Download or read book Methodological Individualism written by Lars Udehn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of social thought, there has been a constant battle over the true nature of society, and the best way to understand and explain it. This volume covers the development of methodological individualism, including the individualist theory of society from Greek antiquity to modern social science. It is a comprehensive and systematic treatment of methodological individualism in all its manifestations.
Download or read book The Ant Trap written by Brian Epstein and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Rethinking the Individualism Holism Debate written by Julie Zahle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Popper and the Human Sciences written by G. Currie and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Sir Karl Popper's contributions to a number of diverse areas of philosophy are widely appreciated, serious criticism of his work has tended to focus on his philosophy of the natural sciences. This volume contains twelve critical essays on Popper's contribution to what we have called the 'human sciences' , a category broad enough to include not only Popper's views on the methods of the social sciences but also his views on the relation of mind and body, Freud's psychology, and the status of cultural objects. Most of our contributors are philosophers whose own work stands outside the Popperian framework. We hope that this has resulted in a volume whose essays confront not merely the details of Popper's argu ments but also the very presuppositions of his thinking. With one exception, the essays appear here for the first time. The exception is L.J. Cohen's paper, which is a revised and considerably expanded ver sion of a paper first published in the British Journalfor the Philosophy of Science for June 1980. We would like to thank Loraine Hawkins and Jane Hogg for their editorial assistance and June O'Donnell for typing various manuscripts and all the correspondence which a volume of essays entails.
Download or read book Individualism in Modern Thought written by Lorenzo Infantino and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This work touches upon issues in social and political theory, intellectual history, political philosophy, political economy and sociological theory. The relationship between the individual and the constitution of society is of key interest to Infantino, who draws upon the ideas of Hayek to develop his own unique approach to the issues examined."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Cognitive Autonomy and Methodological Individualism written by Francesco Di Iorio and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-28 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Di Iorio offers a new approach to Hayek’s Sensory Order, linking neuroscience to the old Verstehen tradition and to contemporary theories of self-organizing systems; this should be on the reading list of everyone who is interested in Hayek’s thought.” Barry Smith University at Buffalo, editor of The Monist “This impressive and well-researched book breaks new ground in our understanding of F.A. Hayek and of methodological individualism more generally. It shows that methodological individualism sanctions neither an atomistic view of society nor a mechanical determinism. The book carefully analyzes an important tradition in the social sciences, and compares it to many important philosophical, sociological and economic systems of thought. This is an enlightening book for all scholars interested in the methodological problems of the social sciences.” Mario J. Rizzo New York University “One of Hayek’s most important contributions is his linking of complex methodological individualism, which deals with the emergence of spontaneous orders and unintended collective structures in complex self-organizing social systems, with a cognitive psychology. What makes Francesco Di Iorio’s book of great interest is that, by building on Hayek’s seminal book The Sensory Order, it deepens the connections between cognition and rules of just conduct, taking into account relevant theories on subjectivity and consciousness such as phenomenology, hermeneutics and enactivism.” Jean Petitot École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, EHESS, Paris “In this thoughtful and enlightening book Francesco Di Iorio uses Hayek’s cognitive psychology as the starting point for investigation of the relationship between the autonomy of the agent and socio-cultural influences within methodological individualism. The book provides an illuminating and innovative analysis of a central issue in the philosophy of social science by setting Hayek’s view on mind and action in fruitful relation to approaches such as Gadamer’s hermeneutics, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, Varela’s and Maturana’s enaction, Boudon’s interpretative sociology, Popper’s fallibilism and Mises’ praxeology. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is its argument that hermeneutics and fallibilism refer not to two different methods but to the same one.” Dario Antiseri Emeritus Professor at LUISS University, Rome “Francesco Di Iorio’s book explores, in an original way, the connections between Hayek’s methodological individualism and his fascinating idea that human mind is both an interpretative device and a self-organizing system. It is a brilliant, clearly written work, characterized by a certain intellectual courage, which makes a remarkable contribution to the sociology of knowledge.” Gérald Bronner Paris Diderot University
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Methodological Individualism written by Nathalie Bulle and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-27 with total page 751 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century.
Download or read book Shifting Paradigms in Public Health written by Vijay Kumar Yadavendu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-09 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This transdisciplinary volume outlines the development of public health paradigms across the ages in a global context and argues that public health has seemingly lost its raison d’être, that is, a population perspective. The older, philosophical approach in public health involved a holistic, population-based understanding that emphasized historicity and interrelatedness to study health and disease in their larger socio-economic and political moorings. A newer tradition, which developed in the late 19th century following the acceptance of the germ theory in medicine, created positivist transitions in epidemiology. In the form of risk factors, a reductionist model of health and disease became pervasive in clinical and molecular epidemiology. The author shows how positivism and the concept of individualism removed from public health thinking the consideration of historical, social and economic influences that shape disease occurrence and the interventions chosen for a population. He states that the neglect of the multifactorial approach in contemporary public health thought has led to growing health inequalities in both the developed and the developing world. He further suggests that the concept of ‘social capital’ in public health, which is being hailed as a resurgence of holism, is in reality a sophisticated and extended version of individualism. The author presents the negative public policy consequences and implications of adopting methodological individualism through a discussion on AIDS policies. The book strongly argues for a holistic understanding and the incorporation of a rights perspective in public health to bring elements of social justice and fairness in policy formulations.
