Richard Lauer (St. Lawrence University)
Much discussion about social ontology is concerned with broadly intuitive a priori considerations, as well as technical tools drawn from analytic metaphysics. However, Kincaid (2015) argues for social realism by motivating a realistic interpretation of social scientific theories, in particular those theories concerned with the existence of ruling classes. This paper uses Kincaid's discussion to evaluate the prospects of a scientific social ontology. Because scientific ontology presupposes scientific realism, I will object to Kincaid's argument by denying realism about social scientific theories. I analyze and evaluate Kincaid's argument, expressing pessimism about the prospects of a scientific social ontology
