Causality in Crisis: A Conference on the New Debate About Causal Structures in the Social Sciences to be held at Notre Dame University October 15-16, 1993

社会科学作为科学的地位一直岌岌可危。然而，统计方法在现代社会科学中发挥的中心作用似乎至少为其中一些人提供了科学地位的徽章，因为在社会调查中使用统计方法的一个反复出现的主题是，统计方法应该能够揭示社会世界所依据的独特规律和因果关系。然而，今天，社会科学面临的主要方法论问题是，最广泛使用的统计方法--通常被称为“因果建模”技术--出现了危机。这次会议于1993年10月在圣母大学举行，第一次将当前辩论中的主要主角聚集在一起，讨论统计方法是否可以产生因果知识。来自哲学和社会科学的老练的批评者也参加了会议，他们正在最广泛的哲学层面上探索对这场危机的其他解释。当前形势的意义是相当大的，因为社会科学知识的“自然科学”模式已经对许多思想领域产生了重大影响。它从内部的明显解体是一个需要哲学解释的事件。这次会议承诺帮助将这些争议从狭隘的技术文献中带到更大的知识界的意识中。

The status of the social sciences as sciences has always been precarious. However, the central role played by statistical methods in the modern social sciences has seemed to provide at least several of them with a badge of scientific status, inasmuch as a recurrent theme in the use of statistics in social inquiry has been the idea that statistical methods should be capable of revealing distinctive laws and causal relations upon which the social world is ordered. Yet today, the major methodological issue confronting the social sciences is the emergence of a crisis over the most widely used statistical methods, generally known as "causal modeling" techniques. This conference, being held at Notre Dame University in October, 1993, is bringing together for the first time the major protagonists in the current debate about whether statistical methods can generate causal knowledge. Also participating are sophisticated critics from philosophy and social sciences who are exploring alternative interpretations of the crisis at the broadest philosophical level. The significance of the present situation is considerable, for the "natural science" model of social scientific knowledge has had a substantial impact on many areas of thought. Its apparent dissolution from within is an event requiring philosophical interpretation. This conference promises to assist in bringing these controversies out of the narrowly technical literature and into the consciousness of the larger intellectual community.