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.
This suggests that we can indeed see Weber's What and Why questions as two different forms, even two different stages. But, to see the greatest “meaningfulness” in the explanatory question is quite wrong.12 A person who knows what a ...
Sandler , Todd , and John T . Tschirhart . 1980 . " The Economic Theory of Clubs : An Evaluative Survey . " Journal of Economic Literature 18 : 1481 - 521 . Scheffler , Israel . 1967 . Science and Subjectivity .
In the end this rich collection teaches education scholars how to deliberately engage with critical social theory in research to produce work that is simultaneously theoretically inspired, politically engaged, and empirically evocative.
The explanation versus understanding debate was important to the philosophy of thesocial sciences from the time of Dilthey and Weber through the work of Popper and Hempel.
in relating facts to one another, highlighting similarities and differences, and exploring continuities and disjunctions (Bevir and Rhodes 2005: 184). Keeping this qualification in mind, then, Bevir and Rhodes decide between rival ...
6 Physics , Biology , and Common - Sense Psychology Jennifer Hornsby The attitude of philosophers to the physical sciences no doubt partly explains why the physical has featured so prominently in their discussions of mind .
Mind, Morality, and Explanation is an outstanding anthology precisely because it justifies the decision to bring its papers together not merely on the usual grounds of accessibility, loose thematic connection, or happenstance, but on ...
This chapter responds to Cullen's (1983) call for theoretical explanations that seek to understand the shared causes ... I further have proposed that the content of social learning and role-taking is central for understanding why it is ...
First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
... the capacity to reflect on the content of one's previous observations, provides the skills for attaining that awareness ... gestural communication already in the 56 QUESTIONS ON SOCIAL EXPLANATION 2.2.2 Self-awareness and role-taking.