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Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences

Shan, Yafeng, Williamson, Jon (2021) Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 11 (4). pp. 1-27. ISSN 1879-4912. E-ISSN 1879-4920. (doi:10.1007/s13194-021-00415-z) (KAR id:89911)

Abstract

Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) an account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation of mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s13194-021-00415-z
Projects: Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences
Uncontrolled keywords: evidential pluralism
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Funders: Leverhulme Trust (https://ror.org/012mzw131)
Depositing User: Yafeng Shan
Date Deposited: 25 Aug 2021 21:28 UTC
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 15:33 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/89911 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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