Explanatory Pluralism in the Social Sciences.

Period 01-10-2003 to 30-09-2004
Type Postdoctoral Fellowship
Fellow Dr. Jeroen Van Bouwel
Funding agency Special Research Fund of Ghent University (BOF)

Understanding explanatory pluralism in the social sciences demands for an analysis of the role of pragmatic factors and epistemic motivations in providing explanations. Where I discussed pluralism qua explanations of social facts in my Ph.D.-thesis, this project will scrutinize explanations of causal relations and mechanisms in the social sciences, and analyze whether the framework for pluralism I have developed for explanations of social facts, works as well for these explanations. My account will be compared with accounts of critical realism and non-reductionist physicalism.