POL SCI 3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Positive Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Party System
29 Aug 2016
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Social research: allows us to simplify our perception of reality by development theories. Theory: takes a set of similar things and finds a common pattern (pattern with some variations: ex. Even though incorporating explanations for exceptions in the original theory can produce a larger theory, the end product would be too complex (duverger as an example chose to dismiss exceptions as accidents) Social theory: sum total of all theories developed by social scientists to explain human behavior: political theory is a subset: consists of theories developed to explain political behavior. Consists of arguments about what should be in politics. Goal of problem solving, typically takes certain political facts and combines them with moral arguments to prescribe political action (2) engineering research (e, a) Problem solving, concerned with ascertaining the facts (3) formal theory (ne, a) ), goal is to develop reasonably broad and general theories based on a small number of agreed upon assumptions.
