific approach and those who take a constructivist one, The Logic of Social Science forges an ambitious way forward for social science researchers.

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