Interactions: Some Contacts Between the Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences

Contents

Part 1 An analysis of interactions between natural sciences and the social sciences: definitions and problems; types of interaction; analogy and homology; metaphor; roles of analogy; rational mechanics and marginalist economics; biological theory and social theory; incorrect science, imperfect replication, and the transformation of scientific ideas; inappropriate or useless analogies. Part 2 The scientific revolution and the social sciences: the "new science" and the sciences of society; the 17th-century goal of a social science in mathematical form (Grotius, Spinoza, Vauban); political arithmetic and political anatomy (Graunt and Petty); an independent "civil" science based on the new physiology (Harrington). Part 3 A conversation with Harvey Brooks on the social sciences, the natural sciences and public policy: a note on "social science" and on "natural science".

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