ArgumentContrary to common portrayals of social Darwinism as a transference of laissez-faire values, the widely read evolutionism of Japan's foremost Darwinist of the early twentieth-century, Oka Asajirō (1868–1944), reflects a statist outlook that regards capitalism as the beginning of the nation's degeneration. The evolutionary theory of orthogenesis that Oka employed in his 1910 essay, “The Future of Humankind,” links him to a pre-Darwinian idealist tradition that depicted the state as an organism that develops through life-cycle stages. For Oka, laissez-faire capitalism (...) marked the moment when the state began to decline toward extinction due to the orthogenetic overdevelopment of hitherto subordinate individual egos. Because conservative bureaucrat-intellectuals had been drawing upon this same organicist-developmental tradition since the 1880s in an attempt to forestall the social ills of industrialism, Oka's call for statist measures, including eugenics, to lessen and delay the atomizing, enervating, and corrupting influence of capitalism articulated the political vision of officialdom. Statist evolutionism, not social Darwinism, might be the term that best describes Oka's approach. (shrink)

RésuméJe me penche sur un aspect de la philosophie sociale de Popper, à savoir les principes d'évaluation des interprétations historiques. Ma thèse globale est que suivant la perspective poppèrienne, notre choix parmi des interprétations historiques doit user d'au moins deux des critères qu'applique Popper au choix parmi diverses théories scientifiques : une interprétation devrait logiquement se prêter à une réfutation et elle devrait être consistante. Afin de montrer la pertinence et la fécondité de cette approche, je me concentre sur l'interprétation (...) historique des causes de la montée du nazisme que propose Erich Fromm, en particulier dansEscape from Freedom.Je montrerai que l'application de notions psychanalytiques dans le cadre de son interprétation historique a une valeur explicative faible, voire nulle. Son échec à expliquer certaines questions sociales tient à plusieurs raisons. Premièrement, l'auteur ne fournit pas, quoi qu'il en dise, d'explication causale convaincante. Ensuite, les concepts et les multiples hypotheèsesad hocauxquels il a recours tendent è rendre son interprétation irréfutable. Enfin, Fromm s'appuie sur des assomptions théoriques contradictoires. Mon analyse est basée sur la notion fondamentale de Popper voulant que la connaissance scientifique empirique exige au strict minimum une ouverture des interprétations historiques à la critique intersubjective. C'est cette exigence qui permet de les critiquer — c'est-à-dire les accepter, les réfuter et les corriger — sur une base rationnelle. (shrink)

The argument from multiple realization is currently considered the argument against intertheoretic reduction. Both Little and Kincaid have applied the argument to the individualism-holism debate in support of the antireductionist holist position. The author shows that the tenability of the argument, as applied to the individualism-holism debate, hinges on the descriptive constraints imposed on the individualist position. On a plausible formulation of the individualist position, the argument does not establish that the intertheoretic reduction of social theories is highly unlikely. Nonetheless, (...) the reductive project may run into other potential obstacles. For this reason, it is concluded that the prospect of intertheoretic reduction is uncertain rather than unlikely. Key Words: argument from multiple realization • intertheoretic reduction • reductionism • individualism • holism. (shrink)

The Anthropocene, understood from the perspective of the creators of Earth System Science and IPCC, calls for global governance, which tends to be understood as an epistocratic, technocratic affair leaving little room for reflective rationality and politics in the agonistic sense. Using the republican repertoire, I argue that global governance thus understood is actually the last thing we need. I suggest that global environmental institutions ought to be based on ‘constitutional republicanism’. Key elements of this approach are a Machiavellian appreciation (...) of discord, agonism and ‘the political’, combined with a realistic assessment of the very diverse interests at stake in global climate politics, hence very diverse ideas about the benefits and burdens of specific global environmental strategies; and institutions based on ideas uniquely developed by republicans from Machiavelli to Mouffe allowing for human and science’s fallibility on the one hand, irreducible moral and political diversity on the other. (shrink)

