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Explanatory and Non-explanatory Goals in the Social Sciences: A

Reply to Reiss
Thomas Brante
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 2008; 38; 271
DOI: 10.1177/0048393108315560

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 Philosophy of
the Social Sciences
Volume 38 Number 2
June 2008 271-278
Explanatory and © 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/0048393108315560
Non-explanatory Goals http://pos.sagepub.com
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in the Social Sciences http://online.sagepub.com

A Reply to Reiss
Thomas Brante
University of Lund, Sweden

The paper has three aims. First, to show that Julian Reiss’ critique of what he
calls the New Mechanist Perspective in the social sciences is built on a
number of misconceptions; second, to provide some arguments for the need
of reflections and discussions about common and “ultimate” goals for the
social sciences; and third, to suggest a focus on mechanisms as one such
viable goal.

Keywords: social science; goals; explanations; mechanisms

T he following discussion is inspired by an article by Julian Reiss, this

journal, no. 2, 2007, entitled “Do We Need Mechanisms in the Social
Sciences?” Reiss criticizes what he calls the New Mechanistic Perspective,
or (NMP), which he refers to as a movement.1 The oversigned is seen as one
of its representatives and is somewhat misinterpreted by Reiss in order to
show the untenability of NMP. In his introduction, Reiss repeats (five times
in three pages) that NMPs maintain that the “only or ultimate,” scientific
goal is explanation by way of identification of causal mechanisms.
However, I have not written “only,” and am unaware of anyone else claim-
ing that science has only one goal. In fact, the word “only” is inserted by
Reiss himself. Unfortunately, the rest of his article is based on this linguis-
tic slippage. Reiss argues against those who would claim that science has
only one goal at the expense of other possible goals. By this slippage, I, or
“we,” are turned into monists with respect to goals while Reiss calls himself

Author’s Note: Received 9 October 2007

1. It must be one of the most heterogeneous perspectives and movements there is, compris-
ing methodological individualists, critical realists, Mertonians, Bourdieuans, Marxists,
Elsterians, and so forth. I sometimes call myself ‘causal realist’ (probably the only one, though).

271

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272 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

a pluralist. Hence, Reiss’ article is built on a construction; another so-called

straw man has been invented. Therefore, this reply could stop right here.
However, instead I take the opportunity to first say a few words about
Reiss’ critique in order to explicate what I see as the major reason for it, and
then proceed to state what I mean by “ultimate” goals in the social sciences,
and why a focus on mechanisms may not be such a bad idea, after all.

I
Reiss begins his argumentation by asking himself the question of why
NMPs “ignore alternative goals” to explanation such as description, predic-
tion, and control. He surmises four possible reasons: we regard them as
unimportant; as unattainable; or as methodologically trivial; or think that
alternative goals are better fulfilled by explanations. Thereafter he seeks to
justify non-explanatory goals by providing a set of examples. Concerning
description Reiss states on the one hand that scientists are de facto preoc-
cupied with it and, on the other, that policy makers are in need of accurate
estimates of e.g. rates of inflation in order to arrive at wise decisions (Reiss
2007, 169). The same goes for prediction, e.g. for unemployment, and con-
trol, such as when politicians seek to reach socio-political goals like crime
prevention. Reiss concludes: “From the point of view of policy making,
description, prediction, and control are enormously important goals of the
social sciences” (Reiss 2007, 170). Non-explanatory goals are justified by
referring to political needs.
In the same vein, Reiss criticizes the view that prediction and control are
impossible in the social sciences, reminding us of “the success of the crime-
control program in New York City in the Giuliani era, or the skill with
which Alan Greenspan was steering the U.S. economy” (Reiss 2007, 172).
It is not made clear how these examples are related to social science.
In his concluding section, Reiss discusses whether studies of causal
mechanisms are always a good strategy when the goal is accurate descrip-
tion, successful prediction, or efficient control. Concerning prediction, he
rejects “the old symmetry thesis,” implying that explanation and prediction
have similar structures (Reiss 2007, 178). This is because socioeconomic
systems are subject to frequent structural breaks. Therefore, models that do
not build on causal factors can provide better predictions than those that do;
causal factors may cease to operate after a break.
Furthermore, causal-mechanistic models are not always the best for pol-
icy makers. Here, Reiss pursues a longer technical reasoning which I disre-
gard because it is unnecessary for his point, which is clarified by his