Download or read book Understanding Money Mechanics written by Robert Murphy and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Money Mechanics provides the intelligent layperson with a concise yet comprehensive overview of the theory, history, and practice of money and banking, with a focus on the United States. Although the author considers himself an Austrian school economist, most of the material in this book is a neutral presentation of historical facts and an objective description of the mechanics of money creation in today's world. This book is intended to be a reference for all readers, whether "Austrian" or not, and to bridge the gap by providing a crash course in the necessary theory and history while keeping the discussion tethered to current events. Understanding Money Mechanics covers numerous topics, including the classical gold standard, the Fed's open market operations, changes in central bank policy since the coronavirus, the economics of Bitcoin, and a critique of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Download or read book Individualism and Collectivism written by Ŭi-ch'ŏl Kim and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1994-07-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individualism and collectivism has become one of the major issues in comparisons between societies in cross-cultural psychology. Scholars seek to explain why some societies focus on the collective nature of social obligation while traditional Western psychology focuses on the primacy of the individual. In this volume, contributors address the individualism//collectivism issue from a variety of perspectives, examining its theoretical underpinnings and current trends, the latest research on this topic, and the social and practice implications of our understanding of this dimension of human activity. A Foreword by Geert Hofstede, who conducted the original research on this topic, provides a context for the other contributions.
Download or read book Individualism in Social Science written by Rajeev Bhargava and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Methodological individualism, for which all social phenomena must be explained in terms of what individuals think, choose, and do, is widely considered to be true. By challenging key individualist assumptions, Bhargava questions this view and rehabilitates a non-individualist methodology which permits an independent study of social practices and a context-specific inquiry into the beliefs and actions of individuals." "This book will be indispensable to students and scholars of political science, philosophy, sociology, history, and anthropology."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Imperialism and Social Classes written by Joseph A. Schumpeter and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 1972 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph Schumpeter was not a member of the Austrian School, but he was an enormously creative classical liberal, and this 1919 book shows him at his best. He presents a theory of how states become empires and applies his insight to explaining many historical episodes. His account of the foreign policy of Imperial Rome reads like a critique of the US today. The second essay examines class mobility and political dynamics within a capitalistic society. Overall, a very important contribution to the literature of political economy.
Download or read book Reconstructing Marxism written by Erik Olin Wright and published by Verso. This book was released on 1992 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reconstructing Marxism explores fundamental questions about the structure of Marxist theory and its prospects for the future. The authors maintain that the disintegration of the old theoretical unity of classical Marxism is in part responsible for what is commonly called the "crisis of Marxism." Only a reconstructed Marxism can come to terms with this disintegration. Addressing a range of problems in historical materialism and class analysis, the authors compare historical materialism with Darwinian evolutionary theory, and identify what is distinctively "historical" in Marx's theory of history. Through an evaluation of G.A. Cohen's defense and Anthony Giddens's critique of historical materialism they suggest what a plausible, yet still Marxist. theory of history might be. They analyze the relationship of microanalysis to macro theory and the assignment of causal primacy in explanations, and present a general assessment of the current state of Marxist theory and the prospects for its analytical reconstruction. Distinguished by the clarity of its presentation, the analytical rigour of its argument and its concern with fundamental philosophical and sociological issues, Reconstructing Marxism advances, at this critical juncture in the history of Marxism, a challenging new research programme.
Download or read book The Problem of Disenchantment written by Egil Asprem and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber famously characterized the ongoing process of intellectualization and rationalization that separates the natural world from the divine (by excluding magic and value from the realm of science, and reason and fact from the realm of religion) as the "disenchantment of the world." Egil Asprem argues for a conceptual shift in how we view this key narrative of modernity. Instead of a sociohistorical process of disenchantment that produces increasingly rational minds, Asprem maintains that the continued presence of "magic" and "enchantment" in people's everyday experience of the world created an intellectual problem for those few who were socialized to believe that nature should contain no such incalculable mysteries. Drawing on a wide range of early twentieth-century primary sources from theoretical physics, occultism, embryology, radioactivity, psychical research, and other fields, Asprem casts the intellectual life of high modernity as a synchronic struggle across conspicuously different fields that shared surprisingly similar intellectual problems about value, meaning, and the limits of knowledge.
Download or read book The Max Weber Dictionary written by Richard Swedberg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber is one of the worlds most important social scientists, and one of the most notoriously difficult to understand. This dictionary will aid the reader in understanding Webers work. Every entry contains a basic definition, examples of and references to the word in Webers writing, and references to important secondary literature. More than an elementary dictionary, however, this work makes a contribution to the general culture and legacy of Webers work. The dictionary also contains extended entries for broader concepts and topics throughout Webers work, including law, politics, and religion. Every entry in the dictionary delves into Weber scholarship and acts as a point of departure in discussion and research. As such, this book will be an invaluable resource to general readers, students, and scholars alike.
Download or read book Public Debt written by Giuseppe Eusepi and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decades, economists have witnessed with growing uneasiness their failure to explain the ballooning of public debt in most countries. This book provides an alternative orientation that explains why concepts of public debt that are relevant for authoritarian regimes are not relevant for democratic regimes. Using methodological individualism and micro-economics, this book overcomes flaws inherent in the standard macro approach, according to which governments manipulate public debt to promote systemic stability. This unique analysis is grounded in the writings of Antonio de Viti de Marco, injecting current analytical contributions and formulations into the framework to offer a forthright insight into public debt and political economy.
Download or read book Plural Action written by Hans Bernhard Schmid and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-05-30 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collective Intentionality is a relatively new label for a basic social fact: the sharing of attitudes such as intentions, beliefs and emotions. This volume contributes to current research on collective intentionality by pursuing three aims. First, some of the main conceptual problems in the received literature are introduced, and a number of new insights into basic questions in the philosophy of collective intentionality are developed (part 1). Second, examples are given for the use of the analysis of collective intentionality in the theory and philosophy of the social sciences (part 2). Third, it is shown that this line of research opens up new perspectives on classical topics in the history of social philosophy and social science, and that, conversely, an inquiry into the history of ideas can lead to further refinement of our conceptual tools in the analysis of collective intentionality (part 3).
