Can we be realist about social mechanisms?

The problem of model representation in

social sciences

In social sciences, there is a vast amount of work about the explanatory power of social
mechanisms. Following some debates in philosophy of science about scientific explanation,
some philosophers of social sciences appeal to the idea of mechanism-based explanation
(Machamer et al., 2000; Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2005; Glennan et al., 2022), to argue that
this kind of explanation is better than other alternatives already existing in the field
(Hedström & Ylikoski, 2010; Maurer, 2016; Jiménez-Buedo & Squitieri, 2019). Among the
reasons to defend this claim, one prominent is that social mechanisms are more realistic
than alternative views in the sense that the former can be used to open the black box that
sustains some causal link at social level.

However, there is a problem with the realist commitment to social mechanisms. If we

consider that mechanisms-based explanations are related to the design of scientific models,
which usually depend on different kinds of abstractions, idealizations, and falsehoods, then
how is it possible to be realist about social mechanisms? In this work, I argue that we can
be realist about social mechanisms, but for that, first we need to explain in what sense
model-based science contributes to improve our understanding of social world.

To achieve that objective the work is structured into three sections, each one centered on
one question about social mechanisms. In the first one, I focus on the definition question
(i.e., What is a social mechanism?). The first to say is there is no single definition of social
mechanism (Casini & Manzo, 2016; Kincaid, 2021). Instead, what we found are two types:
(1) horizontal mechanisms: descriptions of causal relations among variables at macro level,
and (2) vertical mechanisms: descriptions of causal systems at micro and macro level.
Then, in the second section, I take this distinction with the aim to address the function
question (i.e., what does a social mechanism do?). The claim here is that social mechanisms
can perform various epistemic functions not reducible to each other. To understand this
claim we need to pay attention to: (1) the way in which each kind of model introduces
abstractions, idealizations, or falsehoods in its description; and (2) how they contribute to
the achievement of the epistemic function of a model by supplying the methodological
limitations existing in social sciences. Finally, in the third section, I focus on the utility
question (i.e., What is a social mechanism for?). Following recent works on scientific
realism (Lawler, 2021; Potochnik, 2022), I support the idea that social mechanisms are
tools for detecting causal patterns that explain approximately a social phenomenon.

In conclusion what we see is that social mechanisms are a family of inaccurate descriptions
of social phenomena, but we can use them to overcome some methodological limitations
and to gain causal knowledge about the functioning of social world. To the extent that
social scientists can meet the objectives of their research, we can be realistic about the
social mechanisms postulated, but given its nature, such commitment must always be
subject to review.

Keywords: social mechanisms, scientific realism, scientific representation, model-based

science

References

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