Sociology - A computational approach to sociological explanations

The capacity to explain important elements of social life is central both t o the development of sociological theory and to teaching sociology. This re search seeks to expand our understanding of sociological explanation throug h a computational approach. Explanations commonly encountered in introducto ry sociology texts are used to develop a typology of explanatory forms. A c omputational strategy that represents sociological knowledge using a combin ation of frames, semantic networks, and procedural rules is described. It i s then demonstrated that this approach can generate the full range of these explanations for all logical combinations of conditions and for the full s cope of sociological knowledge. This approach is also shown to be capable o f identifying appropriate explanations, assessing the quality of explanatio ns, and generating new insights.