Generative mechanisms and decreasing abstraction

In Invisible Codes, Essays on Generative Mechanisms Mohamed Cherkaoui addresses two major problems. One is the integration of empirical research and theoretical analysis in sociology, which, he says, has not yet been solved. The second problem is the analysis of generative mechanisms and the methodology that is suitable for studying them. Generative mechanisms are processes that transform individual actions into collective phenomena. An important subset of these are social amplifiers: mechanisms that transform individual human actions into non-linear intended and unintended collective effects. Explaining social amplifiers, or invisible-hand mechanisms, is the most important task of the social sciences. The capacity to explain the causal mechanisms that underlie them is what makes social science a scientific discipline in its own right. Cherkaoui’s second problem can be reformulated as the question how to integrate the causal influences of individual agency and social structure in a single explanatory framework. On the strength of a detailed analysis of the philosophies of social science of Karl Popper and Friedrich von Hayek it is argued that the method of decreasing abstraction is instrumental for solving Cherkaoui’s two problems.