POLI 105 Lecture Notes - On Liberty, Politics Among Nations, Unit
Document Summary
Generalizable explanations: all theories must be explicitly generalizable to all theories being discussed. Theories will not apply to one hundred percent of cases; however they should be able to apply to most cases. The theory must have logic, however logic alone is not enough, a logical theory must have empirical evidence to support it. Theories must apply to a majority of cases. A theory functions to explain past events and further serves to solve/predict future problems to improve the world. It does this by providing a causal(x y) explanation using empirical evidence. X------------------------->y (------) is the causal chain, the chain of logic from the cause to the outcome. Theories should not be degenerated, do not add variables to a theory. With multiple causal variables it is impossible to know which variable has the greatest effect. Parsimony the least amount of variation in the outcome, the lowest number of independent variables applying to the largest number of outcomes.
