Why the Social Sciences are Irreducible
(2019) In Synthese 196(12). p.4961-4987- Abstract
- It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position (usually labelled explanatory holism) is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token-token(s) identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals (a position traditionally called ontological individualism), but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type-type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory holism is unsound. The social... (More)
- It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position (usually labelled explanatory holism) is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token-token(s) identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals (a position traditionally called ontological individualism), but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type-type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory holism is unsound. The social sciences are indeed irreducible, but the principled reason for this is that the required token-token(s) identifications cannot in general be carried through. In consequence, paradigmatic social science predicates cannot be taken to apply to the objects quantified over in the lower-level sciences. The result is that typical social science predicates cannot even be held to be co-extensive with individualistic predicates, which means type-type identifications are ruled out too. Multiple realizability has nothing to do with this failure of co-extensiveness, because the relevant social science predicates are not multiply realized in the sense intended by the explanatory holists, a sense which presupposes reductive token-token(s) identifications.
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/38be60db-ac23-4614-9d5c-34c3e714f5fe
- author
- Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Reduction, multiple realisation, Social ontology, Fodor, social sciences, levels of reality, grounding
- in
- Synthese
- volume
- 196
- issue
- 12
- pages
- 4961 - 4987
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85021697577
- ISSN
- 0039-7857
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11229-017-1472-2
- project
- Causation in the Social Domain
- Social Ontology and Theories of Persistence
- Metaphysics and Collectivity
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 38be60db-ac23-4614-9d5c-34c3e714f5fe
- date added to LUP
- 2017-06-07 16:30:44
- date last changed
- 2022-05-10 08:14:38
@article{38be60db-ac23-4614-9d5c-34c3e714f5fe,
abstract = {{It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position (usually labelled explanatory holism) is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token-token(s) identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals (a position traditionally called ontological individualism), but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type-type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory holism is unsound. The social sciences are indeed irreducible, but the principled reason for this is that the required token-token(s) identifications cannot in general be carried through. In consequence, paradigmatic social science predicates cannot be taken to apply to the objects quantified over in the lower-level sciences. The result is that typical social science predicates cannot even be held to be co-extensive with individualistic predicates, which means type-type identifications are ruled out too. Multiple realizability has nothing to do with this failure of co-extensiveness, because the relevant social science predicates are not multiply realized in the sense intended by the explanatory holists, a sense which presupposes reductive token-token(s) identifications. <br/>}},
author = {{Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias}},
issn = {{0039-7857}},
keywords = {{Reduction; multiple realisation; Social ontology; Fodor; social sciences; levels of reality; grounding}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{12}},
pages = {{4961--4987}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Synthese}},
title = {{Why the Social Sciences are Irreducible}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1472-2}},
doi = {{10.1007/s11229-017-1472-2}},
volume = {{196}},
year = {{2019}},
}