Science in the Making - Explanation in the Social Sciences

This Brief draws on the work of French sociologist Jean-Michel Berthelot to propose a version of explanatory pluralism. It distinguishes six explanatory or intelligibility schemes found in modern social sciences: actantial, functional, hermeneutic, structural, dialectic, and causal schemes. The Brief deals with each explanatory scheme in a separate chapter, each being structured into two parts: three examples of scholarly works applying a given scheme and discussion of the characteristics of the given scheme. The last chapter proposes a synthesis.