In this review essay, I examine the central tenets of sociologist Dave Elder-Vass’s recent contribution to social ontology, as put forth in his book The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency. Elder-Vass takes issue with ontological individualists and maintains that social structures exist and have causal powers in their own right. I argue that he fails to establish his main theses: he shows neither that social structures have causal powers “in their own right” (in any sense of (...) this expression) nor that they exist. (shrink)

The paper critiques the relationship between personalist ethics and institutional economics, and accepts that institutional economics can be difficult to reconcile with humanistic management that builds on personalist ethics. Even so the paper connects impersonalist ethics with institutional economics. On this ground, the paper demonstrates how theory and practice of personalist humanist management can lean on impersonalist ethics, i.e., institutional economics. Three pathways are laid out for such leanings. It is argued that to understand these alignments is important to improve (...) the success of humanistic management, when a market economy context is given. The paper further contends that personalist humanistic management may imply abandoning the market economy when it positions itself in opposition to institutional economic reasoning that underpins the market economy. (shrink)

Social scientists using one or another concept of process have paid little attention to underlying issues of methodology and explanation. Commonly, the concept used is a loose one. When it is not, there often are other problems, such as errors of reification and of assuming that events sometimes connected in a sequence are invariably thus connected. While it may be useful to retain the term " process" for some sequences of intelligibly connected actions and events, causal explanation must be sought (...) with respect to the events constituting processes rather than with respect to processes regarded as unitary entities. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: La pragmatique et la sémantique de l’historiographie révèlent une fragmentation croissante qui s’étend par-delà les écoles jusqu’aux historiens individuels. Alors que les scientifiques normalisent les données pour qu’elles s’ajustent aux théories, les historiens interprètent leurs théories, de manières incompatibles entre elles, pour qu’elles s’ajustent aux différents cas historiques. Les difficultés qui en découlent dans la communication historiographique remettent en cause les philosophies herméneutiques de l’historiographie et redonnent un nouvel intérêt à la question d’une historiographie scientifique. Mais les réponses existantes (...) sont philosophiquement obsolètes. Une façon de reformuler le problème est de partir de la complexité du chaos et de l’unicité de l’histoire. Seule la science peut évaluer si les propriétés d’un domaine donné en interdisent une approche scientifique. Or la science s’étend par réductions méthodologiques explicatives, en ramenant des propriétés d’événements complexes, chaotiques et uniques, qui sont familières, mais d’un niveau plus élevé, à des propriétés ou interrelations non familières et d’un niveau moins élevé. La culture disciplinaire de l’historiographie, cependant, empêche le développement par essais et erreurs de telles tentatives de réductions scientifiques, qui seules permettraient d’évaluer les possibilités d’une historiographie scientifique, laquelle, dans la situation présente, relève de la science-fiction. (shrink)

This article examines critically Popper's arguments for a "unity of method" between natural science and social science. It discusses Popper's writings on the goals of science, the objects of scientific inquiry, the logic of scientific method, and the value of objectivity The major argument is that, despite his unifying intention, Popper himself provides good reasons for treating the two sciences differently. Popper proposes that social scientists follow a number of rules that are not required for, and that have no direct (...) equivalent in, natural science. For most of the cases examined here, these requirements are not simply marginal amendments to a basic methodological core; they are essentially moral or ethical in character and mark out a radically different intellectual and political enter prise. From this perspective, much of Popper's work on social science method ology has the character of an ethical treatise. It is argued further that Popper's accounts of the differences between natural and social science, and his call for moral responsibility, are based largely upon his understanding of the distinctive political threat that social science poses for the conduct of critical reason. (shrink)

