Introduction: Beyond empiricism in the social explanation of action

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Notes

For related special issues of Philosophical Explorations dealing with Grand Controversies in the social sciences, see ‘Social Holism and Atomism’ (vol. 1, no. 3, 1998) and ‘New Essays on Collective Intentionality’ (vol. 6, no. 3, 2003). The present issue focuses not so much on social ontology (holism-individualism controversy) as on social methodology (erklären-verstehen controversy).

Hempel (1965).

See, for example, Collingwood (1946), Dray (1957), Taylor (1964) and von Wright (1971).

See, for example, Henderson (1993), Little (1991, 1998) and Risjord (2000).

See, for example, Kincaid (1996) and Paige (1975).

See, for example, Woodward (2000, forthcoming), Glymour (2000), Mitchell (2000) and Hoover (2001a, 2001b).

Some of them were first presented at CENSS2002, the Causation and Explanation in Natural and Social Sciences 2002 International Congress (Ghent University, Belgium).