Mechanisms, good and bad

The claim that mechanisms are essential good science is widespread. I argue, however, that these claims are ambiguous in multiple ways. I sort out different version of the mechanism idea: (1) mechanisms that are horizontal —between cause and effect— and mechanisms that are vertical —they realize in lower-level terms causal properties—: and (2) different purposes or uses mechanisms may have. I then focus on the claim that various senses of mechanism are necessary for the confirmation of cau-sal claims. The paper shows that mechanisms can be useful, essential, or harmful depending on context, using the now standard graphical causal structure framework. These conclusions also support the larger philosophy of science moral that methodological norms in science are often context specific and empiri-cal, not a priori and universal

Current issues in the philosophy of the social sciences

Philosophy of social science, properly conceived, has something to offer practicing social scientists. Social scientists cannot help but have some philosophy of social science implicitly involved in their research, and to avoid blind alleys, it is best to be explicit and critically aware of what that philosophy is and its merits. Philosophy of the social sciences, in turn, cannot be done without close engagement with social research. The article outlines some developments in postpositivist philosophy of science and their implications for philosophy of social science. This general perspective is then applied to debates in the social sciences over the nature of causation, the place of mechanisms in social research and the legitimacy of purely macrosociological explanations, qualitative vs. quantitative research, observational vs. experimental evidence, and questions about individualism vs. holism in social explanation.A filosofia das ciências sociais, concebida da maneira adequada, tem algo a oferecer aos que praticam as ciências sociais. Os cientistas sociais adotam em suas pesquisas, ainda que de forma implícita, alguma filosofia de sua ciência. Para evitar impasses, é melhor explicitar essa filosofia e ser criticamente consciente dos seus méritos. A filosofia das ciências sociais, por sua vez, não pode ser praticada sem um envolvimento íntimo com a pesquisa social. O artigo esboça alguns desenvolvimentos da filosofia da ciência pós-positivista e suas implicações para a filosofia das ciências sociais. Essa perspectiva geral é então aplicada a alguns debates das ciências sociais: a natureza da causalidade; o lugar dos mecanismos na pesquisa social e da legitimidade de explicações puramente macrossociológicas; a distinção entre pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa; a distinção entre evidência observacional e evidência experimental; a polêmica entre o individualismo e o holismo metodológicos na explicação sociológica

Session 3-3-C: The National Longitudinal Study of Gambling Behaviour (NLSGB): Preliminary Results

Introduction The NLSGB tracked 300 gamblers over a 15-month period. A comprehensive survey instrument was compiled to analyse factors that might influence changes in risk of gambling problems over time. The study was conducted in the four major metropolitan areas of South Africa: Johannesburg, Tshwane, Durban and Cape Town. We will discuss the study’s design and implementation and some preliminary results

Smoking and Intertemporal Risk Attitudes

Atemporal risk preferences, time preferences, and intertemporal risk preferences are central to economic explanations of addiction, but have received little attention in the experimental economic literature on substance use. We conduct an incentive-compatible experiment designed to elicit the atemporal risk preferences, time preferences, and intertemporal risk preferences of a sample of student (n = 145) and staff (n = 111) smokers, ex-smokers, and non-smokers at the University of Cape Town in 2016-2017. We estimate a structural model of intertemporal risk preferences jointly with a rank-dependent utility model of choice under atemporal risk and a quasi-hyperbolic model of time preferences. We find no substantive differences in atemporal risk preferences according to smoking status, smoking intensity, and smoking severity, but do find that time preferences have an economically significant association with smoking behaviour. Smokers discount at a far higher rate than non-smokers, and ex-smokers discount at a level between these groups. There is also a large, positive relationship between smoking intensity and discounting behaviour that has important implications for treatment. The intertemporal risk preferences of our sample exhibit significant heterogeneity and we find, contrary to the assumption employed by some economic models, that smokers do not exhibit intertemporal risk seeking behaviour. Instead, our sample is characterised by high levels of intertemporal risk aversion which varies by smoking intensity and smoking severity in men, but not in women

What makes economics special: orientational paradigms

From the mid-1960s until the late 1980s, the well-known general philosophies of science of the time were applied to economics. The result was disappointing: none seemed to fit. This paper argues that this is due to a special feature of economics: it possesses ‘orientational paradigms’ in high number. Orientational paradigms are similar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are shared across scientific communities, but dissimilar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are not generally accepted as valid guidelines for further research. As will be shown by several examples, orientational paradigms provide economics with common points of reference that support its epistemic coherence and make scientific discourse more easily possible across school boundaries. With the help of systematicity theory, a newer general philosophy of science, one can further elucidate the role of orientational paradigms with regard to scientific progress

Levels: Descriptive, Explanatory, and Ontological

Scientists and philosophers frequently speak about levels of description, levels of explanation, and ontological levels. In this paper, I propose a unified framework for modelling levels. I give a general definition of a system of levels and show that it can accommodate descriptive, explanatory, and ontological notions of levels. I further illustrate the usefulness of this framework by applying it to some salient philosophical questions: (1) Is there a linear hierarchy of levels, with a fundamental level at the bottom? And what does the answer to this question imply for physicalism, the thesis that everything supervenes on the physical? (2) Are there emergent properties? (3) Are higher-level descriptions reducible to lower-level ones? (4) Can the relationship between normative and non-normative domains be viewed as one involving levels? Although I use the terminology of “levels”, the proposed framework can also represent “scales”, “domains”, or “subject matters”, where these are not linearly but only partially ordered by relations of supervenience or inclusion

A New Task for Philosophy of Science

We philosophers of science have before us an important new task that we need urgently to take up. It is to convince the scientific community to adopt and implement a new philosophy of science that does better justice to the deeply problematic basic intellectual aims of science than that which we have at present. Problematic aims evolve with evolving knowledge, that part of philosophy of science concerned with aims and methods thus becoming an integral part of science itself. The outcome of putting this new philosophy into scientific practice would be a new kind of science, both more intellectually rigorous, and one that does better justice to the best interests of humanity