Even though social engineering has gained a bad reputation, due to new possibilities in the information age, it may be time to reconsider Karl Popper’s conception of “piecemeal social engineering.” Piecemeal social engineering is not only an element within Popper’s open society. It also connects his political philosophy to his philosophy of science and his evolutionary epistemology. Furthermore, it seems to fit well into the search for implementation strategies for policies and social actions in the context of nonideal theory. Nevertheless, (...) this does not necessarily undermine the need for political ideals and first-order principles, which are inhabitants of “World 3.”. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this paper is to argue that biologists should stop citing Karl Popper on what a genuinely scientific theory is. Various ways in which biologists cite Popper on this matter are surveyed, including the use of Popper to settle debates on methodology in phylogenetic systematics. It is then argued that the received view on Popper—namely, that a genuinely scientific theory is an empirically falsifiable one—is seriously mistaken, that Popper’s real view was that genuinely scientific theories have the (...) form of statements of laws of nature. It is then argued that biology arguably has no genuine laws of its own. In place of Popperian falsifiability, it is suggested that a cluster class epistemic values approach (which subsumes empirical falsifiability) is the best solution to the demarcation problem between genuine science and pseudo- or non-science. (shrink)

First, a brief history is provided of Popper's views on the status of evolutionary biology as a science. The views of some prominent biologists are then canvassed on the matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology. Following that, I argue that Popper's programme of falsifiability does indeed exclude evolutionary biology from within the circumference of genuine science, that Popper's programme is fundamentally incoherent, and that the correction of this incoherence results in a greatly expanded and much more realistic (...) concept of what is empirical, resulting in the inclusion of evolutionary biology. Finally, this expanded concept of empirical is applied to two particular problems in evolutionary biology — viz., the species problem and the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria — and it is argued that both of them are still mainly metaphysical. (shrink)

Today’s technological-scientific prospect of posthumanity simultaneously evokes and defies historical understanding. On the one hand, it implies a historical claim of an epochal transformation concerning posthumanity as a new era. On the other, by postulating the birth of a novel, better-than-human subject for this new era, it eliminates the human subject of modern Western historical understanding. In this article, I attempt to understand posthumanity as measured against the story of humanity as the story of history itself. I examine the fate (...) of humanity as the central subject of history in three consecutive steps: first, by exploring how classical philosophies of history achieved the integrity of the greatest historical narrative of history itself through the very invention of humanity as its subject; second, by recounting how this central subject came under heavy criticism by postcolonial and gender studies in the last half-century, targeting the universalism of the story of humanity as the greatest historical narrative of history; and third, by conceptualizing the challenge of posthumanity against both the story of humanity and its criticism. Whereas criticism fragmented history but retained the possibility of smaller-scale narratives, posthumanity does not doubt the feasibility of the story of humanity. Instead, it necessarily invokes humanity, if only in order to be able to claim its supersession by a better-than-human subject. In that, it represents a fundamental challenge to the modern Western historical condition and the very possibility of historical narratives – small-scale or large-scale, fragmented or universal. (shrink)

Jon Elster believes that methodological individualism is self-evident (Elster 1986, 66). Not finding it so, and being suspicious of philosophers who claim that their views are so obvious as to demand no arguments in their favor, I went back to retrace the outlines of the methodological individualism debate. It turns out that the participants to the debate disagree widely as to what they are arguing about; it is not obvious to them what methodological individualism is. The defenders of methodological individualism (...) agree with their critics much more than those critics acknowledge. Each side ascribes views to the other which its proponents disown explicitly. (shrink)

The four sections of this article are reactions to a few interconnected problems that Mario Bunge addresses in his The Sociology-Philosophy Connection, which can be seen as a continuation and summary of his two recent major volumes Finding Philosophy in Social Science and Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective. Bunge’s contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences has been sufficiently acclaimed. The author discusses therefore only those solutions in Bunge’s book that seem most problematic, namely, Bunge’s proposal to (...) expel charlatans from universities; his treatment of social laws; his notions of mechanisms, “mechanismic explanation,” and systemism; and his reading of Popper’s social philosophy. (shrink)

