Petri Ylikoski
Biographic Data
| ID | 224413 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Petri Ylikoski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Petri |
| FAMILY NAME | Ylikoski |
| SIGNATURE | YLIKOSKI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5237-9695 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 456 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Objectivity in social research
Navigating causal reasoning in sustainability science
When reasoning about causes of sustainability problems and possible solutions, sustainability scientists rely on disciplinary-based understanding of cause–effect relations. These disciplinary assumptions enable and constrain how causal knowledge is generated, yet they are rarely made explicit. In a multidisciplinary field like sustainability science, lack of understanding differences in causal reasoning impedes our ability to address complex sust…
Getting lost with levels: The sociological micro-macro problem
Discussing levels in the sciences poses a challenge. There are many contexts in which scientists and philosophers intuitively appeal to the metaphor of levels. They have to sort out how things, or concepts, are related to each other to avoid conceptual confusion, category mistakes, and faulty inferences. Joyce Havstad calls this thinking leveling, while Angela Potochnik calls it ordering. I will utilize the latter concept as it is more neutral co…
Coupling social and ecological mechanisms with the Coleman boat
As in many other fields, mechanism-based theorizing has become increasingly popular in social-ecological research. However, calls for mechanism-based explanations and middle-range theorizing have remained relatively abstract. In the social sciences, the Coleman diagram provides heuristic aid to figure out mechanisms for macro-scale causal claims. The diagram, understood as a series of analytical questions, helps to connect macro processes and age…
Eliciting the plurality of causal reasoning in social-ecological systems research
Understanding causation in social-ecological systems (SES) is indispensable for promoting sustainable outcomes. However, the study of such causal relations is challenging because they are often complex and intertwined, and their analysis involves diverse disciplines. Although there is agreement that no single research approach (RA) can comprehensively explain SES phenomena, there is a lack of ability to deal with this diversity. Underlying this d…
Visualization of causation in social-ecological systems
In social-ecological systems (SES), where social and ecological processes are intertwined, phenomena are usually complex and involve multiple interdependent causes. Figuring out causal relationships is thus challenging but needed to better understand and then affect or manage such systems. One important and widely used tool to identify and communicate causal relationships is visualization. Here, we present several common visualization types: diag…
Understanding the Coleman boat
This Chapter provides a rational reconstruction of the Coleman diagram as a tool for social scientific theorizing. It describes how Coleman used the diagram and what is the best way to interpret the nodes and arrows. The importance of the diagram derives from how it addresses the micro-macro challenge in social explanation. Apart from showing how the diagram connects to some central problems in social theory, the discussion also highlights the im…
Argumentative landscapes: The function of models in social epistemology
We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in soci…
Humanistic interpretation and machine learning
This paper investigates how unsupervised machine learning methods might make hermeneutic interpretive text analysis more objective in the social sciences. Through a close examination of the uses of topic modeling—a popular unsupervised approach in the social sciences—it argues that the primary way in which unsupervised learning supports interpretation is by allowing interpreters to discover unanticipated information in larger and more diverse cor…
Case study research in the social sciences
Mechanism-based theorizing and generalization from case studies
Generalization from a case study is a perennial issue in the methodology of the social sciences. The case study is one of the most important research designs in many social scientific fields, but no shared understanding exists of the epistemic import of case studies. This article suggests that the idea of mechanism-based theorizing provides a fruitful basis for understanding how case studies contribute to a general understanding of social phenome…
Three Conceptions of a Theory of Institutions
We compare Guala’s unified theory of institutions with that of Searle and Greif. We show that unification can be many things and it may be associated with diverse explanatory goals. We also highlight some of the important shortcomings of Guala’s account: it does not capture all social institutions, its ability to bridge social ontology and game theory is based on a problematic interpretation of the type-token distinction, and its ability to make …
Social Simulation
Simulation is a particular type of modeling. In simulation the behavior of one system is studied to make inferences about the behavior of another system. Computer simulations can be classified as equation‐based and agent‐based simulations. In agent‐based simulations macro‐dynamics are emergent products of local individual interactions. Agent‐based simulations are very flexible with respect to the characteristics of the agents. Instead of assuming…
Explanation
An explanation is an answer to an explanation‐seeking why or how question. Explanation is interest‐relative in the sense that which why questions are asked depends on the interests and background knowledge of the audience, but what is the right answer to the posed question is an objective matter. Explanation provides information of relations of dependence. Typically, this dependence is causal, but there are also constitutive explanations. Intenti…
Agent-Based Simulation and Sociological Understanding
The article discusses agent-based simulation as a tool of sociological understanding. Based on an inferential account of understanding, it argues that computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding both by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. However, our ability to understand simulations limits our ability to understand real world phenomena through them…
Social Mechanism
Analytical Sociology
Comment on Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology
This comment discusses Kaidesoja (2013) and raises the issue whether his analysis justifies stronger conclusions than he presents in the book. My comments focus on four issues. First, I argue that his naturalistic reconstruction of critical realist transcendental arguments shows that transcendental arguments should be treated as a rare curiosity rather than a general argumentative strategy. Second, I suggest that Kaidesoja’s analysis does not rea…
