Abstract

This work is a defense of positivism in social theory: Addis is committed to the view that the substantive concerns of physical and social science are essentially the same. Indeed, he states that an adequate philosophy of society presupposes an adequate philosophy of science. He therefore begins with an analysis of various themes from the latter: causation, the notions of process and closed systems, and determinism. It is in fact a basic presumption of the book that some refined theory of determinism is true. The author argues that all "social objects," such as those posited by Durkheim, are no more than properties of, or relations between, individual social beings. In the course of this argument, he develops a detailed treatment of reduction of the social into the physical sciences. It is his belief that logical analysis of the notion of reduction is essential to an understanding of social theory. Reduction is examined in two phases. First, he elaborates on his contention that social objects reduce to individual human beings. Second, he examines the reduction of socio-historical explanations to psycho-physical laws. He then proceeds to apply the preceding discussions to problems of philosophy of history, the relation of ideas to historical process, freedom and purpose in history, and a critique of "Marxism."