@conference {812549,
	title = {The ambiguity of unification in the social sciences.},
	booktitle = {2e Congr{\`e}s de la Soci{\'e}t{\'e} de Philosophie des Sciences},
	year = {2007},
	abstract = {<p>In the social sciences, the dream of unity often recurs. One of these contemporary unifying projects is economics imperialism. Its goal is to increase the degree of unification by applying rational choice theory beyond its original (economic) home in other territories like political science, sociology, anthropology, history, etc. In this paper, I want to evaluate the benefits and feasibility of this project from the perspective of explanatory pluralism and demonstrate the ambiguity of unification and unity. Revisiting debates concerning rational choice theory in feminist economics and historical sociology, I will delimit the benefits and shortcomings of economics imperialism and the idea of unification, making use of a rigorous framework for explanatory pluralism {\textendash} based on the erotetic model of explanation {\textendash} elaborated in my earlier work (cf. Weber and Van Bouwel, 2002). A thorough analysis of these debates will result in a nuanced view on unification and unity, with on the one hand, a plea for taking the plurality of epistemic and non-epistemic interests in social scientific theories and explanation into account {\textendash} with the evident implications this has for the unity of science project {\textendash} but, on the other hand, an attempt to carve out a well-defined place for unification and the benefits it might bring to social science theory and explanation. This last exercise might take away the worries sometimes uttered by social scientists concerning the unificationist endeavour of economics imperialism.</p>},
	author = {Van Bouwel, Jeroen}
}