External representations and scientific understanding
Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines
Book review. Reviewed work: Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines / by Derek Beach, Rasmus Brun Pedersen. - Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780472051892
Agent-Based Simulation and Sociological Understanding
The article discusses agent-based simulation as a tool of sociological understanding. Based on an inferential account of understanding, it argues that computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding both by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. However, our ability to understand simulations limits our ability to understand real world phenomena through them…
The (hopefully) last stand of the covering-law theory: A reply to Opp
In his paper Karl-Dieter Opp heroically sets out to defend both the adequacy and sociological fruitfulness of the covering-law account of explanation (the HO scheme). The attempt is bold, as he is not only defending the HO scheme as a theory of explanation but also as a scheme for finding and establishing causal relationships. In this reply I argue that the defense is not successful; quite the contrary, it clearly demonstrates why mechanism-based…
Generative Explanation and Individualism in Agent-Based Simulation
Social scientists associate agent-based simulation (ABS) models with three ideas about explanation: they provide generative explanations, they are models of mechanisms, and they implement methodological individualism. In light of a philosophical account of explanation, we show that these ideas are not necessarily related and offer an account of the explanatory import of ABS models. We also argue that their bottom-up research strategy should be di…
Analytical Sociology
Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms
Mechanisms are very much a part of social life. For example, we can see that inequality has tended to increase over time, and that cities can become segregated. But how do such mechanisms work? Analytical sociology is an influential approach to sociology which holds that explanations of social phenomena should focus on the social mechanisms that bring them about. This book evaluates the major features of this approach, focusing on the significanc…
Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences
During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of science. This article critically reviews the most important philosophical and social science contributions to the mechanism approach. The first part discusses the idea of mechanism-based explanation from the point of view of philosophy of science and relates it to causation and to t…
External representations and scientific understanding
Generative Explanation and Individualism in Agent-Based Simulation
Social scientists associate agent-based simulation (ABS) models with three ideas about explanation: they provide generative explanations, they are models of mechanisms, and they implement methodological individualism. In light of a philosophical account of explanation, we show that these ideas are not necessarily related and offer an account of the explanatory import of ABS models. We also argue that their bottom-up research strategy should be di…
Mechanism-based theorizing and generalization from case studies
Generalization from a case study is a perennial issue in the methodology of the social sciences. The case study is one of the most important research designs in many social scientific fields, but no shared understanding exists of the epistemic import of case studies. This article suggests that the idea of mechanism-based theorizing provides a fruitful basis for understanding how case studies contribute to a general understanding of social phenome…
Humanistic interpretation and machine learning
This paper investigates how unsupervised machine learning methods might make hermeneutic interpretive text analysis more objective in the social sciences. Through a close examination of the uses of topic modeling—a popular unsupervised approach in the social sciences—it argues that the primary way in which unsupervised learning supports interpretation is by allowing interpreters to discover unanticipated information in larger and more diverse cor…
Argumentative landscapes: The function of models in social epistemology
We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in soci…
Three Conceptions of a Theory of Institutions
We compare Guala’s unified theory of institutions with that of Searle and Greif. We show that unification can be many things and it may be associated with diverse explanatory goals. We also highlight some of the important shortcomings of Guala’s account: it does not capture all social institutions, its ability to bridge social ontology and game theory is based on a problematic interpretation of the type-token distinction, and its ability to make …
Case study research in the social sciences
Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines
Book review. Reviewed work: Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines / by Derek Beach, Rasmus Brun Pedersen. - Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780472051892
Eliciting the plurality of causal reasoning in social-ecological systems research
Understanding causation in social-ecological systems (SES) is indispensable for promoting sustainable outcomes. However, the study of such causal relations is challenging because they are often complex and intertwined, and their analysis involves diverse disciplines. Although there is agreement that no single research approach (RA) can comprehensively explain SES phenomena, there is a lack of ability to deal with this diversity. Underlying this d…
Visualization of causation in social-ecological systems
In social-ecological systems (SES), where social and ecological processes are intertwined, phenomena are usually complex and involve multiple interdependent causes. Figuring out causal relationships is thus challenging but needed to better understand and then affect or manage such systems. One important and widely used tool to identify and communicate causal relationships is visualization. Here, we present several common visualization types: diag…
The Invisible Hand and Science
The Fate of Knowledge
Realism in Action: Essays in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science
Dissecting explanatory power
Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences