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 Brante / A Reply to Reiss 273

example. If politicians want to reduce or put an end to smoking (the policy

variable), they can intervene by forbidding smoking in bars. But this mea-
sure can “change the frequency by which people go to bars, and thus trig-
ger alternative activities which may in turn influence mortality rates
because of lung cancer” (Reiss 2007, 180). Thus, interventions based on
causal inferences are not always stable, and “What matters most for policy
is the stable association between the policy variable and the target, not the
reason why the correlation is stable” (Reiss 2007, 180). Consequently,
causal inferences are not always optimal in regard to political interventions,
Reiss contends.
The first reply to Reiss (from NMPs, as it were, or at least me) is that
nobody has claimed that accurate descriptions are not important, and
besides, not merely politicians want accurate descriptions. Concerning the
impossibility of predictions, I can remember some hermeneutics, a few
decades ago, arguing such things on principal grounds. (If people hear
about a prediction they alter their behavior whereby the prediction fails, for
instance.) Today, however, the general opinion is that predictions often but
not always are very difficult because of the complexity of society, involv-
ing so many causal determinants. Of course, this also goes for intervention,
or control—open systems make them uncertain. If a system goes through a
structural break, presumably mechanisms will operate differently or even
cease to function; mechanisms are always embedded in structures. If some
smokers do not want to get rid of their vice and thus buy their beer at the
supermarket and consume it while continuing smoking at home, this is in
no way an argument against a causal approach. On the contrary, counter-
vailing mechanisms often intervene and destroy a carefully prepared polit-
ical plan. In sociology, such outcomes are sometimes labeled the problem
of unanticipated consequences of rational action.
As mentioned, Reiss provides a number of examples; my small selection
is made just because I want to point out a possible cause to what I regard
as Reiss’ mistake, which is related to what meaning is put into the concept
of science. Many—too many—of Reiss’ examples concern what policy
makers are assumed to require or need. Politicians do not need explanations
but descriptions, predictions, and control capabilities—that is, tools. Most
often, Reiss offers this type of external justification of non-explanatory
goals; science is instrumentally legitimated by its usefulness to external
interests of power. (In this context I would like to suggest two other tradi-
tional but perhaps old-fashioned goals for social science, viz., critique and
emancipation.) It seems like Reiss has commissioned science in mind, that
is, the scientist should be what has been called “Prince advisor.” (At the

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274 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

same time it is to be hoped that there are politicians that at least sometimes
may be interested in answers to not merely how-questions but also why-
questions.)
When I claim that the ultimate goal of science is explanation I refer to
basic, internally governed research. Further, I see it as fairly autonomous. I
will come back to this, but let me first say something about the relation
between description, explanation, and something third, viz., classification,
in science.

II

As the history of philosophy of science shows, science can be portrayed

in several ways. Here I want to highlight three of its basic procedures. One
of these is description, accurate measurement and meticulous estimation. A
second characteristic is the specific way in which a science divides its
domain of study into categories and sub-classes. In other words, classifica-
tion is no innocent activity but, on the one hand, is a presupposition for a dis-
cipline’s observation and identification of significant facts, and, on the other,
provides the building blocks—basic concepts—between which associations
and causal relations can be established. Indeed, explanation is tantamount to
linking concepts and categories to one another in particular ways.
The importance of accurate description is obvious, and Reiss provides
good arguments for it. However, description is always what I want to call
category-dependent; that is, we use typologies and conceptual apparatuses
for sorting and to some extent even producing factual descriptions. Indeed,
the social sciences display a plethora of classifications—think of Parsons,
Goffman, Habermas, Giddens, up to today: divisions, periodizations of
history into traditional, modern, late modern; industrial society, knowledge
society; non-globalized and globalized worlds; classes, various types of
social groups, stratifications, and so forth. If one is keen on bold historical
analogies one might say that the social sciences appear to be in a phase
resembling the natural sciences a few centuries ago, when systems of clas-
sification were a primary preoccupation. Since I am Swedish I want to men-
tion Linneaus’ systematic division of plants as a prime example.
Classifications without explanations, without identification of mecha-
nisms, are not sufficient, however. Astrology is an example. A scientific
explanation implies linking categories, preferably by ascertaining causal
relations between them. And a causal relation is made tenable by finding
the mechanism binding together cause and effect.

