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Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate

Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate PDF Author: Julie Zahle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319053442
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
This collection of papers investigates the most recent debates about individualism and holism in the philosophy of social science. The debates revolve mainly around two issues: firstly, whether social phenomena exist sui generis and how they relate to individuals. This is the focus of discussions between ontological individualists and ontological holists. Secondly, to what extent social scientific explanations may and should, focus on individuals and social phenomena respectively. This issue is debated amongst methodological holists and methodological individualists. In social science and philosophy, both issues have been intensively discussed and new versions of the dispute have appeared just as new arguments have been advanced. At present, the individualism/holism debate is extremely lively and this book reflects the major positions and perspectives within the debate. This volume is also relevant to debates about two closely related issues in social science: the micro-macro debate and the agency-structure debate. This book presents contributions from key figures in both social science and philosophy, in the first such collection on this topic to be published since the 1970s.

Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate

Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate PDF Author: Julie Zahle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319053442
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
This collection of papers investigates the most recent debates about individualism and holism in the philosophy of social science. The debates revolve mainly around two issues: firstly, whether social phenomena exist sui generis and how they relate to individuals. This is the focus of discussions between ontological individualists and ontological holists. Secondly, to what extent social scientific explanations may and should, focus on individuals and social phenomena respectively. This issue is debated amongst methodological holists and methodological individualists. In social science and philosophy, both issues have been intensively discussed and new versions of the dispute have appeared just as new arguments have been advanced. At present, the individualism/holism debate is extremely lively and this book reflects the major positions and perspectives within the debate. This volume is also relevant to debates about two closely related issues in social science: the micro-macro debate and the agency-structure debate. This book presents contributions from key figures in both social science and philosophy, in the first such collection on this topic to be published since the 1970s.

The Content of Social Explanation

The Content of Social Explanation PDF Author: Susan James
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521266673
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
This is a study of the central questions of explanation in the social sciences, and a defence of 'holism' against 'individualism'. In the first half of the book Susan James sets out very clearly the philosophical background to this controversy. She locates its source not at the analytical level at which most of the debate is usually conducted but at a more fundamental, moral level, in different conceptions of the human individual. In the second half of the book she examines critically three case studies of holistic approaches - Althusser, Poulantzas and the Annales historians - and progressively refines our sense of the strengths and deficiencies of their programmes. She ends by arguing for a form of concessive holism, which offers some accommodation to liberal conceptions of individual autonomy but continues to emphasise the explanatory importance of social regularities and environments.

Singularities at the Threshold

Singularities at the Threshold PDF Author: Bruno Gullì
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793606773
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Book Description
In Singularities at the Threshold: The Ontology of Unrest, Bruno Gullì calls into question the concept of the independent and sovereign individual of the liberal (and neoliberal) tradition from the standpoint of the ontology of singularity, that is, the plural constitution of what appears to be an individual. Singularity is not the result of a process of individuation, but the process itself. He argues that the process of individuation—whereby at each stage everything appears to be individuated as such, to be an individual thing—is in reality always already plural, a process of transindividuation, or better, trans-dividuation. Gullì further examines why singularity is usually confused with individuality; what comes after the sovereign and independent individual, after the subject; and what the role of subversive and liberated singularities is in bringing about a new ethos and a better world.

Social Science at the Crossroads

Social Science at the Crossroads PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004385126
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
The 38th World Congress of IIS addressed some of the most fundamental issues of sociological inquiry in light of global processes and the development of different fields of knowledge: What does it mean to be human? What is the nature of social as opposed to natural processes? How do efforts to map the social and political world interact with that world and with traditional sociological practices? What can we say about relationships between scientific, political and religious beliefs? This volume sets the stage for a sustained look at what social science can say about the twenty-first century and to address the theme of the congress in 2008: Sociology Looks at the 21st Century. From Local Universalism to Global Contextualism. Contributors are: Gustaf Arrhenius, Rajeev Bhargava, Craig Calhoun, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Yehuda Elkana, Raghavendra Gadagkar, Peter Hedström, Hans Joas, Hannes Klöpper, Ivan Krastev, Steven Lukes, Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Helga Nowotny, Shalini Randeria, Alan Ryan, Jyotirmaya Sharma, Christina Torén, Michel Wieviorka, Björn Wittrock, Petri Ylikoski.

