ON THE STRUCTURALIST CONSTRAINTS IN SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC THEORIZING

Several case studies and theoretical reports indicate that the structu ralist concept of a constraint has a central role in the reconstructio n of physical theories. It is surprising that there is only little the oretical discussion on the relevance of constraints for the reconstruc tion of social scientific theories in the literature. Almost all struc turalist reconstructions of social theorizing are vacuously constraine d. Consequently, constraints are methodologically irrelevant. In this paper I reconstruct three cases selected from social scientific theori zing. The first case is a generalization of Gross, Mason and McEachern 's (1958) role expectation conflict theory, which is a qualitative the ory. The second case is Cohen and Lee's (1975) quantitative theory of social conformity, which essentially utilizes the theory of Markov cha ins. The third case is the explanation schema of folk psychology which is one of the most important methodological frameworks in the social sciences. In all the three cases important constraints emerge. From an epistemological point of view it seems that the related constraints w ork as higher-order laws. In any case, purely conceptual arguments are insufficient to justify them. The three cases, mutatis mutandis, cove r nearly all types of social scientific theorizing, so that in my view constraints play a crucial methodological role in the social sciences precisely as they have in the natural sciences.