All three of the books under review— Science and Social Science by Malcolm Williams, Rethinking Science by Jan Faye, and Open the Social Sciences by the members of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences (Immanuel Wallerstein, chair)—argue for a broadly naturalist approach in which the social sciences are seen as of a piece with the natural sciences. Fortunately, all three do so in a discriminating way that avoids simple options and that appreciates the important ways the (...) social-scientific disciplines require their own approach. Open the Social Sciences in particular also contains detailed and wise advice as to how the contemporary social sciences should proceed if they want to fulfill their ambition to explain human social behavior in a scientific way. Key Words: science • social science • scientific method • unity of the sciences • reductionism • explanation • interpretation • complexity theory. (shrink)

Brian Fay - The Ethics of History - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 677-678 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Brian Fay Wesleyan University David Carr, Thomas R. Flynn, and Rudolf A. Makkreel, editors. The Ethics of History. Northwestern University Topics in Historical Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2004. Pp xvi + 263. Paper, $29.95. It is rare that every essay in a collection is well worth (...) reading, but that is the case in this illuminating and stimulating volume. Perhaps this should not be surprising, since its contributors comprise a virtual "Who's Who" of philosophers and intellectual historians who have contributed.. (shrink)

This volume provides a lucid and distinct introduction to multiculturalism and the philosophy of social science.

Espen Hammer’s exceptionally fine book explores modern temporality, its problems and prospects. Hammer claims that how people experience time is a cultural/historical phenomenon, and that there is a peculiarly modern way of experiencing time as a series of present moments each indefinitely leading to the next in an ordered way. Time as measured by the clock is the paradigmatic instance of this sense of time. In this perspective time is quantifiable and forward-looking, and the present is dominated by the future. (...) Hammer argues that this manner of experiencing time provides a way of living that brings with it not only the basis for great successes in technology, but also great costs—specifically, what he calls the problems of transience and of meaning. Hammer goes about his task by considering the ways some of the great modern philosophers have characterized present-day temporality and have responded to the problems he has identified. Specifically, he considers what Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Habermas, Bloch, and Adorno provide in response to our peculiarly modern predicaments. The book is remarkable for its clarity and perceptiveness, but in the process in crucial places it simplifies the matters at hand or fails to push its insights as far as it ought, and in the end promises more than it can deliver. In this it betrays a rationalist confidence in the power of reason that founders on what in many ways remains a mystery. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 11 Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen’s _Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography_ is a major work in the philosophy of history, one that seeks to conceive historiographies not as concerned to represent the past but rather to propose ways of regarding it. To do this requires replacing narrative as the key element in the philosophy of history with the idea that historiographies are informal arguments that propose and defend a thesis about how events or entities of the past should be viewed. (...) This re-orientation in how to view historiography makes it possible to see it as a rational enterprise in which its claims and counterclaims can be rationally assessed. The book is remarkably successful in achieving its goal, but along the way it neglects to address new questions about narrative as a form of argument, and in the end lacks full faith in its pragmatist heart by insisting that standards of rationality are universal and merely given rather than discipline—and culturally—specific, hard won achievements accomplished by historians themselves. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 11 Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen’s _Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography_ is a major work in the philosophy of history, one that seeks to conceive historiographies not as concerned to represent the past but rather to propose ways of regarding it. To do this requires replacing narrative as the key element in the philosophy of history with the idea that historiographies are informal arguments that propose and defend a thesis about how events or entities of the past should be viewed. (...) This re-orientation in how to view historiography makes it possible to see it as a rational enterprise in which its claims and counterclaims can be rationally assessed. The book is remarkably successful in achieving its goal, but along the way it neglects to address new questions about narrative as a form of argument, and in the end lacks full faith in its pragmatist heart by insisting that standards of rationality are universal and merely given rather than discipline—and culturally—specific, hard won achievements accomplished by historians themselves. (shrink)

This book brings together some of the most important essays in the theory of history which have produced this revolution and the responses to it.

Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science is explicitly based on a conception of philosophy. This article outlines and criticizes this conception, and then explores the relevance of this for Winch’s conception of social science. Winch identifies philosophy with conceptual analysis, and social science with unearthing the meaning of concepts operating within a form of life. These identifications produce a one-sided view both of philosophy (which must also criticize schemes of concepts and propose alternatives to them) and of social science (...) (which must also explain schemes of concepts and sometimes attempt to change them). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Transcendental Phenomenology From Transcendental Phenomenology to Existential Phenomenology From Phenomenology to Hermeneutics From Phenomenology to Cultural Analysis From Phenomenology to Critique Conclusion Notes.

