Exorcising the Ghost in the Machine

The history of philosophy provides part of the history, or pre-history, of the social sciences. As they were struggling into being, or even before they existed, philosophy was hammering out some of the conceptual tools, lines of approach and basic hypotheses. One of the constantly recurring themes in the history of philosophy which has a direct bearing on the social sciences is the relationship between mind and matter.

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The Right of Philosophy and the Facts of History: Foucault, Derrida, Descartes

Interventions in Contemporary Thought ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405355.003.0002 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Gabriel Rockhill

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Per Se ◽

The Right ◽

The Relationship

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.

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Does Popper Explain Historical Explanation?

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement ◽

10.1017/s135824610000552x ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 225-240

Author(s):

Kenneth Minogue

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Free Will ◽

Philosophy Of Science ◽

Religious Belief ◽

Scientific Method ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Historical Explanation ◽

The Social ◽

History Of

It is one of Karl Popper's great distinctions that he has an intense—some would say too intense—awareness of the history of philosophy within which he works. He knows not only its patterns, but also its comedies, and sometimes he plays rhetorically against their grain. He knows, for example, that the drive to consistency tends to turn philosophy into compositions of related doctrines, each seeming to involve the others. Religious belief, for example, tends to go with idealism and free will, religious scepticism with materialism and determinism. Popper does not believe in a religion, was for long some kind of a socialist, and takes his bearings from the philosophy of science. Aha! it seems we have located him. Here is a positivist, a materialist, probably a determinist. But of course he denies he is any of these things. Again, like many modern thinkers, he wants to extend scientific method not only to the social sciences but also to history. So far so familiar, until we discover that he regards nature as no less ‘cloudy’ than human societies.

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Human, not too Human: Technology, Rites, and Identity

Open Information Science ◽

10.1515/opis-2018-0015 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 189-202

Author(s):

Stefania Operto

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Technological Progress ◽

New Technologies ◽

Cultural Models ◽

Conceptual Category ◽

Human Behaviors ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

First Time ◽

The Relationship

Abstract In the social sciences, the term “rite” identifies a set of practices and knowledge that contribute to forming the cultural models of a given society and has the aim of transmitting values and norms, institutionalization of roles, recognition of identity and social cohesion. This article examines the relationship between technology and ritual and the transformations in society resulting from the diffusion of new technologies. Technological progress is not a novelty in human development; though it is the first time in the history of humanity that technology has pervaded the lives of individuals and their relationships. The analyses conducted seem to show that the ritual is not intended to disappear but to change; to change forms and places. Postmodern societies have undergone profound modifications, but the conceptual category of ritual continues to be applicable to many human behaviors and it would be a mistake to support the idea that rituals are weakening.

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Ryle’s “Intellectualist Legend” in Historical Context

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy ◽

10.15173/jhap.v5i5.3204 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (5) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Kremer

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

21St Century ◽

Historical Context ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Third Way ◽

Philosophical Inquiry ◽

Knowing That ◽

Timothy Williamson ◽

The Social ◽

History Of

Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that emerged from his criticism of the “intellectualist legend” that to do something intelligently is “to do a bit of theory and then to do a bit of practice,” and became a philosophical commonplace in the second half of the last century. In this century Jason Stanley (initially with Timothy Williamson) has attacked Ryle’s distinction, arguing that “knowing-how is a species of knowing-that,” and accusing Ryle of setting up a straw man in his critique of “intellectualism.” Examining the use of the terms “intellectualism” and “anti-intellectualism” in the first half of the 20th century, in a wide-ranging debate in the social sciences as well as in philosophy, I show that Ryle was not criticizing a straw man, but a live historical position. In the context of this controversy, Ryle’s position represents a third way between “intellectualism” and “anti-intellectualism,” an option that has largely gone missing in the 21st century discussion. This argument illustrates how history can inform the history of philosophy, and how the history of philosophy can inform contemporary philosophical inquiry.

