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Global Arguments and Local Realism About the Social Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Harold Kincaid
Harold Kincaid*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama at Birmingham
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Deparment of Philosophy, 900 13th St. South, Birmingham, AL 35294-1260.
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Abstract

This paper argues that realism issue in the social sciences is not one that can be decided by general philosophical arguments that evaluate entire domains at once. The realism issue is instead many different empirical issues. To defend these claims, I sort issues that are often run together, explicate and criticize several standard realist and antirealist arguments about the social sciences, and use the example of the productive/nonproductive distinction to illustrate the approach to realism questions that I favor.

Type
Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S667 - S678
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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