That George Eliot was deeply interested in Spinoza is well known. She translated part of Benedict de Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus as early as 1842, and completed a full translation of the Ethics by 1856. This might lead one to think that in her novels, Eliot applied the insights of Spinoza by showing them at work in the lives of her characters. Indeed, a number of commentators have made this assumption in depicting the relationship between Eliot and Spinoza.1 Other commentators have (...) taken Eliot to be extending Spinoza's thought, adapting and transforming it in sympathetic ways.2 Unfortunately, however, these views are deeply mistaken.I say "deeply mistaken" because the differences between Spinoza and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Ethics of HistoryBrian FayDavid Carr, Thomas R. Flynn, and Rudolf A. Makkreel, editors. The Ethics of History. Northwestern University Topics in Historical Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2004. Pp xvi + 263. Paper, $29.95.It is rare that every essay in a collection is well worth reading, but that is the case in this illuminating and stimulating volume. Perhaps this should not be surprising, since its contributors (...) comprise a virtual "Who's Who" of philosophers and intellectual historians who have contributed significantly to the philosophical enterprise in general and to the philosophy of history in particular. Adding to the volume is the fact that the contributors come from varied perspectives: from the so-called 'analytic' tradition (Arthur Danto, Joseph Margolis) to the so-called 'continental' tradition (Jean-François Lyotard, John D. Caputo, Joan Copjec), [End Page 677] and to all manner of approaches along this continuum and that arguably even subvert it (Frank Ankersmit, Edith Wyschogrod, Allan Megill, Jörn Rüsen, Rudolf Makkreel, Thomas R. Flynn, and David Carr). The editors of the volume not only should be congratulated for putting it together (and for sponsoring the conference at Emory University on which it is based), but also for contributing important essays to it.So what are the issues addressed under the rubric of the "ethics of history"? One way to answer this is to focus on the questions the authors ask as they explore this topic:• What is the relationship of moral and political values to historical truth? (Ankersmit);• What is the relation between the ethical posture of historians and their role as narrators? (Wyschogrod);• How should the epistemology of historical investigation connect to the ethics of historical investigation (and what are these ethics)? (Megill);• "What basis in morality can we identify that makes truth a duty?" (Danto, 81);• "How are we to console the dead who are long since dead? How are we to repair their irreparable loss?" (Caputo, 93);• How can the lives or stories of the past still morally concern or speak to us today? (Copjec, who asks this question regarding Antigone);• How to represent transcendent moments—theophanic occasions of incarnational grace and saintly joy? That is, "Where can an absolute visit be situated or placed, in relation to a biography?" (Lyotard, 157, who asks this question by examining Augustine's Confessions);• Does the fact of our historicity (that, as selves, we are artifacts of history and understand ourselves as such) place peculiar ethical demands on us both as historical agents and as historical interpreters? (Margolis);• What are the responsibilities of historians to their profession? To their audience? To their subjects, those who have lived in the past? (Rüsen);• Is there any "inner connectedness" between the ethical and the historical that "justifies the idea of an ethics of history"? More specifically, what are the ethical conditions that make a hermeneutical history possible? (Makkreel, 214);• Can one be a "committed" historian? (Flynn);• Do the ways history resembles fiction (both make use of narrative and the imagination) render the moral obligation to tell the truth irrelevant for, or unrealizable by, history?. (Carr)In addressing these questions, the authors explore a number of central concepts that appear over and over in the volume, including truth, historicity, autonomy, objectivity, subjectivity, commitment, suffering, remembrance, and responsibility.Two general questions, posed in different ways by different authors, hold the center of the collection. First, given that objectivity conceived in terms of a simple correspondence in which historians empty themselves in order to record the past as it was is no longer intellectually tenable, what are the norms and values of history as a discipline that help distinguish it from propaganda? Second, given that history is about those who are dead, can historians be said to have obligations or responsibilities to them? For instance, should historians offer moral judgments about the evils that people have perpetrated on each other as a way of respecting those who have suffered? Is this a way historians can act responsibly toward their subjects? If not (and many in fact think not), then how else can we honor their suffering?Answers to these questions sometimes reveal deep disagreement (Flynn... (shrink)