Inhabitants of two worlds

It is a widespread misconception that social science is about human beings. This is a fallacy that brings to mind the riposte of Henri Matisse when a critic assailed one of his works with the words “This is not a woman – a woman cannot look like that!” To which Matisse responded: “This is not a woman. It is a painting depicting a woman! ” By the same token social scientists may counter if someone asserts that what they describe does not resemble real people: “We do not paint persons – we paint images of persons. ” For sociologists are inhabitants of two worlds: one that is made for them and one that is made by them – one which they construct in order to figure out the one in which they live; they interpret the world they inhabit. By a powerful metaphor, sociologists do so by constructing “mechanisms. ” A mechanism is a set of interacting parts – an assembly of elements producing an effect not inherent in any one of them. A mechanism is not so much about “nuts and bolts” as about “cogs and wheels” (cf. Elster, 1989) – the wheelwork or agency by which an effect is produced. But a mechanism or inner workings is an abstract, dynamic logic by which social scientists render understandable the reality they depict.

Hence a mechanism like, say, the logic of a Prisoner's Dilemma is perfectly general.