Building on his earlier influential contributions to contemporary debates on social theory, Peter Hedstrom argues for a systematic development of sociological theory so that it has the explanatory power and precision to inform sociological research and understanding--qualities lacking in much of the grand social theorizing currently fashionable.
Contents
1. The analytical tradition in sociology; 2. Social mechanisms and explanatory theory; 3. Action and interaction; 4. Social interaction and social change; 5. On causal modelling; 6. Quantitative research, agent-based modelling, and theories of the social (with Yvonne Åberg); 7. Coda; References.
Prize Winner
The James Coleman Book Award
Reviews
"Dissecting the Social is a substantial and important contribution to the emerging paradigm of mechanism-based explanation." -Andreas Pickel, Canadian Journal of Sociology Online
"This book...is an enjoyable and important addition to the meager library of serious philosophy of social science. It gives pleasure to read because it is clearly conceived and elegantly written, and because...it is chock full of examples of current research. And Hedström's book is important because it emphasizes the thesis that to explain facts of a type is to exhibit or hypothesize the mechanisms that brings them about." -Mario Bunge, Philosophy of the Social Sciences
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