Disorder of Political Inquiry

Inbunden, Engelska, 2005

929 kr

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In the past several years two academic controversies have migrated from the classrooms and courtyards of college and university campuses to the front pages of national and international newspapers: Alan Sokal’s hoax, published in the journal Social Text, and the self-named movement, “Perestroika,” that recently emerged within the discipline of political science. Representing radically different analytical perspectives, these two incidents provoked wide controversy precisely because they brought into sharp relief a public crisis in the social sciences today, one that raises troubling questions about the relationship between science and political knowledge, and about the nature of objectivity, truth, and meaningful inquiry in the social sciences. In this provocative and timely book, Keith Topper investigates the key questions raised by these and other interventions in the “social science wars” and offers unique solutions to them.Engaging the work of thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar, and Hannah Arendt, as well as recent literature in political science and the history and philosophy of science, Topper proposes a pluralist, normative, and broadly pragmatist conception of political inquiry, one that is analytically rigorous yet alive to the notorious vagaries, idiosyncrasies, and messy uncertainties of political life.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2005-06-30
Mått156 x 235 x 25 mm
Vikt635 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor336
FörlagHarvard University Press
ISBN9780674016781
UtmärkelserNominated for Giovanni Sartori Book Award 2006

Tillhör följande kategorier

Statsvetenskap och politisk teori inom Samhälle och politik

Acknowledgments Introduction: The Social Science Wars Social Science Wars I Social Science Wars II Debating the Foundations of Political Science Sciences of Uncertainty I: Science Turned Upside Down Philosophy, Foundationalism, and Linguistic Pragmatism Rorty's View of Natural Science Conclusion II: In Defense of Disunity Pragmatic Naturalism and the Social Sciences Hermeneutics Revisited Conclusion III: The Politics of Redescription Redescription Applied Contingency, Self-Creation, and Change Redescription and Politics Conclusion IV: Reclaiming the Language of Emancipation Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism Critical Realism as a Philosophy for the Sciences Critical Naturalism, and the Stakes of Social Inquiry Ontology, Causation, and Social Criticism, and Social Criticism Conclusion V: Sciences that Disturb Pierre Bourdieu's 'Fieldwork in Philosophy' From the Practice of Theory to the Theory of Practice Ordinary Violences Conclusion Conclusion: Pluralism, Power, Perestroika, and Political Inquiry Perestroika and Methodological Pluralism Hegemonic Political Science and Methodological Monism The Contest of Methodological Disunity Revitalizing Political Inquiry Notes Index

This thoughtful and well-informed book casts a great deal of light on the ‘social science wars’: an often fierce struggle over methods and techniques which also reflects profound differences in philosophy among social scientists. Topper shows how close argument and imaginative sympathy can carry the debate forward. This is a lucid and engaging book, full of important insights about the ways in which we try to study society.