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Causality, within sociology, has been the subject of epistemological debates, particularly concerning the external validity of research findings; one factor driving the tenuous nature of causation within social research is the wide variety of potential "causes" that can be attributed to a particular phenomena.
The nature of cause and effect is a concern of the subject known as metaphysics. Kant thought that time and space were notions prior to human understanding of the progress or evolution of the world, and he also recognized the priority of causality.
The term social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations of social phenomena originate from the philosophy of science. The core thinking behind the mechanism approach has been expressed as follows by Elster (1989: 3-4): “To explain an event is to give an account of why it happened. Usually… this takes the form of citing an earlier event ...
Causation (sociology), the belief that events or actions can directly produce change in another variable in a predictable and observable manner Other uses [ edit ]
In the philosophy of causality, an epiphenomenon is any effect of a cause apart from the effect under primary consideration. In situations in which an event of interest E is caused by (or, is said to be caused by) an event C, which also causes (or, is said to cause) an event F, then F is an epiphenomenon. The problem of epiphenomena is often a ...
A proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the "real" reason something occurred. The concept is used in many fields of research and analysis, including data science and ...
Causal inference is the process of determining the independent, actual effect of a particular phenomenon that is a component of a larger system. The main difference between causal inference and inference of association is that causal inference analyzes the response of an effect variable when a cause of the effect variable is changed.
The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." [149] Important theorists in the sociology of science include Robert K. Merton and Bruno Latour.