The Logic of Theoretical Sociology - by David Willer & Pamela Emanuelson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book takes an historical view to explain how social science arrived at its current state and proposes solutions to its problems. This book shows the reader that theory is the method of the sciences. First it explains how the empiricism of J. S. Mill and R. A. Fisher has blocked the growth of theory-driven research. The myths of how science works, as proposed by T. Kuhn, have added another layer of obfuscation. Wholesale adoption of empiricist methods has produced the replication crisis - that most experimental findings cannot be replicated in economics and psychology and undoubtedly also in sociology. Without theory, the scope of research topics has constricted, resulting in what R. Merton feared, a balkanization of knowledge in sociology.

Then, having cleared the intellectual underbrush, the book turns to how theory-driven experiments are constructed. Fortunately, today a number of theory-driven experimental studies are found in the literature. This book's use of those studies as examples will help the reader understand this form of experimentation. The authors envision an explanatory sociology in which experimentally grounded theory forms a 'toolbox'. The parts of the toolbox are deployed to explain complex historical and contemporary events. Here examples are few and far between: we will need to build new ones. Taken together, this book envisions a radically changed social science, and it is vital reading for scholars across sociology, political science, economics, and social psychology.

From the Back Cover

"In a time of seemingly unlimited faith in "big data" and in which any kind of thinking, let alone of the critical kind, is increasingly outsourced to AI, this is a very important book. Willer and Emanuelson encourage the reader to take a step back and contemplate the current state of "theoretical sociology". They reestablish the deep and valuable links between sociology and other theory-driven sciences and reevaluate the experimental method. This is an excellent place to start (and come back to) for any serious student of society who aspires to truly understand the topics they study."
--Jacob Dijkstra, Director of Studies, Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

This book offers a historical view to explain how social science arrived at its current state and proposes solutions to its problems. It shows that theory is the method of the sciences. First it explains how the empiricism of J. S. Mill and R. A. Fisher has blocked theory-driven research. Myths about how science works, as proposed by T. Kuhn, have added another layer of obfuscation. The widespread adoption of empiricist methods has produced the replication crisis, where many experimental findings cannot be replicated in economics, psychology, and undoubtedly sociology. Without theory, the scope of research topics has narrowed, resulting in R. Merton's fear of a balkanization of knowledge in sociology.

Having cleared the intellectual underbrush, the book then discusses how theory-driven experiments are constructed drawing on several such studies found in the literature. These examples will help the reader understand this form of experimentation. The authors envision an explanatory sociology in which experimentally grounded theory forms a 'toolbox' used to explain complex historical and contemporary events. Here examples are few and far between: we will need to build new ones. Taken together, this book envisions a radically changed social science, and it is vital reading for scholars across sociology, political science, economics, and social psychology.

David Willer is Scudder Professor of Sociology (Emeritus), University of South Carolina, USA.

Pamela Emanuelson is Associate Professor of Sociology at North Dakota State University, USA.

About the Author

David Willer is Scudder Professor of Sociology (Emeritus), University of South Carolina, USA. His research investigates the effects of social structures on human behavior. His six books include Network Exchange Theory, which received the Coleman award from the American Sociological Association. More recently he published Building Experiments: Testing Social Theory with Henry Walker. Over the last decade he has written a series of papers including: "Analyzing Large Scale Exchange Networks" in Social Networks with Pamela Emanuelson, and "Legitimating Collective Action and Countervailing Power" in Social Forces with Henry Walker.

Pamela Emanuelson is Associate Professor of Sociology at North Dakota State University, USA. She develops and tests formal models of power exercise. She publishes in cross-disciplinary journals, including Social Networks, Social Evolution and History, and The Chinese Journal of Sociology. More recent work focuses on methodology and theory application. She and her co-author, David Willer, apply formally tested theory to the analysis of prehistoric political structure in "Social Structures in Transition: Applications of Two Theories to Chiefdoms." Another recent joint publication, "Theory and the Replication Problem," examines the logic underlying the current 'Replication Crisis.'