The very idea of a social science

Bibliographic Data

ID7103084
AuthorsA R Louch (Syracuse University, corresponding author)
Year1963
Volume6
Issue1-4
Pages273-286
Publication date1963-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-174X • E-ISSN: 1502-3923
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00201746308601381
OpenAlexW2067259000
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited1

In The Idea of a Social Science Winch, argues that, sociology is more properly conceived as a branch of philosophy than of empirical science. Winch falls victim here to the Humean assimilation of the empirical to the generalizable. He notes that much of our talk about social practice is in terms of conventions, so that explanations of social action can be given without recourse to statistical or experimental findings. But such talk depends nonetheless on the accuracy and detail with which the situations in which actions occur are‐ recorded, and this is surely an empirical enterprise. It is the misleading conception of sociology as a discipline, characterized by common procedures, that leads Winch to espouse the assimilation of sociology to conceptual inquiry. We need to see instead that sociology embraces a group of questions and subjects so loosely connected that it would be mistaken to speak of, and idle to project, a procedure common to all of them

Action (physics · Empirical research · Epistemology · Philosophy of science · Sociology · Winch · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Engineering · Philosophy

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