This paper calls into question the growing tendency of quasi-absolutism within postmodern mainstream media discourse under the guise of objectivity. The tendency’s major aim is to ascribe more believability to its discourse by re-presenting that which it covers as the vehicle of objective truth to the mainstream audience. Two interweaving discourses have marked such objectivity: one in the form of indoctrinating and omnipresent narratives, which via effective propaganda become tantamount to ritualism, the other epitomised in the nostalgia for rationalisation, already (...) inherent in western positivist thought through the exponential increase of quasi-empiricism. Accordingly, what the media cover exists. What they do not remains in the order of myth. The article starts by rethinking objectivity within modern western academia, a discourse whose objectivity is already flawed from within. Then, with respect to human experience and media coverage, the paper concludes by raising the question of postmodern mainstream media’s substitution of religious quasi-absolutist narratives, be they secular or non-secular. Subjectivity thus emerges as the ultimate ground upon which our being may be legitimate. (shrink)

In the context of calls for "postpositivist" sociology, realism has emerged as a powerful and compelling epistemology for social science. In transferring and transforming scientific realism --a philosophy of natural science--into a justificatory discourse for social science, realism splits into two parts: a strict, highly naturalistic realism and a reflexive, more mediated, and critical realism. Both forms of realism, however, suffer from conceptual ambiguities, omissions, and elisions that make them an inappropriate epistemology for social science. Examination of these problems in (...) detail reveals how a different perspective--centered on the interpretation of meaning--could provide a better justification for social inquiry, and in particular a better understanding of sociological theory and the construction of sociological explanations. (shrink)

The philosophical or metaphysical architecture of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is analyzed and diflussed. It is argued that natural selection was for Darwin a paradigmatic case of a natural law of change — an exemplar of what Ghiselin (1969) has called selective retention laws. These selective retention laws lie at the basis of Darwin's revolutionary world view. In this essay special attention is paid to the consequences for Darwin's concept of species of his selective retention laws. Although (...) Darwin himself explicity supported a variety of nominalism, implicit in the theory of natural selection is a solution to the dispute between nominalism and realism. It is argued that, although implicit, this view plays a very important role in Darwin's theory of natural selection as the means for the origin of species. It is in the context of these selective retention laws and their philosophical implications that Darwin's method is appraised in the light of recent criticisms, and the conclusion drawn that he successfully treated some philosophical problems by approaching them through natural history. Following this an outline of natural selection theory is presented in which all these philosophical issues are highlighted. (shrink)

Tracing the interplay between theory and practice in the dynamics of philosophical argument, This paper represents philosophy as an open, Critical discipline, Which keeps asking the same fundamental questions about knowledge, Reality, Justice, Freedom, Harmony and truth under changing historical conditions. In the light of this, The present impasse of human thought which manifests itself in the confrontation between totalitarian functionalism in the west on the one hand and totalitarian ideologism in the east on the other, The need for a (...) reversal of thinking becomes evident. The present deadlock of human thought and the confrontation between west and east resulting from it can be broken only if one-Sided functional practice is replaced by fully-Fledged human practice. This requires moving beyond popper's one-Dimensional 'critical' rationalism and marxism-Leninism's 'scientific' dialectical materialism to a critical humanism, Based on man's contingent experience of reality. (shrink)

This analysis examines fundamental questions at the intersection of social science and social technology as well as problems of disciplinary divisions and the challenge of cross-disciplinary cooperation. Its theoretical-empirical context is provided by post-communist transformations, a set of profound societal changes in which institutional design plays a central role. The article critically reappraises the contribution of Karl Popper's philosophy to this problem context, examines neoliberalism as social science and social technology, and examines the role of experts and disciplinary divisions in (...) the reform process. Building on Mario Bunge's social philosophy, it sketches basic elements of a cross-disciplinary approach to "social change by design." Key Words: post-communist transformation • social change • institutional design • Karl Popper • Mario Bunge. (shrink)

