Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. Foils and Stories
1.1. Rational Choice Theory and Its Foils
1.2. Social Scientific Theories and Their Foils
1.3. Foils in the Academy
1.4. My Hope for This Book
2.1. Deep Stories
2.2. Exemplar Theorists
2.3. Ideal Types
2.4. The Rational Reconstruction of Research Programs
2.5. The Trouble with Stories: Thin and Thick Research Communities
2.6. Typologies and Genealogies
Part II. The Rationalist Challenge
3.1. Thin and Thick Rationalists
3.2. Rationalist Ontology
3.3. Rationalist Methodology
4.1. Why Rationalist Social Science Tends toward Hegemony
4.2. The Result: Theoretical Synthesis and Empirical Conciliation
4.3. Countertendencies: How Rationalist Social Science Defines Its Baselines and Boundaries
4.4. Countertendencies: Why Rationalist Social Science Lowers Its Positivistic Pretensions
4.5. Modest Rational Choice Theory
Part III. The Alternatives to Rationalist Hegemony
5.1. Thin and Thick Culturalists
5.2. Culturalist Ontology
5.3. Culturalist Methodology
5.4. Culturalist Lacunae
6.1. Thin and Thick Structuralists
6.2. Structuralist Ontology
6.3. Structuralist Methodology
6.4. Structuralist Lacunae
Part IV. The Debate about the Debate
7.1. For Synthesis
7.2. Types of Syntheses
7.3. Structure/Institution and Action/Process
7.4. Methodological Synthesis: The Causal and the Interpretive
7.5. The Importance of Synthesis
8.1. For Models and Foils
8.2. Against Synthesis
8.3. Conclusion: Synthesis and Analysis
Part V. The Philosophy of Science
9. The General and the Particular
9.1. The Research Programs
9.2. Weber’s Approach
9.3. The General and the Particular in the Social Sciences
10. Models and Foils: A Modest Philosophy of Science for Social Science
10.1. Theory
10.2. Evidence
10.3. Theory and Evidence
10.4. Evaluation
10.5. How a Modest Rationalist Evaluates Theory and Evidence
Notes
References
Index