Los mecanismos sociales y su relación con la distinción micro-macro

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6140718
AutoresFelipe González (0000-0002-2174-0900, Universidad Central de Chile, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Fascículo55
Páginas16-28
Data de publicação2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCinta de moebio (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0717-554X • E-ISSN: 0717-554X
EditoraSciELO Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo (ANID) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4067/s0717-554x2016000100002
OpenAlexW2222603184
SCIELO_PIDS0717-554X2016000100002
IdiomaES
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas14

The notion of social mechanisms has experienced an increasing use in the social sciences as an alternative explanatory framework to the logic of co-variation present in multivariate analyses, emphasizing the causal explanation of social phenomena over their mere description.This paper seeks two goals.In the one hand, summarise recent literature on social mechanisms in order to clarify their meanings, different modes of use and their contribution to empirical research.In the other hand, we will shed some light onto the relation between social mechanisms and the micro-macro problem in social sciences.We argue that the search for social mechanisms and reductionism in social sciences correspond to two interrelated but analytically distinguishable questions: while the first one seeks to define intermediary processes and causal connections between causes and effects, the second question asks for the different levels of reality in which the relation between initial conditions and effects shall be understood.Following Daniel Little ́s methodological localism, we will suggest that social mechanisms can well take place at the supra-individual level, and that the reduction of social phenomena to their micro-foundations is not a methodological prescription, but rather depends on the state of art of specific fields of inquiry

Humanities · Sociology · Agricultural and Food Production Studies · Community Health and Development · Latin American rural development · Philosophy