This document summarizes Daniel Little's views on social science as presented in his work "Action in History and Social Science". It discusses key concepts such as social regularities, causal explanations, and the relationship between agents and structures. Little argues that social science lacks universal laws and strong regularities. Instead, causal explanations should focus on causal powers, mechanisms, and how structures constrain yet are also shaped by individual agency. As a result, prediction in social science is limited compared to natural sciences.

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