-
IntroductionIn Julie Zahle & Finn Collin (eds.), Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate, Springer. pp. 1-14. 2014.The introduction provides an overview of the ontological and the methodological individualism-holism debates. Moreover, these debates are briefly discussed in relation to two kindred disputes: The micro-macro and the agency-structure debates. Finally, the contributions to this book are briefly presented.
-
5Examen philosophicum fra allmenndannelse til ekspertdannelseNorsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 59 (1-2): 3-13. 2024.
-
27Reactivity in the human sciencesEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (1): 1-24. 2024.The reactions that science triggers on the people it studies, describes, or theorises about, can affect the science itself and its claims to knowledge. This phenomenon, which we call reactivity, has been discussed in many different areas of the social sciences and the philosophy of science, falling under different rubrics such as the Hawthorne effect, self-fulfilling prophecies, the looping effects of human kinds, the performativity of models, observer effects, experimenter effects and experimen…Read more
-
10Reactivity and good data in qualitative data collectionEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1): 1-18. 2023.Reactivity in qualitative data collection occurs when a researcher generates data about a situation with reactivity, that is, a situation in which the ongoing research affects the research participants such that they, say, diverge from their routines when the researcher is present, or tell the researcher what they think she wants to hear. In qualitative research, there are two basic approaches to reactivity. The traditional position maintains that data should ideally be collected in situations w…Read more
-
Qualitative research in political scienceIn Harold Kincaid & Jeroen van Bouwel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science, Oxford University Press. 2023.
-
34Are ABM explanations in the social sciences inevitably individualist?Synthese 200 (1): 1-22. 2022.Agent-based models are increasingly important in social science research. They have two obvious apparent virtues: they can model complex macrosociological phenomena without strong assumptions about agents and without analytic solutions for models, and they seem to instantiate the methodological individualist program in a concrete way. We argue that the latter claim is false. After providing schematic accounts of ABM models and a first introduction to ways in which to characterize individualist e…Read more
-
18Limits to levels in the methodological individualism–holism debateSynthese 198 (7): 6435-6454. 2019.It is currently common to conceive of the classic methodological individualism–holism debate in level terms. Accordingly, the dispute is taken to concern the proper level of explanations in the social sciences. In this paper, I argue that the debate is not apt to be characterized in level terms. The reason is that widely adopted notions of individualist explanations do not qualify as individual-level explanations because they span multiple levels. I defend this claim relative to supervenience, e…Read more
-
33ENPOSS 2012: The First Conference of the European Network for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Copenhagen, September 21–23, 2012) (review)Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (1): 225-226. 2013.
-
48Objective data sets in qualitative researchSynthese 199 (1-2): 101-117. 2020.Qualitative researchers sometimes talk about objectivity in relation to qualitative data sets. In this paper, I defend a reconstructed notion of objective qualitative data sets that may serve as a useful and reachable guiding ideal in qualitative data generation. In the first part of the paper, I develop the ideal. According to it, a qualitative data set is objective to the extent that it, in conjunction with true assumptions, possesses a combination of good-making features in virtue of which th…Read more
-
71Limits to levels in the methodological individualism–holism debateSynthese 198 (7): 6435-6454. 2019.It is currently common to conceive of the classic methodological individualism–holism debate in level terms. Accordingly, the dispute is taken to concern the proper level of explanations in the social sciences. In this paper, I argue that the debate is not apt to be characterized in level terms. The reason is that widely adopted notions of individualist explanations do not qualify as individual-level explanations because they span multiple levels. I defend this claim relative to supervenience, e…Read more
-
39Case study research in the social sciencesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 78 (C): 1-4. 2019.In this paper, we offer an introduction to case study research in the social sciences. We begin with a discussion of the definition of case study research. Next, we point to various purposes that case study research may serve in the social sciences and then turn to outline the main philosophical issues raised by case study research. Finally, we briefly present the papers in this special issue.
-
1IntroductionIn Julie Zahle & Finn Collin (eds.), Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate, Springer. pp. 1-14. 2014.The introduction provides an overview of the ontological and the methodological individualism-holism debates. Moreover, these debates are briefly discussed in relation to two kindred disputes: The micro-macro and the agency-structure debates. Finally, the contributions to this book are briefly presented.
-
34Data, epistemic values, and multiple methods in case study researchStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 78 32-39. 2019.Case Study research is characterized by the employment of multiple data gathering methods. In this paper, I examine the concurrent use of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The question I examine is: what is the rationale behind their combination in case study research? In the literature on case study research, the two most common reasons for using multiple methods appeal to comprehensiveness and convergent confirmation respectively. I argue that there is a third significant, ye…Read more
-
149Why be a methodological individualist?Synthese 196 (2): 655-675. 2019.In the recent methodological individualism-holism debate on explanation, there has been considerable focus on what reasons methodological holists may advance in support of their position. We believe it is useful to approach the other direction and ask what considerations methodological individualists may in fact offer in favor of their view about explanation. This is the background for the question we pursue in this paper: Why be a methodological individualist? We start out by introducing the me…Read more
-
51Privacy, Informed Consent, and Participant ObservationPerspectives on Science 25 (4): 465-487. 2017.In the literature on social research, adherence to the principle of informed consent is sometimes recommended on the ground that the privacy of those being studied is hereby protected. The principle has it that before becoming part of a study, a competent individual must receive information about its purpose, use, etc., and on this basis freely agree to participate. Joan Sieber motivates the employment of informed consent as a way to safeguard research participants' privacy as follows: "A resear…Read more
-
63Values and Data Collection in Social ResearchPhilosophy of Science 85 (1): 144-163. 2018.In this article, I offer a partial analysis of the role of values in qualitative data collection in social research. The partial analysis shows that nonepistemic values have both required and permissible roles to play during this phase of research. By appeal to the analysis, I reject the ideal of value-free science as applied to qualitative data collection, and I demonstrate why two alternative ideals should likewise be dismissed as standards for values in qualitative data collection. Also, I br…Read more
-
44Practices and the Direct Perception of Normative StatesPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 43 (4): 493-518. 2013.The overall aim of this two-part article is to provide a supplement to ability theories of practice in terms of a defense of the following thesis: In situations of social interaction, individuals’ ability to act appropriately sometimes depends on their exercise of the ability directly to perceive normative states. In this Part I, I introduce ability theories of practice and motivate my thesis. Furthermore, I offer an analysis of normative states as response-dependent properties. Last, I work out…Read more
-
1Methodological Anti-Naturalism, Norms and Participant ObservationIn Mark W. Risjord (ed.), Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Routledge. pp. 78-95. 2015.This paper examines the methodological anti-naturalist claim that social scientists make indispensably use of a method that is distinct to the social sciences, when studying norms by way of participant observation. Based on a detailed examination of how social scientists use participant observation to study norms, I argue that, on diverse specifications of “method”, the methodological anti-naturalist contention should be rejected.
