Study Questions for Little, Chapter 1

1. What is the author's main point?
2. What is the purpose of philosophers of social science?
3. What is a scientific explanation?
4. What kind of questions do explanations answer? What are the characteristics of these questions?
5. What is (are the components of) the deductive-nomological model of explanation?
6. What is (are the components of) the inductive-statistical model of explanation?
7. What are the differences between these two models?
8. What are the differences between empirical and theoretical explanations?
9. How do these explanations relate to the models above?
10. How do these explanations relate to different ideas of progress?
11. What are the problems associated with these explanations?
12. Why does any of this matter to political scientists?

Things to look for/keep in mind for future readings:

• causality
• look for the "regularity to be explained"

Back to Syllabus