Critique Guidelines
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What assumption(s) does the
author make?
Prevailing assumptions tend
to fall into 2 major categories.
The Adam Smith variety assumes that
behavior and culture is a function of individual choice. Most Adam Smith
analysts assume that individuals make choices "rationally." But all Adam
Smith analysts rely on explanation by reference to (unexplained or only
partially explained) stated motivations, dispositions (including "loss
of control"), and intentions.
The pseudo-Adam Smith variety assumes
that behavior and culture is not a function of individual choice but of
"choices" rationalized by names (i.e. they erroneously reify an idea and
produce covert tautologies). There exist six major sub-varieties of pseudo-Adam
Smith assumptions, and any given account may mix the 6 in any combination.
These sub-varieties, include
explanations by reference to:
(1) "culture,"
(2) "social roles"
(3) functionalist explanations,
which assume that "societies" are closed wholes that cannot function without
all existing parts,
(4) marxian "class struggle"
imperatives,
(5) ideological imperatives
("learning," "acculturation," or "modernization"), and
(6) "genes" (racist explanations
exist as a sub-variety).
There also exist more complex
sets of assumptions.
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Evolutionary ecology relies primarily
on an Adam Smith interpretation of Darwin which assumes that organisms
compete with one another for reproductive success and that behavior and
culture reflects that competitive history.
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I rely on a mix of Marxian and Darwinian
assumptions which I'll explain in class.
Note that all preceding sets
of assumptions rest on the more fundamental assumptions that a material
world exists independently of our imaginations and that what people do
and think reflects the experience of that material world in some
way. Note, too, that it has become fashionable among some analysts
to assume the contrary: material experience exists nowhere outside
individual imaginations. Finally, look for the assumptions used to
construct the phenomena studied.
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What kind of explanation does
the author create?
Does the explanation address "What?"
questions or "Why?" questions?
Mental models
Reasons
Intentions
Dispositions
Functional
Genetic/historical
Empirical generalization
Are these ad hoc/post hoc, or do
they follow from theory?
Formal theories
What are the fundamental premises
and definitions?
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What evidence supports the
explanation? "Evidence" consists of explicit (formal) or inexplicit (informal)
analyses of the correspondence between observations (measurements) and
constructs (culture).
Does he or she rely on ungeneralizable
case-studies?
Does he or she construct a typology?
If so, what evidence exists that the typology exists anywhere outside the
author's imagination. Does the author specify and adduce evidence for a
mechanism of change through which people "move" from one type to another?
Does he or she make empirical generalizations
(i.e., a claim that some (set of) Y is a function of some (set of) Xs)?
If so, what evidence exists that this relationship exists anywhere outside
the author's imagination or, if that evidence exists, that the relationship
holds when other Xs are controlled and/or that alternative explanations
(internal validity issues) can be ruled out? What (combination of) macro-
and micro-level variables were not looked at? How, if at all, does the
author integrate historical data with theoretical explanation?