Exemplification and the use-values of cases and case studies

Mary S. Morgan

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper provides an account of the 'use-value' of case-based research by showing how social scientists exploit cases, and case studies, in a variety of practices of inference and extension. The critical basis for making such extensions relies on the power of a case, or the account given of a case (the case-study account), to exemplify certain features of the social world in ways which prove valuable for further analysis: either of the same case, or in many domains beyond the original case study. Framing use-values in terms of exemplification compares favourably with understanding reasoning beyond the case either as a form of analogical reasoning or in taking cases as experimentable objects.

Keywords: Case studies; Cases; Exemplification; Inference practices; Use-values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 9 pages
Date: 2019-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Studies in history and philosophy of science, 1, December, 2019, 78, pp. 5-13. ISSN: 0039-3681

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:104057

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