-
119The individualism-holism debate on intertheoretic reduction and the argument from multiple realizationPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 33 (1): 77-99. 2003.The argument from multiple realization is currently considered the argument against intertheoretic reduction. Both Little and Kincaid have applied the argument to the individualism-holism debate in support of the antireductionist holist position. The author shows that the tenability of the argument, as applied to the individualism-holism debate, hinges on the descriptive constraints imposed on the individualist position. On a plausible formulation of the individualist position, the argument does…Read more
-
29Conference on the Philosophy of the Social Sciences 2011Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (1): 133-136. 2012.
-
Holism and SupervenienceIn Stephen P. Turner & Mark W. Risjord (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology, Elsevier. pp. 311-341. 2006.
-
75Practical Knowledge and Participant ObservationInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (1). 2012.Abstract An important strand of theories of practice stress that individuals' practical knowledge, i.e., their ability to act in appropriate and/or effective ways, is mainly tacit. This means that the social scientist cannot find out about this knowledge by simply asking the individuals she studies to articulate how it is appropriate and/or effective to act in various circumstances. In this paper, I pursue the proposal that the method of participant observation may be used to find out about indi…Read more
-
31How to Circumscribe Individualist Explanations: A Reply to Elder-VassPhilosophy of the Social Sciences (6): 0048393114530857. 2014.In “Redescription, Reduction, and Emergence: A Response to Tobias Hansson Wahlberg,” Elder-Vass takes the opportunity to reply to my criticism of his theory in “Holism, Emergence, and the Crucial Distinction.” In this response, I show how methodological individualists may respond to his argument against their position and I argue that Elder-Vass fails to provide reasons as to why his particular distinction between individualist and holist explanations should be adopted
-
3Holism, Emergence and the Crucial DistinctionIn Julie Zahle & Finn Collin (eds.), Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate, Springer. pp. 177-196. 2014.One issue of dispute between methodological individualists and methodological holists is whether holist explanations are dispensable in the sense that individualist explanations are able to do their explanatory job. Methodological individualists say they are, whereas methodological holists deny this. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Elder-Vass’ version of an influential argument in support of methodological holism, the argument from emergence. I argue that methodological individualists …Read more
-
24Participant Observation and Objectivity in AnthropologyIn Hanne Andersen, Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Thomas Uebel & Gregory Wheeler (eds.), New Challenges to Philosophy of Science, Springer Verlag. pp. 365--376. 2013.In this paper, I examine the early history of discussions of participant observation and objectivity in anthropology. The discussions resolve around the question of whether participant observation is a reliable method for obtaining data that may serve as the basis for true accounts of native ways of life. I show how Malinowski in 1922 introduced participant observation as a straightforwardly reliable method and then discuss how—and why—most of the discussants in the 1940s and 1950s maintained th…Read more
-
32Conference “The Special Role of Science in Liberal Democracy”Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2): 407-409. 2014.The conference “The Special Role of Science in Liberal Democracy” was held November 21–22 2013 at the University of Copenhagen. The conference was organized by Julie Zahle and Klemens Kappel as part of a research project on this topic, funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.There were six plenary speakers: James Bohman, Heather Douglas, Harold Kincaid, Martin Kusch, Eleonora Montuschi and Erik Weber. The other speakers at the conference were: Manuela Fernandez-Pinto, Anton Froeyman, Heidi Grasswick,…Read more
-
21Practices and the Direct Perception of Normative States: Part IIPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (1): 74-85. 2014.The overall aim of this two-part paper is to provide a supplement to ability theories of practice in terms of a defense of the following thesis: Individuals’ ability to act appropriately sometimes depends on their exercise of the ability directly to perceive normative states. In part I, I presented the account of direct perception. In this part II, I argue that, by the lights of this account, normative states are sometimes directly perceptible. Also, I show that the ability directly to perceive …Read more
-
Holism, in the Social SciencesIn Byron Kaldis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Sage Publications. pp. 425-430. 2013.
-
99Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate (edited book)Springer. 2014.This collection of papers investigates the most recent debates about individualism and holism in the philosophy of social science. The debates revolve mainly around two issues: firstly, whether social phenomena exist sui generis and how they relate to individuals. This is the focus of discussions between ontological individualists and ontological holists. Secondly, to what extent social scientific explanations may and should, focus on individuals and social phenomena respectively. This issue is …Read more
Julie Zahle
University of Bergen
University Of Bergen
-
-
University Of BergenPost-doctoral Fellow
Bergen, Hordaland, Norway
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Social Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Social Science |
General Philosophy of Science |