Hope Kincaid
Biographic Data
| ID | 78193 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hope Kincaid |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hope |
| FAMILY NAME | Kincaid |
| SIGNATURE | KINCAID H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alabama at Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5032-815X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Statistical variable selection and causality in the social and behavioral sciences
The problem of “variable selection” is a fundamental one across the sciences. In its broadest terms, this problem would be at least part of the general issue of theory selection and comparison. However, there is a more circumscribed problem that concerns primarily the choice of variables for the best fitting model, given some set of data, usually observational in nature, and specific statistical techniques, typically multiple regression. There is…
A naturalist approach to social ontology
I argue that a certain kind of naturalist approach to social ontology is likely to be both philosophically fruitful and relevant to empirical social science. The kind of naturalism I employ might be called contextualism, which emphasizes the constant presence of assumed background knowledge, is suspicious of general inference rules and all or nothing claims about the ontology of the social sciences, and argues that Quine’s quantificational criter…
Are ABM explanations in the social sciences inevitably individualist
Agent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly important in social science research. They have two obvious apparent virtues: they can model complex macrosociological phenomena without strong assumptions about agents and without analytic solutions for models, and they seem to instantiate the methodological individualist program in a concrete way. We argue that the latter claim is false. After providing schematic accounts of ABM models and a first intr…
Mechanisms, good and bad
The claim that mechanisms are essential good science is widespread. I argue, however, that these claims are ambiguous in multiple ways. I sort out different version of the mechanism idea: (1) mechanisms that are horizontal – between cause and effect – and mechanisms that are vertical – they realize in lower-level terms causal properties –: and (2) different purposes or uses mechanisms may have. I then focus on the claim that various senses of mec…
Concrete Ontology: Comments on Lauer, Little, and Lohse
I share with all the other authors the view that conceptual metaphysics without close ties to science is of minimal value, that this holds for much of current work on social ontology, and that if there is value in social ontology, it has to be in contributing to empirical social science. I do perhaps disagree with all three authors about making any blanket statements concerning either instrumentalism or realism about the social sciences and their…
Live empirical issues in debates over objectivity in the social sciences
The Empirical Issues in Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences
Since at least the 19th century, social scientists have asserted that various social phenomena are explained by their functions and the purposes they serve. Marx, for example, thought the state exists in order to promote the interests of the ruling class. Of course, functional explanations in the social sciences have been quite puzzling to commentators. This chapter shows how functional explanation in the social sciences can be explicated, why so…
Why be a methodological individualist
Debating the Reality of Race, Caste, and Ethnicity
There is a lively ongoing debate among philosophers and social scientists about the reality of race and among social scientists about the reality of caste and ethnicity. This paper tries to sort out what the issues are and makes some preliminary suggestions about what the evidence shows. Standard philosophical analyses try to find the necessary and sufficient conditions of our concept of race. I argue that this is not the best way to approach the…
Impact of Race Versus Education and Race Versus Income on Patients' Motivation to Participate in Clinical Trials
Racial Differences Among Factors Associated with Participation in Clinical Research Trials
Debating the Reality of Social Classes
This article first surveys a significant set of issues that are intertwined in asking whether social classes are real. It distinguishes two different notions of class: class as organized social entities and class as types of individuals based on individual characteristics. There is good evidence for some classes as social entities—ruling classes and underclasses in some societies—but other classes in contemporary society are sometimes best though…
Open Empirical and Methodological Issues in the Individualism-Holism Debate
I first briefly argue that some issues in the individualism-holism debate have been fairly clearly settled and others are still plagued by unclarity. The main argument of the article is that there is a set of clear empirical issues around the holism-individualism debate that are central problems in current social science research. Those include questions about when we can be holist and how individualist we can be in social explanation
Filosofia das ciências sociais: Temas Atuais
A filosofia das ciências sociais, concebida da maneira adequada, tem algo a oferecer aos que praticam as ciências sociais. Os cientistas sociais adotam em suas pesquisas, ainda que de forma implícita, alguma filosofia de sua ciência. Para evitar impasses, é melhor explicitar essa filosofia e ser criticamente consciente dos seus méritos. A filosofia das ciências sociais, por sua vez, não pode ser praticada sem um envolvimento íntimo com a pesquisa…
Scientific Metaphysics
Original essays by leading philosophers of science explore the question of whether metaphysics can and should be naturalised - conducted as part of natural science. They engage with a range of approaches and disciplines to argue that if metaphysics is to be capable of identifying objective truths, it must be continuous with and inspired by science.