Social Causation and Biographical Research

Social Causation and Biographical Research PDF Author: Giorgos Tsiolis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000260674
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
This book extends debates in the field of biographical research, arguing that causal explanations are not at odds with biographical research and that biographical research is in fact a valuable tool for explaining why things in social and personal lives are one way and not another. Bringing reconstructive biographical research into dialogue with critical realism, it explains how and why relational social ontology can become a unique theoretical ground for tapping emergent mechanisms and latent meaning structures. Through an account of the reasons for which reductionist epistemologies, rational action models and covering law explanations are not appropriate for biographical research, the authors develop the philosophical idea of singular causation as a means by which biographical researchers are able to forge causal hypotheses for the occurrence of events and offer guidance on the application of this methodological principle to concrete, empirical examples. As such, this volume will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in biographical research and social research methods.

The Ant Trap

The Ant Trap PDF Author: Brian Epstein
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199381100
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
We live in a world of crowds and corporations, artworks and artifacts, legislatures and languages, money and markets. These are all social objects - they are made, at least in part, by people and by communities. But what exactly are these things? How are they made, and what is the role of people in making them? In The Ant Trap, Brian Epstein rewrites our understanding of the nature of the social world and the foundations of the social sciences. Epstein explains and challenges the three prevailing traditions about how the social world is made. One tradition takes the social world to be built out of people, much as traffic is built out of cars. A second tradition also takes people to be the building blocks of the social world, but focuses on thoughts and attitudes we have toward one another. And a third tradition takes the social world to be a collective projection onto the physical world. Epstein shows that these share critical flaws. Most fundamentally, all three traditions overestimate the role of people in building the social world: they are overly anthropocentric. Epstein starts from scratch, bringing the resources of contemporary metaphysics to bear. In the place of traditional theories, he introduces a model based on a new distinction between the grounds and the anchors of social facts. Epstein illustrates the model with a study of the nature of law, and shows how to interpret the prevailing traditions about the social world. Then he turns to social groups, and to what it means for a group to take an action or have an intention. Contrary to the overwhelming consensus, these often depend on more than the actions and intentions of group members.

Individualism

Individualism PDF Author: Steven Lukes
Publisher: ECPR Press
ISBN: 1910259802
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
Individualism embraces a wide diversity of meanings and is widely used by those who criticise and by those who praise Western societies and their culture, by historians and literary scholars in search of the emergence of 'the individual', by anthropologists claiming that there are different, culturally shaped conceptions of the individual or 'person', by philosophers debating what form social science explanations should take and by political theorists defending liberal principles. In this classic text, Steven Lukes discusses what 'individualism' has meant in various national traditions and across different provinces of thought, analysing it into its component unit-ideas and doctrines. He further argues that it now plays a malign ideological role, for it has come to evoke a socially-constructed body of ideas whose illusory unity is deployed to suggest that redistributive policies are neither feasible nor desirable and to deny that there are institutional alternatives to the market.

Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the Social

Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the Social PDF Author: Christopher Adair-Toteff
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004449604
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
Stephen Turner has produced a large and varied body of work on core issues in the philosophy of social science which is deeply engaged with its history. This book presents a critical review by distinguished scholars, together with his response.

Rethinking the Baroque

Rethinking the Baroque PDF Author: Helen Hills
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754666851
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Retrieving the term 'baroque' from the margins of art history, scholars from a range of disciplines demonstrate that it is a productive means to engage with art history and theory. Rather than attempting to provide a survey of baroque as a chronological or geographical conception, the essays here attempt critical re-engagement with the term 'baroque'-its promise, its limits, and its overlooked potential-in relation to the visual arts.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science PDF Author: Harold Kincaid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197519806
Category : Political science
Languages : en
Pages : 617

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science contains twenty-seven freshly written chapters to give the reader a panoramic introduction to philosophical issues in the practice of political science. Simultaneously, it advances the field of Philosophy of Political Science by creating a fruitful meeting place where both philosophers and practicing political scientists contribute and discuss. These philosophical discussions are close to and informed by actual developments in political science, making philosophy of science continuous with the sciences, another aspiration that motivates this volume. The chapters fall under four headings: (1) evaluating theoretical frameworks in political science; (2) methodological challenges and reconciliations; (3) the purposes and uses of political science; and, (4) the interactions between political science and society. Specific topics discussed include the biology of political attitudes, intra-agent mechanisms, rational choice explanations, theories of collective action, explaining institutional change, conceptualizing and measuring democracy, process tracing, qualitative comparative analysis, interpretivism and positivism, mixed methods, within-cause causal inference, evidential pluralism, lab and field experiments, external validity, contextualization, prediction, expertise, clientelism, feminism, values, and progress in political science.