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The Grounds of Relational Explanation

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Methodology of Relational Sociology

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology ((PSRS))

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on explanation as a goal within relational sociology. What characterizes the explanatory commitments of relational sociology? How can adopting a relational perspective offer novel and insightful explanatory knowledge on the why of social phenomena? In answering these questions, we seek to explicate a concept of relational explanation—a distinctive form of constitutive explanation characteristic of the research program of relational sociology. By turning to recent developments on constitutive explanation in the philosophy of science, and on grounding in analytic metaphysics, we believe we can best make sense of the central explanatory commitment of relational sociology to understand social phenomena through the social relations that constitute them. We introduce relational explanations as explanations of nonseparable social phenomena through abductive inference to their common ground in features of dynamic and unfolding social relations. To demonstrate the processual and abductive nature of relational explanations, we consider an example from Marx’s Capital.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this light, consider Jon Elster’s (2015, 1) claim that “all explanation is causal. To explain a phenomenon (an explanandum) is to cite an earlier phenomenon (the explanans) that caused it.”

  2. 2.

    Alexander Wendt’s (1998, 1999) work on constitutive theory is a notable exception.

  3. 3.

    Perhaps one of the most famous grounding questions in history is the Euthyphro dilemma: “Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?” (Plato 1961, 178, 10a)

  4. 4.

    Selg uses the term “constitution,” which we take as synonymous with grounding.

  5. 5.

    We follow here the most frequently used reference source to the eight-volume Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Peirce 1931–1966, Harvard University Press). It is usually referred to by giving the number of the volume and the number of the fragment cited (CP 5.189, for example, is fragment number 189 in volume 5).

  6. 6.

    That is, exchange-values are equivalence relations (reflexive, symmetric, and transitive), ensuring substitutivity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Joonatan Nõgisto & Peeter Selg

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  1. Joonatan Nõgisto
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  2. Peeter Selg
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Correspondence to Peeter Selg .

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  1. University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Elżbieta Hałas

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Nõgisto, J., Selg, P. (2023). The Grounds of Relational Explanation. In: Hałas, E. (eds) Methodology of Relational Sociology. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41626-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41626-2_2

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