Sociology and Hacking’s Trousers

Abstract

For Hacking, the word “real” is one of J.L. Austin's trouser-words, taking its meaning from its negative uses in much the same way as the admittedly sexist expression “wear the trousers”. In Representing and Intervening, Hacking proposes that at least some scientific realists can be interpreted as using the word “real” in this way. The word “real” is also substantive-hungry, he adds. Thus when a philosopher states that a type of entity is not real we need to know just what is being denied. The causal entity realist, for example, holds that the entities scientists postulate in their theories can be regarded as real if they have causal powers that can be manipulated to create observable and repeatable effects. Thus the causalist offers sociology a possible way to command respect: if social science entities could be manipulated, the social sciences would then be on a par with physics.