ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the question of how concept formation should be constructed as an efficient social science research tool. Conceptual abstraction by means of structural analysis is the core function of social science conceptualization and from this follows realist causal analysis. Abstraction is necessary, because the domain of the actual – the events in the world – makes up such a tremendously diversified and heterogeneous dimension of reality. Social science abstractions, such as “class,” “gender,” “role,” or “norm,” are not more vague or more unreal than natural science abstractions, such as “air pressure,” “density,” “energy,” or “gravitation.” Critical realist understanding of natural necessity, that is, the internal and necessary relation between structures, powers, mechanisms, and tendencies is applicable both within the natural and the social sciences. The history of social science can be read as successive discoveries and debates about new strata in the social world.