Phenomenology as rhetoric The literature on ‘nursing phenomenology’ is driven by a range of ontological and epistemological considerations, intended to distance it from conventionally scientific approaches. However, this paper examines a series of discrepancies between phenomenological rhetoric and phenomenological practice. The rhetoric celebrates perceptions and experience; but the concluding moment of a research report almost always makes implicit claims about reality. The rhetoric insists on uniquely personal meanings; but the practice offers blank, anonymous abstractions. The rhetoric invites us to believe (...) that knowing is subjective and involved, but at the same time it recommends a technique (bracketing) which can only represent a crude, and entirely misconceived, gesture towards objectivity. Finally, the rhetoric claims that generalisation is beside the point; but the majority of researchers generalise anyway. In quietly ignoring their own rhetoric, ‘phenomenologists’ appropriate scientific prerogatives illegitimately. For their methods do not entitle them to lay claim to anything resembling ‘objectivity’, or generalisability, or ‘reality’, or theoretical abstraction. Like other researchers, they want to talk in generalisable terms about reality; they want to be objective, they want to do theory. But they are saddled with a philosophy that is disabling, because it says they can only talk about perceptions, and meanings, and uniqueness. (shrink)

Logical positivism is widely associated with an illiberal technocratic view of politics. This view is a caricature. Some members of the left Vienna circle were explicit in their criticism of this conception of politics. In particular, Neurath's work attempted to link the internal epistemological pluralism and tolerance of logical empiricism with political pluralism and the rejection of a technocratic politics. This paper examines the role that unified science played in Neurath's defence of political and social pluralism. Neurath's project of unified (...) science addressed problems that lie at the centre of recent debates around liberalism concerning the possibility of social co-operation in conditions of pluralism. His response is distinctive in calling upon an empiricist tradition that differs from Kantian proceduralist approaches that have predominated in recent liberalism. While Neurath's position has problems, it deserves reconsideration, especially in so far as it questions the Kantian assumption that a thin language of abstract rights provides the best basis for the cosmopolital lingua franca required by conditions of social pluralism. An investigation of the role that unified science plays in Neurath's politics also gives reasons for revising common misconceptions about the nature of the unity of science programme itself. (shrink)

This article addresses the ideological context of twentieth-century history of science as it emerged and was discussed at the threshold of the Cold War. It is claimed that the bifurcation of the discipline into a socio-economic strand and a technical-intellectual one should be traced back to the 1930s. In fact, the proposal of a Marxist-oriented historiography by the Soviet delegates at the International Congress of History of Science and Technology led by Nikolai Bukharin, set off the ideological and methodological opposition (...) that characterised the later years. Bukharin’s views on science are closely considered, as well as those of his Marxist critics, György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci. It is argued that, despite the fluidity of the positions of the 1920s and 1930s, these theories soon crystallized as demonstrated by the leftist reception of Bukharin’s and his associates’ perspective in the history of science, especially in Great Britain, as well as by the anti-communist reactions. Intellectualist approaches renouncing socio-economic factors, typically those by Alexandre Koyré and Thomas Kuhn, are reconsidered in the light of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War era. Reflection on the political-cultural embedding of the history of science has often been overshadowed by claims about the objectivity and neutrality of science and its historiography. Thus, the seminal discussion of the 1930s remains one of the most lucid moments of reflection about the role of science and history of science as cultural phenomena shaped by political struggles. (shrink)

Ce qu'on peut appeler lathéorie du discoursbouleverse les fondements épistémologiques et les perspectives méthodologiques de la recherche dans d'importants secteurs des sciences humaines et sociales. L'ethnologie, la psychanalyse et, bien entendu, les sciences de la littérature deviennent le champ d'application d'un système conceptuel opératoire que sous-tend la notion de « texte », et d'un modèle d'analyse axé sur le problème de la découverte des « lois de construction » du texte. L'intérêt particulier que présentent les thèses de M. Foucault réside (...) dans le fait qu'elles envisagent la possibilité d'élargir à l'Histoire le champ d'application de cette théorie.. (shrink)

Presented here is an overview from the standpoints of sociology, history of science, philosophy of science and “pure science” of the lingering question of whether sociology is a form of scientific pursuit. The conclusion is drawn that sociology barely meets any of the rigid criteria traditionally associated with the natural sciences. Sociology is viewed as having a position of theory and argument which is labeled “inconoclastic scepticism.”.