Introduction: Doing Philosophy of Social Science
This handbook is a major, comprehensive look at the key ideas in the field, and is guided by several principles. The first is that the philosophy of social science should be closely connected to, and informed by, developments in the sciences themselves
A More Sophisticated Merton
An alternative account of Merton to that provided by Turner is sketched. It shows strong similarities to some quite plausible contemporary understandings of science in general. Given this reading, it would seem that Merton did not drastically change his position nor does it suffer from the ambiguities that Turner describes
Structural Realism and the Social Sciences
After sorting different structuralist claims, I argue that structural realist ideas are instantiated in the social sciences, providing both clarification of social science research and support for some components of structural realism. My main focus is on three distinct ways that the social sciences can be about structural relations—exemplified by claims about social structure, reduced form structures in causal modeling, and equilibrium explanati…
Excorsing Hidden Positovist Demons
There is a philosophy of science behind much thinking on methodology that I think is wrong and that is a real obstacle to methodological innovation. Once I describe that philosophy of science, most social scientists will immediately reject it – it is a variant of positivism – but that does not mean they will not see that much of what they do presupposes it. So my main goal here is to point out how pervasive these philosophical assumptions are in …
Scientific Historiography and the Philosophy of Science
Our Knowledge of The Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. By Aviezer Tucker
Toward a Sociological Imagination: Bridging Specialized Fields
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Contributors Chapter 3 The Framework: Chapter 4 Reconstructing the Scientific Method Chapter 5 a Reflexive Sociology: A Second Look Chapter 6 Building Bridges: Chapter 7 The Process of Secularization: Toward a Theory-Oriented Methodology Chapter 8 Small Group Processes and the Legitimization of Societal Stratification: From Experiments to the Operation of Groups in Natural Situations Chapter 9 Explaining Inequality Cha…
Functionalist Successes and Excesses in the Social Sciences
This paper presents a model of functional explanations as a species of ordinary causal explanation and argues that they are widespread for understandable reasons in the social sciences. The remainder of the paper then looks at specific functional explanations in the social research and examines the prospects and problems for those accounts
The Uncertain Sciences. Bruce Mazlish
Formal Rationality and Its Pernicious Effects on the Social Sciences
This article argues that a particular notion of rationality, more exactly a specific notion of legitimate inference, is presupposed by much work in the social sciences to their detriment. The author describes the notion of rationality he has in mind, explains why it is misguided, identifies where and how it affects social research, and illustrates why that research is weaker as a result. The notion of legitimate inference the author has in mind i…
Global Arguments and Local Realism About the Social Sciences
This paper argues that realism issue in the social sciences is not one that can be decided by general philosophical arguments that evaluate entire domains at once. The realism issue is instead many different empirical issues. To defend these claims, I sort issues that are often run together, explicate and criticize several standard realist and antirealist arguments about the social sciences, and use the example of the productive/nonproductive dis…
Reduction, Explanation, and Individualism
This paper contributes to the recently renewed debate over methodological individualism (MI) by carefully sorting out various individualist claims and by making use of recent work on reduction and explanation outside the social sciences. My major focus is on individualist claims about reduction and explanation. I argue that reductionist versions of MI fail for much the same reasons that mental predicates cannot be reduced to physical predicates a…
Putting inference to the best explanation in its place
Defending Laws in the Social Sciences
This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris parib…
Why be a methodological individualist
Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences: Analyzing Controversies in Social Research
Molecular Biology and the Unity of Science
Advances in molecular biology have generally been taken to support the claim that biology is reducible to chemistry. I argue against that claim by looking in detail at a number of central results from molecular biology and showing that none of them supports reduction because (1) their basic predicates have multiple realizations, (2) their chemical realization is context-sensitive and (3) their explanations often presuppose biological facts rather…
Open Empirical and Methodological Issues in the Individualism-Holism Debate
I first briefly argue that some issues in the individualism-holism debate have been fairly clearly settled and others are still plagued by unclarity. The main argument of the article is that there is a set of clear empirical issues around the holism-individualism debate that are central problems in current social science research. Those include questions about when we can be holist and how individualist we can be in social explanation
Debating the Reality of Social Classes
This article first surveys a significant set of issues that are intertwined in asking whether social classes are real. It distinguishes two different notions of class: class as organized social entities and class as types of individuals based on individual characteristics. There is good evidence for some classes as social entities—ruling classes and underclasses in some societies—but other classes in contemporary society are sometimes best though…
Structural Realism and the Social Sciences
