What Holism Can Do for Social Theory
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781306905435
Subjects: Social sciences; Research; History; Positivism; Holism; Sciences sociales; Recherche; Histoire; Positivisme; Holisme
Description: "This book reconsiders the nature of positivist philosophy in social science theory based on classical and medieval thought in what later became "Europe." It argues that social theory is being held back by antagonistic debates over science, positivism, objectivity, and universal law - debates which appear unnecessary, narrow, and acontextual when their origins are examined. Positing that solutions to these impasses can be found by moving to alternative holistic epistemology, and looking at issues in terms of interrelations rather than parts, the book shows the promise of a social theory that provides a unit of analysis that mediates between local and global relations."--
Table of contents: title: 1. Where have we been? Where might we go?; title: 2. Facticity; title: 3. How have we come to be doing mechanism?; title: 4. How do we do mechanism; title: 5. Beyond mechanism; title: 6. Sociality; title: 7. Holism, blame and power; title: 8. Moment, monument, movement.