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Mead, Dewey, and Their Influence in the Social Sciences

The Oxford Handbook of Dewey ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190491192.013.28 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 628-650

Author(s):

Daniel R. Huebner

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Social History ◽

Social Reform ◽

George Herbert ◽

George Herbert Mead ◽

Social Scientists ◽

History Of Thought ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

The Relationship

This chapter traces novel aspects of the relationship between George Herbert Mead and John Dewey. It identifies major aspects of Dewey’s reception in and engagement with the social sciences. Dewey’s influence in the social sciences is closely connected with Mead, both in the sense that Dewey’s ideas relevant to the social sciences have been developed in substantial collaboration with Mead and in the sense that Dewey has been interpreted by later social scientists primarily through Mead’s work and the work of Mead’s students and colleagues. Dewey and Mead worked to develop functional and later social psychology, social reform efforts, educational theory, the social history of thought, and other aspects of pragmatist philosophy. Dewey also had moderate influence on the sociologists and anthropologists at Columbia, institutional economists at Chicago and elsewhere, and later European social theorists, and his publications and correspondence about Mead after the latter’s death influenced Mead’s own legacy.

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The Problem

10.1093/oso/9780198787099.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mats Alvesson ◽

Yiannis Gabriel ◽

Roland Paulsen

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Academic Research ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Research Papers ◽

Prestigious Journal ◽

The Past ◽

The Social ◽

Academic Researchers ◽

History Of ◽

Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

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Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.10 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 21-58

Author(s):

Svend Brinkmann ◽

Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽

Søren Kristiansen

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Qualitative Research ◽

Social History ◽

Historical Overview ◽

Conceptual History ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

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Women in science: from images to data

Pure and Applied Chemistry ◽

10.1515/pac-2021-0201 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Catherine Jami

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Women Scientists ◽

Working Environment ◽

Women In Science ◽

Standing Committee ◽

Family Responsibilities ◽

Working Lives ◽

The Social ◽

History Of

Abstract In recent decades research in the social sciences, including in the history of science, has shown that women scientists continue to be depicted as exceptions to the rule that a normal scientist is a man. The underlying message is that being an outstanding scientist is incompatible with being an ordinary woman. From women scientists’ reported experiences, we learn that family responsibilities as well as sexism in their working environment are two major hindrances to their careers. This experience is now backed by statistical analysis, so that what used to be regarded as an individual problem for each woman of science can now be identified as a multi-layered social phenomenon, to be analysed and remedied as such. Over the last five years, international scientific unions have come together to address these issues, first through the Gender Gap in Science Project, and recently through the setting up of a Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) whose task is to foster measures to reduce the barriers that women scientists have to surmount in their working lives.

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Plato on Natural Kinds: The Promethean Method of the Philebus

Apeiron ◽

10.1515/apeiron-2020-0060 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

John D. Proios

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Natural Kind ◽

Intelligent Design ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Natural Kinds ◽

Natural World ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

The World ◽

History Of

Abstract Plato’s invention of the metaphor of carving the world by the joints (Phaedrus 265d–66c) gives him a privileged place in the history of natural kind theory in philosophy and science; he is often understood to present a paradigmatic but antiquated view of natural kinds as possessing eternal, immutable, necessary essences. Yet, I highlight that, as a point of distinction from contemporary views about natural kinds, Plato subscribes to an intelligent-design, teleological framework, in which the natural world is the product of craft and, as a result, is structured such that it is good for it to be that way. In Plato’s Philebus, the character Socrates introduces a method of inquiry whose articulation of natural kinds enables it to confer expert knowledge, such as literacy. My paper contributes to an understanding of Plato’s view of natural kinds by interpreting this method in light of Plato’s teleological conception of nature. I argue that a human inquirer who uses the method identifies kinds with relational essences within a system causally related to the production of some unique craft-object, such as writing. As a result, I recast Plato’s place in the history of philosophy, including Plato’s view of the relation between the kinds according to the natural and social sciences. Whereas some are inclined to separate natural from social kinds, Plato holds the unique view that all naturalness is a social feature of kinds reflecting the role of intelligent agency.

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