Concluding Remarks: Problems Raised and Results Obtained

Abstract

Chapter I on Conditioning of Events versus Causal Conditioning is dedicated to the various interpretations of causal conditioning. The various authors are far from agreeing on the issue. Some of them choose a definite interpretation of causal relationships. Yet it seems useful to discuss the various senses in which the concept of causal link functions in sociology and the methodology of sociology. It turns out that we can sometimes find rather specific interpretations of the causal link, rarely encountered outside the social sciences (Lazarsfeld’s concept of causal conditioning as a statistical relationship which is not spurious).