From positivism to generative mechanisms: Raymond Boudon’s path-breaking research programme

Abstract

This paper briefly compares two research traditions: empiricism and generative mechanisms. Moreover, it briefly recalls the arguments of empiricist epistemology and its philosophical justification, whose paradigmatic expression is positivism. The paper then examines the criticisms that have been addressed against this trend and sets out the principles of the generative mechanisms strategy in sociology by focusing on several studies by Boudon which are the most representative of this methodological orientation.