Presentation about Social Science discovered by Daniel Little.

1. Daniel Little:
Action in History and
Social Science
Prepared by:
Nikolay Oleynikov,
David Martynchenko,
Mikhail Makarovskiy
Alexander Khamin

2. Table of Contents:
• Background
• Social regularities
• Governing Regularities
• Phenomenal Regularities
• Causal explanation
• Social casual claims
• A causes B
• Causal realism (causal powers and causal mechanisms)
• The causal properties of a social entity
• Agents and structures

3. Background
- Daniel E. Little is the Chancellor for
the University of Michigan-Dearborn and
Professor of Philosophy.
- The area of specialization and competence:
philosophy of social science research in Asia
and the Marxist theory.

4. Social regularities
Universal generalization of empirical
phenomena

5. Governing Regularities
Undeniable laws that define the potential behavior of a given thing

6. Phenomenal Regularities
Internal phenomenal properties are triggers that cause certain regularity of
behavior

7. Causal explanation
The causal explanation is the basis for explanation in
social science.
• Goal
• Challenge
• Separation of causal ascription: Singular and Generic

8. Social causal claims
Examples:
• Population increase causes technological innovation.
• New market conditions cause changes in systems of norms
• Citizens’ shared sense of justice causes stability or instability of
existing legal system
• A free press causes a low incidence of famine.
A causal claim is a claim of the form "A was a cause of B“.

9. A causes B
 Causal regularities
 Necessary and sufficient conditions
 Causal mechanism
 Probabilistic causation

10. Causal realism (causal powers and
causal mechanisms)
• Central ideas:
• Causal realism postulate.
• Causal relations are not constituted by regularities or laws.
• Social causal relations are constituted by the causal powers and causal
mechanisms of various social entities and circumstances.
• Social entities exercise causal powers through the effects that they have on
individual choices, preferences, and beliefs.

11. The causal properties of a
social entity
• Social entities exert influence in several possible ways:
– They can alter incentives for individuals
– They can alter preferences
– They can alter beliefs
– They can alter the powers or opportunities available to
individuals.
– They can impose costs on certain lines of action.

12. Agents and structures
Microfoundational approach to social causation.
• Two directions:
1. Structures constrain individuals.
2. Individuals through their actions affect, change, and invent institutions.

13. Prediction and social science
• Weak social regularities
• The explanatory work of social research as the form of a search for
causal relations and causal powers.
• Causal relations get their necessity through features of structured
individual agency.
As the result- lack of feasibility and reliability in predictions of social
scientists.

14. Status of prediction in the social
sciences
Three avenues through which predictions are generated:
• Predictions based on simple induction
• Predictions based on a theory of the governing regularities of the system ( no
such regularities in social science)
• Predictions possibly supported in novel circumstances on the basis of an
analysis of the causal mechanisms
As the result- phenomenal regularities do support predictions.

15. Theories Models Predictions
As the result – the scope of confident
prediction in the social sciences is rather limited

16. Conclusion
• “We should think about social
world as about highly diversified
system” – Daniel Little