Abstract
In 1981, A. C. Crombie identified six “styles of scientific thinking in the European tradition” that constitute our ways of reasoning in the natural sciences. In this paper, I try to show that these styles constitute reasoning in the social sciences as well, and that, as a result, the differences between reasoning about the physical world and about human beings are not so different as some interpretevists have supposed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, W. Y. and E. Adams: 1991,Archaeological Typology and Practical Reality: A Dialectical Approach to Artifact Classification and Sorting, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Blumenschine, R. J. and J. A. Cavallo: 1992, ‘Scavenging and Human Evolution’,Scientific American 257, 90–96.
Clendinnen, I.: 1987,Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Collingwood, R. G.: 1946,The Idea of History, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Crombie, A. C.: 1981, ‘Philosophical Presuppositions and Shifting Interpretations of Galileo’, in J. Hintikka, D. Gruender, and E. Agazzi (eds.),Theory Change, Ancient Axiomatics and Galileo's Methodology, Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 271–86.
Crombie, A. C.: 1988, ‘Designed in the Mind: Western Visions of Science, Nature and Humankind’,History of Science 2, 1–12.
Crombie, A C.: forthcoming,Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Crump, T.: 1990,The Anthropology of Numbers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Drennan, R. D.: 1993, ‘The Archaeology of Chiefdoms’, in L. Embree (ed.),Meta-archaeology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 53–74.
Geertz, C.: 1968,Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Geertz, C.: 1973,The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, New York.
Gingerich, O.: 1982, ‘The Galileo Affair’,Scientific American 247, 132–43.
Hacking, I. M.: 1982, ‘Language, Truth and Reason’, in M. Hollis and S. Lukes (eds.),Rationality and Relativism, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 48–66.
Hacking, I. M.: 1992, ‘Statistical Language, Statistical Truth, and Statistical Reason: The Self Authentification of a Style of Scientific Reasoning’, in E. McMullin (ed.),The Social Dimensions of Science, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, pp. 130–57.
Hausman, D.: 1992,The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Horton, R.: 1982, ‘Tradition and Modernity Revisited’, in M. Hollis and S. Lukes (eds.),Rationality and Relativism, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 201–60.
Kitcher, P.: 1982,Abusing Science, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Murdock, G. P.: 1949,Social Structure, Macmillan, New York.
Porter, T.: 1986,The Rise of Statistical Thinking, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R.: 1952,Structure and Function in Primitive Society, Free Press, Glencoe.
Read, C., and S. LeBlanc: 1978, ‘Descriptive Statements, Covering Laws, and Theories in Archaeology’,Current Anthropology 19, 307–12.
Reichenbach, H.: [1924]/1969,Axiomatization of the Theory of Relativity, trans. and ed. M. Reichenbach, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Stocking, G. W.: 1968,Race, Culture and Evolution, Free Press, New York.
Struik, D.: 1967,History of Mathematics, Dover Publications, New York.
Thomason, S.: 1988,Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Wilder, R.: 1952,The Foundations of Mathematics, John Wiley, New York.
Williams, M. B.: 1970, ‘Deducing the Consequences of Evolutionary Biology’,Journal of Theoretical Biology 29, 343–85.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Salmon, M.H. Reasoning in the social sciences. Synthese 97, 249–267 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064117
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064117