POLS 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning, Political Geography
4 Dec 2015
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Pols 110a tuesday september 16th 2014 lecture 3. Lecture outline: recap, why the shift from normative to positivist approaches, challenges to positivism, alternative methodologies, examples, contemporary political studies, recap. Types of empirical theory: deductive vs. inductive. In inductive reasoning, the theory follows the empirical observation: problem: the data can be overwhelming hard to draw conclusions from it. (so much data that it can hard to develop logical correlations form it) Can"t logically inference from it: correlation is not causation just because two things correlate, does not mean it explains why they correlate. Establishes facts about humans in relation to society that could inform theory. Most frequently used in economics that individuals will make the best choices as consumers best good at lowest cost, for example. All people will try to maximize their benefit and minimize their cost. Typically uses individuals as unit of analysis, assumption of rationality and self-
