The Nature of Explanation in Social Sciences

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the nature of explanations as given in both natural and social sciences. It discusses models of explanation adopted in natural and social sciences. The author also elaborates upon naturalistic and anti-naturalistic views and other types of explanations such as functional, purposive, etc in social science. The volume elaborates upon themes like bridge principle; functional explanation; purposive explanation; teleological explanation; prediction; methodological individualism; methodological collectivism; illocutionary redescription; principle of action; and dispositional explanations to understand whether the explanations given in the realm of social sciences are the same or different from the explanations that are given in the field of natural sciences.

This introductory book is a must read for students and scholars of philosophy of science, logic, science and technology studies, social sciences and philosophy in general.

Rajesh Ranjan Tiwari is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University, Bhagalpur, India. He has specialised in the field of Philosophy of Science and Symbolic Logic. His areas of interest are Philosophy of science, Logic, Applied Ethics and Gandhian Philosophy. He has been a teacher of Philosophy for about 35 years. He has published many research papers in some of the important Indian journals and authored different chapters in some of the important books related to Philosophy in India.