During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of science. This article critically reviews the most important philosophical and social science contributions to the mechanism approach. The first part discusses the idea of mechanism-based explanation from the point of view of philosophy of science and relates it to causation and to t…
Analytical Sociology
Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms
Mechanisms are very much a part of social life. For example, we can see that inequality has tended to increase over time, and that cities can become segregated. But how do such mechanisms work? Analytical sociology is an influential approach to sociology which holds that explanations of social phenomena should focus on the social mechanisms that bring them about. This book evaluates the major features of this approach, focusing on the significanc…
The (hopefully) last stand of the covering-law theory: A reply to Opp
In his paper Karl-Dieter Opp heroically sets out to defend both the adequacy and sociological fruitfulness of the covering-law account of explanation (the HO scheme). The attempt is bold, as he is not only defending the HO scheme as a theory of explanation but also as a scheme for finding and establishing causal relationships. In this reply I argue that the defense is not successful; quite the contrary, it clearly demonstrates why mechanism-based…
Generative Explanation and Individualism in Agent-Based Simulation
Social scientists associate agent-based simulation (ABS) models with three ideas about explanation: they provide generative explanations, they are models of mechanisms, and they implement methodological individualism. In light of a philosophical account of explanation, we show that these ideas are not necessarily related and offer an account of the explanatory import of ABS models. We also argue that their bottom-up research strategy should be di…
Agent-Based Simulation and Sociological Understanding
The article discusses agent-based simulation as a tool of sociological understanding. Based on an inferential account of understanding, it argues that computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding both by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. However, our ability to understand simulations limits our ability to understand real world phenomena through them…
Social Mechanism
Analytical Sociology
Comment on Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology
This comment discusses Kaidesoja (2013) and raises the issue whether his analysis justifies stronger conclusions than he presents in the book. My comments focus on four issues. First, I argue that his naturalistic reconstruction of critical realist transcendental arguments shows that transcendental arguments should be treated as a rare curiosity rather than a general argumentative strategy. Second, I suggest that Kaidesoja’s analysis does not rea…
External representations and scientific understanding
Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines
Book review. Reviewed work: Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines / by Derek Beach, Rasmus Brun Pedersen. - Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780472051892
Social Simulation
Simulation is a particular type of modeling. In simulation the behavior of one system is studied to make inferences about the behavior of another system. Computer simulations can be classified as equation‐based and agent‐based simulations. In agent‐based simulations macro‐dynamics are emergent products of local individual interactions. Agent‐based simulations are very flexible with respect to the characteristics of the agents. Instead of assuming…
Explanation
An explanation is an answer to an explanation‐seeking why or how question. Explanation is interest‐relative in the sense that which why questions are asked depends on the interests and background knowledge of the audience, but what is the right answer to the posed question is an objective matter. Explanation provides information of relations of dependence. Typically, this dependence is causal, but there are also constitutive explanations. Intenti…
Agent-Based Simulation and Sociological Understanding
The article discusses agent-based simulation as a tool of sociological understanding. Based on an inferential account of understanding, it argues that computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding both by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. However, our ability to understand simulations limits our ability to understand real world phenomena through them…
Three Conceptions of a Theory of Institutions
We compare Guala’s unified theory of institutions with that of Searle and Greif. We show that unification can be many things and it may be associated with diverse explanatory goals. We also highlight some of the important shortcomings of Guala’s account: it does not capture all social institutions, its ability to bridge social ontology and game theory is based on a problematic interpretation of the type-token distinction, and its ability to make …
Case study research in the social sciences
Mechanism-based theorizing and generalization from case studies
Generalization from a case study is a perennial issue in the methodology of the social sciences. The case study is one of the most important research designs in many social scientific fields, but no shared understanding exists of the epistemic import of case studies. This article suggests that the idea of mechanism-based theorizing provides a fruitful basis for understanding how case studies contribute to a general understanding of social phenome…
Understanding the Coleman boat
This Chapter provides a rational reconstruction of the Coleman diagram as a tool for social scientific theorizing. It describes how Coleman used the diagram and what is the best way to interpret the nodes and arrows. The importance of the diagram derives from how it addresses the micro-macro challenge in social explanation. Apart from showing how the diagram connects to some central problems in social theory, the discussion also highlights the im…
Argumentative landscapes: The function of models in social epistemology
We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in soci…
Humanistic interpretation and machine learning
This paper investigates how unsupervised machine learning methods might make hermeneutic interpretive text analysis more objective in the social sciences. Through a close examination of the uses of topic modeling—a popular unsupervised approach in the social sciences—it argues that the primary way in which unsupervised learning supports interpretation is by allowing interpreters to discover unanticipated information in larger and more diverse cor…
Epistemology (24 works) · Computer Science (19 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (13 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (9 works) · Philosophy of science (9 works) · Social science (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Psychology (8 works)