arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

Proportionality and Nonreductive Explanations in the Social Sciences

W. Fang

Philosophy of the Social Sciences2026https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931261441190article
ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Building upon the notion of proportionality, this article proposes a line of argument in favor of nonreductive explanations in the social sciences. I argue that many higher-level explanations in the social sciences, i.e., explanations over and above the individual-level, are legitimate explanations insofar as their explanantia are proportional to their given explananda of interest. These higher-level explanations are often favored over their individual-level reductive counterparts because they are strictly more informative than their reductive counterparts.

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931261441190

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{w.2026,
  title        = {{Proportionality and Nonreductive Explanations in the Social Sciences}},
  author       = {W. Fang},
  journal      = {Philosophy of the Social Sciences},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931261441190},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Proportionality and Nonreductive Explanations in the Social Sciences

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.