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

Haider Khan ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

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. The formal model representing the dual-dual approach can easily be contrasted with its neoclassical counterpart. The comparison shows that the dual-dual model is indeed deeper in terms of causal structure than the neoclassical model

Keywords: Economic Models; Social Explanation; Causal Depth; Scientific Realism; Political Economy; Neoclassical Economics; Structuralism; Social Science Theories (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 B41 C68 O11 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008, Revised 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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