ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the prospects and limitations of nomological explanation in the social sciences. It sketches out the reasons for thinking that people have been prevented from discovering social scientific laws up until now, but it also provides reason for being optimistic about their future prospects for the explanation of human behavior. The notion that a social scientific law would have to be exceptionless and reflect a necessary connection, for instance, reveals adherence to an idealized standard of nomologicality that is out of touch with the actual practice of scientific explanation. Since the investigation of social phenomena is even closer to home, the search for laws will be even more volatile and controversial, and one can expect the resistance to employment of nomological modes of explanation to be proportionately greater. The formulation of social scientific laws requires the right theory, natural kinds, and vocabulary coupled with the proper view of what a law would entail.