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 Brante / A Reply to Reiss 275

This is one reason why I say that explanations are “ultimate” in science.2
But there are other reasons; let me mention two. First, I would argue that
the great breakthroughs in science most often concern the identification of
mechanisms. Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein; their greatness involved
precisely the laying bare of general mechanisms of broad explanatory
scope. In sociology we have our classics like Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
We do not remember Marx because of his descriptions of child labour in
19th-century England but because of his revolutionizing new scheme of
categorization and the intimately related identification of the structure and
mechanisms of capitalism. We do not remember Weber because of his
analysis of Calvinism per se but because of his linking of religion and econ-
omy, the ways in which Calvinism comprised beliefs operating as mecha-
nisms fostering hard labour, saving, investment. To make a prediction: I
don’t think the important, valuable, statistically sophisticated, and method-
ologically refined studies of the conditions of our contemporary world,
conducted by large international research teams, will provide the classics of
the future, but rather the works of single mechanism-oriented scholars like,
say, Charles Tilly (1998), on macro-mechanisms, or Randall Collins
(2004), on micro-mechanisms. Beyond descriptions there are causes and
mechanisms, and it is these that must be scrutinized in order to explain why
things are what they are.
Another reason why I have proclaimed explanations as “ultimate” concerns
the present situation of contemporary sociology and other social sciences,
probably with the exception of economics, and indeed, this is also the reason
why I wrote the article Reiss has read. Several scholars have stressed the frag-
mentation of our subjects, the lack of substantial, explanatory theory. One
example of hundreds is Barry Barnes, in 1995 lamenting that what now exists
as sociological theory is “ersatz theory, a substitute for theory, a hotchpotch
of critique, taxonomy, history, the biography of theorists, practically any-
thing, in fact, save theory itself” (Brante 2001, 167). With some notable
exceptions, Barnes’ description is increasingly accurate today. It is in this
light that my proposal that sociology and most social sciences must raise their
ambitions and become explanatory sciences should be seen. A common goal
of this kind would enhance disciplinary stability and solidity, and thus also
improve cumulativity. A common goal would also improve possibilities of
cooperation, of inter-disciplinary research, among the social sciences as well

2. Ultimate: last, closing, concluding, eventual, final, hindmost, lag, latest, latter, terminal
(Encyclopedia Britannica).

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276 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

as between the social and the natural sciences, such as biology and neuropsy-
chiatry, which are persistently focusing on identifying mechanisms behind
their phenomena. Employing a shared basic approach, areas of common con-
cern such as mechanisms behind human mental disorders would be easier to
explore in a multi-disciplinary manner.

III

But why explanation by mechanisms? And after all, what is a mecha-

nism? Here I want to start by agreeing with Reiss. There are already
embarrassingly large amounts of definitions, some of which even contra-
dict one another. As Reiss remarks and as I discuss (Brante 2001, 191),
there are profound ontological differences between various advocates of
the mechanism concept. In Peter Hedström and Richard Swedberg’s oth-
erwise excellent anthology Social Mechanisms (1998), one finds defini-
tions of mechanisms like “hypothetical causal models” (Gambetta 1998,
102), “bits of sometimes true theory” (Stinchcombe 1998, 267), “a plausi-
ble hypothesis, or a set of hypotheses” (Schelling 1998, 32), and “analyti-
cal constructs” (Hedström and Swedberg 1998, 13). Obviously,
mechanisms belong to world 2 or maybe world 3 in Popper’s sense; the
word refers to theoretical entities. At the same time, the aim of the anthol-
ogy as well as of social theory in general is to “systematically explicate the
social mechanisms that generate and explain observed associations
between events.” So now if we, perhaps a bit impolitely, combine these
two types of statements from the same book we arrive at the conclusion
that the aim of sociology is to identify bits of theory. However, bits of
theory, accounts, or models can hardly be things that generate observable
associations between events. To avoid such mix-ups, I would suggest that
the word “mechanism” is not understood in the same way as e.g. “hypoth-
esis” or “theory” but as e.g. “stone,” “hippopotamus,” or “gravitation,”
words referring to entities out there (Popper’s world 1).
In order to further encircle and delineate the meaning of “mechanism,”
I would suggest the following reflections:

1. Reality encompasses infinite amounts of causal processes. Science—be

it natural or social—has no possibility and no ambition of describing or
explaining all of these. No natural science can predict where a leaf, car-
ried away by the autumn winds, will fall. And as the chaos theorists

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 Brante / A Reply to Reiss 277

stress: the movements of a butterfly in China may cause rain in Lisbon.

