Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences / Edition 1

by Andrew Abbott, Jeffrey C. Alexander

Overview

Methods of Discovery is organized around strategies for deepening arguments in order to find the best ways to study social phenomena.

Abbott helps social science students discover what questions to ask. This exciting book is not about habits and the mechanics of doing social science research, but about habits of thinking that enable students to use those mechanics in new ways, by coming up with new ideas and combining them more effectively with old ones.

Abbott organizes his book around general methodological moves, and uses examples from throughout the social sciences to show how these moves can open new lines of thinking. In each chapter, he covers several moves and their reverses (if these exist), discussing particular examples of the move as well as its logical and theoretical structure. Often he goes on to propose applications of the move in a wide variety of empirical settings. The basic aim of Methods of Discovery is to offer readers a new way of thinking about directions for their research and new ways to imagine information relevant to their research problems.

Methods of Discovery is part of the Contemporary Societies series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393978148
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/02/2004
Series:	Contemporary Societies Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	261
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Andrew Abbott is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. He is the author, most recently, of Chaos of Disciplines and Time Matters: On Theory and Method, both from the University of Chicago Press. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Professor Abbott has written and lectured widely on occupations and professions, social science methods, social theory, and the history of the Chicago School of Sociology.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	To the Reader	xi
Chapter 1	Explanation	3
I.	Explanation	8
II.	Methods	13
III.	Explanatory Programs	26
Chapter 2	Basic Debates and Methodological Practices	41
I.	Basic Debates	43
II.	Methods and Debates	53
III.	Cycles of Critique	60
IV.	From Critique to Heuristic	75
Chapter 3	Introduction to Heuristics	80
I.	The Idea of Heuristic	80
II.	The Routine Heuristics of Normal Science	88
III.	Topics and Commonplaces	92
Chapter 4	General Heuristics: Search and Argument	110
I.	Search Heuristics	113
II.	Argument Heuristics	120
Chapter 5	General Heuristics: Description and Narration	137
I.	Descriptive Heuristics	138
II.	Narrative Heuristics	146
Chapter 6	Fractal Heuristics	162
I.	Positivism and Interpretivism	168
II.	Analysis and Narration	171
III.	Behaviorism and Culturalism	179
IV.	Individualism and Emergentism	183
V.	Realism and Constructionism	187
VI.	Contextualism and Noncontextualism	192
VII.	Choice and Constraint	198
VIII.	Conflict and Consensus	201
IX.	Transcendent and Situated Knowledge	206
Chapter 7	Ideas and Puzzles	211
I.	Tests of Ideas	213
II.	Other People	221
III.	Literature	226
IV.	Taste	231
V.	Personality	234
VI.	Puzzles	242
	Glossary	249
	Notes	255
	References	259
	Index	265