After sorting different structuralist claims, I argue that structural realist ideas are instantiated in the social sciences, providing both clarification of social science research and support for some components of structural realism. My main focus is on three distinct ways that the social sciences can be about structural relations—exemplified by claims about social structure, reduced form structures in causal modeling, and equilibrium explanati…
Supervenience and explanation
Debating the Reality of Race, Caste, and Ethnicity
There is a lively ongoing debate among philosophers and social scientists about the reality of race and among social scientists about the reality of caste and ethnicity. This paper tries to sort out what the issues are and makes some preliminary suggestions about what the evidence shows. Standard philosophical analyses try to find the necessary and sufficient conditions of our concept of race. I argue that this is not the best way to approach the…
Assessing Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences
Despite decades of controversy, functionalism continues to be a lively research tradition in the social sciences. Furthermore, social scientists who reject Parsonian functionalism and its variants frequently make liberal use of functional explanations. Yet, neither social scientists nor philosophers have reached any consensus on when and where functional accounts are legitimate. Critics doubt that functionalism is really explanatory or testable; …
Global Arguments and Local Realism About the Social Sciences
This paper argues that realism issue in the social sciences is not one that can be decided by general philosophical arguments that evaluate entire domains at once. The realism issue is instead many different empirical issues. To defend these claims, I sort issues that are often run together, explicate and criticize several standard realist and antirealist arguments about the social sciences, and use the example of the productive/nonproductive dis…
Racial Differences Among Factors Associated with Participation in Clinical Research Trials
A More Sophisticated Merton
An alternative account of Merton to that provided by Turner is sketched. It shows strong similarities to some quite plausible contemporary understandings of science in general. Given this reading, it would seem that Merton did not drastically change his position nor does it suffer from the ambiguities that Turner describes
Formal Rationality and Its Pernicious Effects on the Social Sciences
This article argues that a particular notion of rationality, more exactly a specific notion of legitimate inference, is presupposed by much work in the social sciences to their detriment. The author describes the notion of rationality he has in mind, explains why it is misguided, identifies where and how it affects social research, and illustrates why that research is weaker as a result. The notion of legitimate inference the author has in mind i…
Are ABM explanations in the social sciences inevitably individualist
Agent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly important in social science research. They have two obvious apparent virtues: they can model complex macrosociological phenomena without strong assumptions about agents and without analytic solutions for models, and they seem to instantiate the methodological individualist program in a concrete way. We argue that the latter claim is false. After providing schematic accounts of ABM models and a first intr…
Live empirical issues in debates over objectivity in the social sciences
Introduction: Doing Philosophy of Social Science
This handbook is a major, comprehensive look at the key ideas in the field, and is guided by several principles. The first is that the philosophy of social science should be closely connected to, and informed by, developments in the sciences themselves
The empirical nature of the individualism-holism dispute
The Case for Idealism
Reduction, Explanation, and Individualism
This paper contributes to the recently renewed debate over methodological individualism (MI) by carefully sorting out various individualist claims and by making use of recent work on reduction and explanation outside the social sciences. My major focus is on individualist claims about reduction and explanation. I argue that reductionist versions of MI fail for much the same reasons that mental predicates cannot be reduced to physical predicates a…
Supervenience and explanation
Defending Laws in the Social Sciences
This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris parib…
Molecular Biology and the Unity of Science
Advances in molecular biology have generally been taken to support the claim that biology is reducible to chemistry. I argue against that claim by looking in detail at a number of central results from molecular biology and showing that none of them supports reduction because (1) their basic predicates have multiple realizations, (2) their chemical realization is context-sensitive and (3) their explanations often presuppose biological facts rather…
Assessing Functional Explanations in the Social Sciences
Despite decades of controversy, functionalism continues to be a lively research tradition in the social sciences. Furthermore, social scientists who reject Parsonian functionalism and its variants frequently make liberal use of functional explanations. Yet, neither social scientists nor philosophers have reached any consensus on when and where functional accounts are legitimate. Critics doubt that functionalism is really explanatory or testable; …
The empirical nature of the individualism-holism dispute
Putting inference to the best explanation in its place
Individualism and the Unity of Science: Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and the Special Sciences
In this original and important book, Harold Kincaid defends a view of the special sciences-all sciences outside physics-as autonomous and nonreducible. He argues that the biological and social sciences provide explanations that cannot be captured by explanations at the level of their constituent parts, and yet that this does not commit us to mysterious, nonphysical entitites like vital forces or group minds. A look at real scientific practice sho…
Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences: Analyzing Controversies in Social Research
Formal Rationality and Its Pernicious Effects on the Social Sciences
This article argues that a particular notion of rationality, more exactly a specific notion of legitimate inference, is presupposed by much work in the social sciences to their detriment. The author describes the notion of rationality he has in mind, explains why it is misguided, identifies where and how it affects social research, and illustrates why that research is weaker as a result. The notion of legitimate inference the author has in mind i…
Global Arguments and Local Realism About the Social Sciences
This paper argues that realism issue in the social sciences is not one that can be decided by general philosophical arguments that evaluate entire domains at once. The realism issue is instead many different empirical issues. To defend these claims, I sort issues that are often run together, explicate and criticize several standard realist and antirealist arguments about the social sciences, and use the example of the productive/nonproductive dis…
Measuring the Intentional World: Realism, Naturalism, and Quantitative Methods in the Behavioral Sciences
Measuring the Intentional World: Realism, Naturalism, and Quantitative Methods in the Behavioral Sciences
Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioural sciences. This exciting book introduces a novel version of scientific realism-Measured Realism-that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. Trout proposes a theory of measurement-Population-Guided Estimation-that connects natural, psychological, and social scie…
The Uncertain Sciences. Bruce Mazlish
Functionalist Successes and Excesses in the Social Sciences
This paper presents a model of functional explanations as a species of ordinary causal explanation and argues that they are widespread for understandable reasons in the social sciences. The remainder of the paper then looks at specific functional explanations in the social research and examines the prospects and problems for those accounts
Toward a Sociological Imagination: Bridging Specialized Fields
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Contributors Chapter 3 The Framework: Chapter 4 Reconstructing the Scientific Method Chapter 5 a Reflexive Sociology: A Second Look Chapter 6 Building Bridges: Chapter 7 The Process of Secularization: Toward a Theory-Oriented Methodology Chapter 8 Small Group Processes and the Legitimization of Societal Stratification: From Experiments to the Operation of Groups in Natural Situations Chapter 9 Explaining Inequality Cha…
Excorsing Hidden Positovist Demons
There is a philosophy of science behind much thinking on methodology that I think is wrong and that is a real obstacle to methodological innovation. Once I describe that philosophy of science, most social scientists will immediately reject it – it is a variant of positivism – but that does not mean they will not see that much of what they do presupposes it. So my main goal here is to point out how pervasive these philosophical assumptions are in …
Scientific Historiography and the Philosophy of Science
Our Knowledge of The Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. By Aviezer Tucker
Structural Realism and the Social Sciences
After sorting different structuralist claims, I argue that structural realist ideas are instantiated in the social sciences, providing both clarification of social science research and support for some components of structural realism. My main focus is on three distinct ways that the social sciences can be about structural relations—exemplified by claims about social structure, reduced form structures in causal modeling, and equilibrium explanati…
A More Sophisticated Merton
An alternative account of Merton to that provided by Turner is sketched. It shows strong similarities to some quite plausible contemporary understandings of science in general. Given this reading, it would seem that Merton did not drastically change his position nor does it suffer from the ambiguities that Turner describes
Introduction: Doing Philosophy of Social Science
This handbook is a major, comprehensive look at the key ideas in the field, and is guided by several principles. The first is that the philosophy of social science should be closely connected to, and informed by, developments in the sciences themselves
Scientific Metaphysics
Original essays by leading philosophers of science explore the question of whether metaphysics can and should be naturalised - conducted as part of natural science. They engage with a range of approaches and disciplines to argue that if metaphysics is to be capable of identifying objective truths, it must be continuous with and inspired by science.
Filosofia das ciências sociais: Temas Atuais
A filosofia das ciências sociais, concebida da maneira adequada, tem algo a oferecer aos que praticam as ciências sociais. Os cientistas sociais adotam em suas pesquisas, ainda que de forma implícita, alguma filosofia de sua ciência. Para evitar impasses, é melhor explicitar essa filosofia e ser criticamente consciente dos seus méritos. A filosofia das ciências sociais, por sua vez, não pode ser praticada sem um envolvimento íntimo com a pesquisa…
Open Empirical and Methodological Issues in the Individualism-Holism Debate
I first briefly argue that some issues in the individualism-holism debate have been fairly clearly settled and others are still plagued by unclarity. The main argument of the article is that there is a set of clear empirical issues around the holism-individualism debate that are central problems in current social science research. Those include questions about when we can be holist and how individualist we can be in social explanation
Philosophy (33 works) · Epistemology (32 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (20 works) · Social science (17 works) · Political science (10 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Metaphysics (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works)