The natural sciences do not have this ambition but seek to identify the
basic and durable mechanisms upon which surface phenomena rely. In
the social sciences, we have the same situation. A person going for a
walk in a city is influenced by myriads of factors—cars to be avoided,
shop windows generating thoughts, other people to chat with. The task
of sociology cannot be to describe this myriad but, analogous to natural
science, to identify the relatively enduring, or “robust,” mechanisms that
to a greater or lesser extent produce surface phenomena, and that is
exactly what we find in e.g. Goffman’s analyses of social interaction, for
instance the mechanisms governing typical behavior at street encounters.
More precisely, I would say that in social science, robust mechanisms are
not ordinarily identified and deployed to explain specific events, but
event-types.
2. In the case of natural science, we can say that a mechanism is what a nat-
ural law is based upon and concerns. The mechanism of “attraction” is the
base for the law of gravity. In social science, a mechanism may be what a
statistical association is based upon. If we have found that longer and
harder criminal punishment results in increased dispositions to crime after
time is served, the mechanism or mechanisms are the conditions and
processes that make it so, and it is the task of criminologists to explain the
connection by identifying the mechanisms producing this effect. A mech-
anism can thus be defined as the modus operandi that makes a situation
transform or not transform into something else. More specifically, I pro-
pose that “mechanism” is defined as a cause of a (causal) relationship, a
cause that has a (causal) relationship as its effect.3
3. Mechanisms are embedded in structures; they are “structure-dependent.”
Structures are both enabling and constraining in relation to mechanisms.
For example, while stable social structures permit robust reproducing
mechanisms to be powerful and dominate, unstable social structures
comprise tensions and opposing mechanisms that will open for social
upheavals and restructuring.

For reasons of these kinds (see further Brante 2001), I suggest that the
ultimate goal for social science is the identification of social structures har-
boring mechanisms that generate event-types.
A focus on mechanism-based explanations has its advantages, perhaps
especially for the social sciences of today. On the other hand, such a focus

3. It should be added that one mechanism can have several causal relationships as its effect,
and also that one mechanism can be the effect of several causes—an issue that cannot be
embarked upon here, though.

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278 Philosophy of the Social Sciences

constitutes no panacea. As Daniel Steel (2007, 363) expresses it:

“Mechanisms are not a magic wand that can be waved to make method-
ological problems vanish” (or explanations fall down in your lap—TB).
Thus, Reiss’ critique of what he calls NMP is mistaken, dependent upon
his reading of “ultimate” as “only”; that he seems to conceive of science as
“only or ultimately” a provider of instruments to external interests; and
because he has not understood the situation of most contemporary social
science and the needs they therefore have. Hence, the answer to the ques-
tion posed in the title of his article, “Do We Need Mechanisms in Social
Science?” would be yes if we are autonomous scholars, and possibly no—
if we are mere Prince advisors.

References
Barnes, B. 1995. The elements of social theory. London: University College London Press.
Brante, T. 2001. Consequences of realism for sociological theory-building. Journal for the
Theory of Social Behaviour 31:167-95.
Collins, R. 2004. Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gambetta, D. 1998. Concatenations of mechanisms. In Social mechanisms, edited by P. Hedström
and R. Swedberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hedström, P., and R. Swedberg. 1998. Social mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Reiss, J. 2007. Do we need mechanisms in the social sciences? Philosophy of the Social
Sciences 37:163-84.
Schelling, T. 1998. Social mechanisms and social dynamics. In Social mechanisms, edited by
P. Hedström and R. Swedberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steel, D. 2007. With or without mechanisms. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37:360-65.
Stinchcombe, A. 1998. Monopolistic competition as a mechanism. In Social mechanisms,
edited by P. Hedström and R. Swedberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, C. 1998. Enduring inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Thomas Brante is professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Lund, Sweden. His
two current research interests are models for integrated social science, and sociological
perspectives on the development of biologism, especially the neuropsychiatric paradigm
pertaining to mental disorders, or deviant behavior.

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