E-Books →Facts and Explanations in International Studies...and beyond (EPUB)

Bringing clarity and order to the discussion by disclosing both key commonalities and significant differences between the ways we talk about facts and explanations, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson argues that although intrinsically more contestable than facts, social-scientific explanations can nonetheless be related to them in ways that allow researchers to evaluate explanations based on whether and to what extent they accord with the relevant facts in each situation. Ardently defending a pragmatist account of knowledge that has no patience with either "alternative facts" or "anything goes" relativism, the author develops a set of concepts that enables tricky philosophical problems to be dissolved. After examining facts, causal explanations, and interpretive explanations, the book culminates in an account of the priority of interpretation in the evaluation of any explanation―and any seemingly factual claim.
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