THE PROBLEM OF NATURALISM IN SOCIOLOGY AND ITS RECENT ONTOLOGICAL REFORMULATIONS: A DISCUSSION BASED ON THE QUESTION OF CAUSALITY IN ANTHONY GIDDENS AND CRITICAL REALISM
Causal explanation; Methodological naturalism; Ontology; Anthony Giddens; Critical Realism.
In this thesis we discuss what has come to be called "the problem of naturalism" in sociology, focusing specifically on the question of the causal form of sociological explanation and its similarities and differences with the alleged "standard model" of explanation in the natural sciences. We begin by presenting some variations of the standard model of the naturalistic conception of natural investigation and how it has resulted, in the social sciences, in an epistemological division between methodological monists and dualists - claiming greater or lesser similarity between the methods of the social and natural sciences and causing a series of other debates within the scope of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. After presenting general aspects of the epistemological division between methodological monists and dualists, we move more directly into the aim of the thesis, which is to discuss how contemporary sociological authors have tried to deal with the problem of naturalism through an ontological discussion about the nature of the constituent elements of social reality and the nature of sociological explanation. Firstly, we seek to investigate whether and how Anthony Gidden's theory of structuration and his particular understanding of the nature of the relationship between agency and structure helps to clarify the limits of the "problem of naturalism". Giddens' social theory is taken here as an exemplary representative of the advances made by the authors of the European orthodox post-consensus. Despite the advances of structuration theory on this issue, we next explore how the recent formulations of British Critical Realism provide a coherent conceptual framework which, in addition to filling gaps left by previous theories, moves towards clarifying the question of the nature of sociological explanation and the sterility of old oppositions regarding "naturalism". The alternative of Critical Realism is the defense of a particular conception of cause, combined with an epistemological pluralism that is, at the same time, realistic about the objects investigated.