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Explanation of Social Action

By Martin, John Levi

Explanation of Social Action book

Explanation of Social Action

By Martin, John Levi

0 - Default Title
Description
The Explanation of Social Action is a sustained critique of the conventional understanding of what it means to "explain" something in the social sciences. It makes the strong argument that the traditional understanding involves asking questions that have no clear foundation and provoke an unnecessary tension between lay and expert vocabularies. Drawing on the history and philosophy of the social sciences, John Levi Martin exposes the root of the problem as an attempt to counterpose two radically different types of answers to the question of why someone did a certain thing: first person and third person responses. The tendency is epitomized by attempts to explain human action in "causal" terms. This "causality" has little to do with reality and instead involves the creation and validation of abstract statements that almost no social scientist would defend literally.
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
412
Release Date:
2011-08-25
Publication Date:
2011-08-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0199773319
ISBN13:
9780199773312
Weight:
856 g
Height:
161 cm
Width:
240 cm
Thickness:
29 cm
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