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These are the notes from Advanced Sociological Theory lectures 1 to 6
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Hoorcolleges Advanced Sociology TheoryPart 1: Foundations, building plans and tools
Lecture 1 – The structure of sociological explanation
Dia 6:
What is Sociology?
= The “Minimal Program” for Sociology: Research on social phenomena and their social
conditions (‘causes’).
Dia 7:
Problems as the starting point for theory formation and empirical research
P1 -> T1 -> E1 -> P2 …
Problem Theory Empirical Research New Problem
Problem = question
Dia 8:
Social conditions as causes
“Inequality problem”
- Openness/closure of education/health systems
“Cohesion problem”
- Amount of contact between members of religious group
“Cultural problem”
- Use of online and networks
Type of questions in this course:
- Explanatory, mostly focus on explanation.
Dia 12:
Common sense
- The routine knowledge we have of everyday world and activities
- Non-formal, unstructured, practical
- “Gezond verstand”
Dia 14:
“Blueprints” for sociological theory
Types of explanations
- Covering-law explanations/ Syllogisms (theory schemas)
- Coleman’s diagram
,Dia 15:
Types of explanations?
- Covering law explanations = the phenomenon is explained by the causal law.
If a fire starts in a crowded room, many people will panic, leading to many
fatalities.
- Statistical explanations = the phenomenon is explained by a statistical
relationship.
The smaller the door in a room, the more fatalities when a fire starts.
- Mechanism explanations = the phenomenon is explained by means of an action-
based explanation incorporating social restrictions/opportunities and the
aggregation process.
Dia 16:
Covering law explanation as syllogisms
Deductive-nomological model: All A’s are B; x is A; x is B.
Probabilistic model: Most A’s are B; x is A; x is likely to be B.
Covering law explanations
1. General laws } Explanans
2. Initial conditions: social conditions
---------------------------------------------------- Deduction
Description of the phenomenon to be explained Explanandum
Social phenomenon
Dia 19:
Dia 21:
Coleman’s diagram
Dia 27:
, Important definitions
- Theory = a set of verbal or formal assumptions and propositions on the question
at hand including causal relations that lead to testable hypotheses about the
question
- Model = formalized version of a theory in which all conditions, actors, possible
actions, preferences, implications of behavior for everyone and relations between
these elements are made very precise such that logical implications and
hypotheses can be derived
- Syllogism = building block of a theory or model
- Conceptual model = an overview of concepts and arrows that summarize the
hypotheses following from a theory or model
Dia 29:
Five important aspects of theory building:
1. Be precise
2. Avoid black boxes
3. Include micro level
4. Model the micro-macro link
5. Behavior theory: as simple as possible, as complex as necessary
Dia 39:
Five aspects of theory formation in analytical sociology
1. Making things precise
2. Search for plausible mechanisms
3. Take the micro-level into account
4. Carefully model the micro-macro transformation
5. Search for a micro-model that is “realistic” enough, and not too complex
Durkheim’s integration theory:
1. The stronger the cohesion among a given social group, the lower the suicide rate in
this group
2. Cohesion among catholics is stronger than among protestants
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The suicide rate is lower among catholics than among protestants
Lecture 2 – Cooperation in Social Dilemmas 1
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