Causal Depth: Aspects of a Scientific Realist Approach to Causal Explanation contra Humean Empiricism

Khan, Haider (2008): Causal Depth: Aspects of a Scientific Realist Approach to Causal Explanation contra Humean Empiricism.

Abstract

The purpose of this note is to clarify how the idea of "causal depth" can play a role in finding the more "approximately true" explanation through causal comparisons. It is not an exhaustive treatment but rather focuses on a few aspects that may be the most critical in evaluating the explanatory strengths of a theory in the social sciences. It presents a general argument which is anti-Humean on the critical side and scientific realist on the positive side. It also elucidates how explanations in political economy and other social sciences can be judged by the scientific realist criterion of causal depth by an extensive example from research in the political economy of development. In this case, an "intentional" and methodologically individualist neoclassical explanation is contrasted with a "structural" dual-dual approach as rival theories purporting to explain the same set of phenomena.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Social Explanation, Causal Depth, Scientific Realism, Political Economy, Neoclassical Economics, Structuralism, Social Science Theories, Economic Models
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D02 - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact; D - Microeconomics > D5 - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium > D58 - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B0 - General > B00 - General

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