The Logic of Social Science - by James Mahoney

About the Book

"Mahoney's starting point is the problem of essentialism in social science. Essentialism--the belief that the members of a category possess hidden properties ("essences") that make them members of the category and that endow them with a certain nature--is appropriate for scientific categories ("atoms", for instance) but not for human ones ("revolutions," for instance). Despite this, much social science research takes place from within an essentialist orientation; those who reject this assumption goes so far in the other direction as to reject the idea of an external reality, independent of human beings, altogether. Mahoney proposes an alternative approach that aspires to bridge this enduring rift in the social sciences between those who take a scientific approach and assume that social science categories correspond to external reality (and thus believe that the methods used in the natural sciences are generally appropriate for the social sciences) and those who take a constructivist approach and believe that because the categories used to understand the social world are humanly-constructed, they cannot possibly follow the science of the natural world. As the name suggests, scientific constructivism brings in aspects of both views and attempts to unite them. Drawing from cognitive science, it focuses on using the rational parts of our brain machinery to overcome the limitations and deeply seated biases (such as essentialism) of our evolved minds. Specifically, Mahoney puts forth a "set-theoretic analysis" that focuses on "sets" of categories as they exist in the mind that are also subject to the mathematical logic of set-theory. He spends the first four chapters of the book establishing the foundations and methods for set-theoretic analysis, the next four chapters looking and how this analysis fits with the existing tools of social science, and the final four chapters focusing on how this approach can be used to study and understand cases"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"[The Logic of Social Science] provides a compelling and accessible introduction to scientific constructivism and the methodology of the set-theoretic analysis, and it provides ready-for-use set-theoretic tools for researchers in the social sciences."---Hein Duijf, Metascience

About the Author

James Mahoney is the Gordon Fulcher Professor in Decision-Making and professor of sociology and political science at Northwestern University. His many books include Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis and A Tale of Two Cultures (Princeton).