Sociological explanation. Characteristics of contemporary practices

Sociological explanation. Characteristics of contemporary practices


Ivanov O.I.

St.-Petersburg State University, St.-Petersburg, Russia oliv2002@rambler.ru

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For citation:

Ivanov O.I. Sociological explanation. Characteristics of contemporary practices. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2014. No 3. P. 3-9




Abstract

The situation with scientific explanation in the Western and in Russian sociologyis discussed. Often as explanations are given descriptions, forms theorizing, analogies, metaphors, etc. Author describes types of scientific explanation, including explanations on the basis of regularities. It is argued that comprehensive explanation of social phenomena can be obtained under the condition of fuzing various procedures of explanation, combining structural, functional explanations of teleological explanation, combining teleological explanations with genetic ones, etc. This is an ideal to which sociologists might reach out.


Keywords
sociology; pseudo-explanation in sociology; scientific explanation; the types of scientific explanations; the model of scientific explanation
Content No 3, 2014