Social Scientific Naturalism Revisited

Abstract

The paper reconsiders social scientific naturalism, the view that despite obvious differences in their subject matter, the social sciences belong to the same species of cognitive inquiry as the natural sciences. Among other limits, the paper explores social scientific naturalism only with respect to economics. The social sciences are not homogeneous, and although many of the things I shall say apply to psychology, political science, sociology, and anthropology as well as to economics, I do not have the space to consider the many varieties of social inquiries. After a historical introduction in Section 5.1, Sections 5.2 and 5.3 clarify what is being asked when one raises the question of whether economics is relevantly similar to the natural sciences and why the question is worth asking. Section 5.4 then considers arguments to the effect that the subject matter of economics – namely human beings and their behavior – cannot be the subject of scientific inquiry. Sections 5.5 and 5.6 focus on an important peculiarity of economics and the other social sciences, namely, that it employs concepts that are continuous with those of daily life. This fact turns out to have considerable ramifications. Section 5.7 concludes.