Methodological Individualism

Methodological Individualism PDF Author: Lars Udehn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134601905
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Methodological Individualism

Methodological Individualism PDF Author: Lars Udehn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134601905
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Popper and the Human Sciences

Popper and the Human Sciences PDF Author: G. Currie
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400950934
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate

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

Get Book Here

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.

Individualism in Modern Thought

Individualism in Modern Thought PDF Author: Lorenzo Infantino
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415185240
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Get Book Here

Book Description
"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.

The Ant Trap

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

Get Book Here

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.

Shifting Paradigms in Public Health

Shifting Paradigms in Public Health PDF Author: Vijay Kumar Yadavendu
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 813221644X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Understanding Money Mechanics

Understanding Money Mechanics PDF Author: Robert Murphy
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN: 1610167449
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
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).

Society and Economy

Society and Economy PDF Author: Mark Granovetter
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975219
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
A work of exceptional ambition by the founder of modern economic sociology, this first full account of Mark Granovetter’s ideas stresses that the economy is not a sphere separate from other human activities but is deeply embedded in social relations and subject to the same emotions, ideas, and constraints as religion, science, politics, or law.

Weber and Durkheim

Weber and Durkheim PDF Author: Henrik Jensen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136296735
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
Weber and Durkheim: A methodological comparison is a systematic, comparative analysis of the methodologies of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. Jensen shows how Weber and Durkheim analyse Protestants and Catholics in practice in The Protestant Ethic and Suicide, respectively. The very different ways that Weber and Durkheim carry out their analyses are then used to describe, analyse and contrast their methodological principles and points of view, raising fundamental questions in sociological and social science analysis, such as: What constitutes the object of sociology? How are concepts developed? What status can be attributed to laws? Which possibilities – and limitations – do we have for producing scientific insight into society? What are we to think of the relationship between ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’ – and how can social science deal with values? How are social phenomena to be explained? This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of sociology, social methodology, political theory, political science, social theory and philosophy.

The System of Liberty

The System of Liberty PDF Author: George H. Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110735479X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
Liberal individualism, or 'classical liberalism' as it is often called, refers to a political philosophy in which liberty plays the central role. This book demonstrates a conceptual unity within the manifestations of classical liberalism by tracing the history of several interrelated and reinforcing themes. Concepts such as order, justice, rights and freedom have imparted unity to this diverse political ideology by integrating context and meaning. However, they have also sparked conflict, as classical liberals split on a number of issues, such as legitimate exceptions to the 'presumption of liberty', the meaning of 'the public good', natural rights versus utilitarianism, the role of the state in education, and the rights of resistance and revolution. This book explores these conflicts and their implications for contemporary liberal and libertarian thought.