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Rethinking Durkheim and his Tradition
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 209

Rethinking Durkheim and his Tradition

This book offers a reassessment of the work of Emile Durkheim in the context of a French philosophical tradition that had seriously misinterpreted Kant by interpreting his theory of the categories as psychological faculties. Durkheim's sociological theory of the categories, as revealed by Warren Schmaus, is an attempt to provide an alternative way of understanding Kant. For Durkheim the categories are necessary conditions for human society. The concepts of causality, space and time underpin the moral rules and obligations that make society possible. A particularly interesting feature of this book is its transcendence of the distinction between intellectual and social history by placing Durkheim's work in the context of the French educational establishment of the Third Republic. It does this by subjecting student notes and philosophy textbooks to the same sort of critical analysis typically applied only to the classics of philosophy.

Durkheim's Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 332

Durkheim's Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge

This text demonstrates the link between philosophy of science and scientific practice. Durkheim's sociology is examined as more than a collection of general observations about society, since the constructed theory of the meanings and causes of social life is incorporated.

Liberty and the Pursuit of Knowledge
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 207

Liberty and the Pursuit of Knowledge

French philosopher Charles Renouvier played an influential role in reviving philosophy in France after it was proscribed during the Second Empire. Drawn to the ideals of the French Revolution, Renouvier came to recognize that the free will and civil liberties he supported were essential to the pursuit of science, contrary to the ideologies of positivists and socialists who would restrict liberty in the name of science. He struggled against monarchy and religious authority in the period up through 1848 and defended a liberal, secular form of political organization at a critical turning point in French history, the beginning of the Third Republic. As Warren Schmaus argues, Renouvier’s work provides an example of one way in which philosophy of science can succeed in bringing about change in political life—by critiquing political ideologies that falsely claim absolute certainty on religious, scientific, or any other grounds. Liberty and the Pursuit of Knowledge explores the understudied relationship between Renouvier’s philosophy of science and his political philosophy, shedding new light on the significance of his thought for the history of philosophy.

Love, Order, and Progress
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 364

Love, Order, and Progress

Auguste Comte's doctrine of positivism was both a philosophy of science and a political philosophy designed to organize a new, secular, stable society based on positive or scientific, ideas, rather than the theological dogmas and metaphysical speculations associated with the ancien regime. This volume offers the most comprehensive English-language overview of Auguste Comte's philosophy, the relation of his work to the sciences of his day, and the extensive, continuing impact of his thinking on philosophy and especially secular political movements in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Contributors consider Comte’s reasons for establishing a Religion of Humanity as well as his views on domestic life and the arts in his positivist utopia. The volume further details Comte's attempt to apply his "positive method," first to social science and then to politics and morality, thereby defending the continuity of his career while also critically examining the limits of his approach.

Cultural Revolutions
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 248

Cultural Revolutions

In this probing examination of the meaning and function of culture in contemporary society, Lawrence Cahoone argues that reason itself is cultural, but no less reasonable for it. While recent political and philosophical movements have recognized that cognition, the self, and politics are embedded in culture, most fail to appreciate the deep changes in rationalism and liberal theory this implies, others leap directly into relativism, and nearly all fail to define culture. Cultural Revolutions systematically defines culture, gauges the consequences of the ineradicably cultural nature of cognition and action, yet argues that none of this implies relativism. After showing where other “new cult...

Durkheim's Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 324

Durkheim's Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge

In this demonstration of the link between philosophy of science and scientific practice, Warren Schmaus argues that Durkheim's philosophy is crucial to his sociology. Through a reinterpretation of the relation between Durkheim's major philosophical and sociological works, Schmaus argues that Durkheim's sociology is more than a collection of general observations about society—it reflects a richly constructed theory of the meanings and causes of social life. Schmaus shows how Durkheim sought to make sociology more rigorous by introducing scientific methods of analysis and explanation into the study of society. Durkheim tried to reveal how implicit, commonly held beliefs actually govern people's lives. Through an original interpretation of Durkheim's landmark writings, Schmaus argues that Durkheim, in his empirical studies, refined both the methods of sociology and a theory about society's shared knowledge and practices. This book opens a new window on the development of Durkheim's thought and demonstrates how a philosophy of science can inspire the rise of a new science.

The Scientific Attitude
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 291

The Scientific Attitude

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2019-05-07
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  • Publisher: MIT Press

An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists' willingness to change theories on the basis of new evidence. Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isn't settled science, that evolution is “only a theory,” and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians' rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls “the scientific attitude”—ca...

Durkheim Today
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 164

Durkheim Today

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The Eclectic Legacy
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 340

The Eclectic Legacy

This study offers a new interpretation of the emergence of scientific psychology and sociology in late-nineteenth-century France. Focusing on their relationship with the philosophy taught in the French education system, the author shows the profound impact on the individuals most responsible for the introduction of the human sciences into the French university - particularly Theodule Ribot, Alfred Espinas, Pierre Janet, and Emile Durkheim. Philosophers helped shape the human sciences by their criticisms of conceptual and methodological problems in the emerging disciplines. The human sciences that emerged were less reductionist and more methodologically sound than they would have been without the vigorous debate with philosophy. This influence is the eclectic legacy of academic philosophy to the human sciences in France.

The Soul of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 295

The Soul of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

This book presents a provocative new interpretation of what is arguably Nietzsche's most important and most difficult work, Beyond Good and Evil.