>The argument sounds a bit like the one between cognitive psychology and
>neuroanatomy where the former say 'how can one possibly 'explain' all
>previous theoretical abstractions of cognitive psychology through neurons
>and connections?', (all sorts of dubious philosphical traps about 'multiple
>instantiability' usually follow) and the latter respond, 'well thats all
>there are so we better get to it...' Transposed into our field, all there
>are are individuals and the constraints on their interrelationship (space,
>language, intergenerational knowledge transfer etc.) so any explanatory
>theory must be reducible at some stage to mechanisms based on that.
This analogy is an instructive one. Philosophers of mind (and empirical
researchers) have spent at least 40 years arguing whether psychology
reduces to neurobiology, and if not, then why not. I am working on a
philosophy of social science article, in which I take the philosophy of
mind arguments for "nonreductive materialism" and develop them into a
position I call "nonreductive individualism." The consensus among
philosophers of mind is that the mental is not reducible to the physical.
Surprisingly given the obviousness of the analogy, no philosophers of
social science have yet drawn out this analogy.
R. Keith Sawyer
Assistant Professor
Program in Social Thought and Analysis
Washington University
Campus Box 1183
St. Louis, MO 63130
314-935-8724
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~ksawyer
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