In this paper I argue that aim-oriented empiricism (AOE), a conception of natural science that I have defended at some length elsewhere[1], is a kind of synthesis of the views of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, but is also an improvement over the views of all three. Whereas Popper's falsificationism protects metaphysical assumptions implicitly made by science from criticism, AOE exposes all such assumptions to sustained criticism, and furthermore focuses criticism on those assumptions most likely to need revision if science is (...) to make progress. Even though AOE is, in this way, more Popperian than Popper, it is also, in some respects, more like the views of Kuhn and Lakatos than falsificationism is. AOE is able, however, to solve problems which Kuhn's and Lakatos's views cannot solve. [Back to Top]. (shrink)

While there are many points of opposition between the political philosophies of Marx and Kant, the two can greatly benefit from one another in various ways. Bringing the ideas of Marx and Kant together offers a promising way forward for each view. Most significantly, a powerful critique of capitalism can be developed from their combined thought: Kant’s political philosophy offers a robust idea of freedom to ground this critique, while Marx provides the nuanced understanding of social and political power structures (...) under capitalism that allows this idea of freedom to be properly applied. (shrink)

Although there has been much recent discussion on mechanisms in philosophy of science and social theory, no shared understanding of the crucial concept itself has emerged. In this paper, a distinction between two core concepts of mechanism is made on the basis that the concepts correspond to two different research strategies: the concept of mechanism as a componential causal system is associated with the heuristic of functional decomposition and spatial localization and the concept of mechanism as an abstract form of (...) interaction is associated with the strategy of abstraction and simple models. The causal facts assumed and the theoretical consequences entailed by an explanation with a given mechanism differ according to which concept of mechanism is in use. Research strategies associated with mechanism concepts also involve characteristic biases that should be taken into account when using them, especially in new areas of application. (shrink)

According to manipulationist accounts of causal explanation, to explain an event is to show how it could be changed by intervening on its cause. The relevant change must be a ‘serious possibility’ claims Woodward 2003, distinct from mere logical or physical possibility—approximating something I call ‘scientific possibility’. This idea creates significant difficulties: background knowledge is necessary for judgments of possibility. Yet the primary vehicles of explanation in manipulationism are ‘invariant’ generalisations, and these are not well adapted to encoding such knowledge, (...) especially in the social sciences, as some of it is non-causal. Ceteris paribus (CP) laws or generalisations labour under no such difficulty. A survey of research methods such as case and comparative studies, randomised control trials, ethnography, and structural equation modeling, suggests that it would be more difficult and in some instances impossible to try to represent the output of each method in invariant generalisations; and that this is because in each method causal and non-causal background knowledge mesh in a way that cannot easily be accounted for in manipulationist terms. Ceteris paribus-generalisations being superior in this regard, a theory of explanation based on the latter is a better fit for social science. (shrink)

Deduction leads to causal explanation in phylogenetic inference when the evidence, the systematic character, is conceptualized as a transformation series. Also, the deductive entailment of modus tollens is satisfied when those kinds of events are operationalized as patristic difference. Arguments to the contrary are based largely on the premise that character-states are defined intensionally as objects, in terms of similarity relations. However, such relations leave biologists without epistemological access to the causal explanation and explanatory power of historical statements. Moreover, the (...) prediction-making to which those kinds of relations are limited in practice can lead to a category error—the mental conversion of an abstraction into a thing . The latter practices and problems characterize pattern cladistics, taxa being interpreted as homeostatic property cluster natural kinds, and other instrumentalist research programs. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the ways and forms in which history is present, represented and used in Vygotsky’s theorizing. Given the fact that Vygotsky’s theory is usually described as a cultural-historical theory, the issue of history is necessarily implicated in the theory itself. However, there is still a gap between history as implicated in the theory and an explicit theorizing of history – both in Vygotsky’s writings and in Vygotskian scholarship. Therefore it is expected that it (...) would be fruitful to shed light on some possible pathways that can bridge this gap. The prevailing theoretical role of history in Vygotsky’s theory is to serve as a general framework which provides tools for the development of higher psychic functions. Thus, history is recognized as a formative context of psychic life. Further, history appears in Vygotsky’s writings also as a projected better future. All these uses of history presuppose an idea of history as linear progress. But Vygotsky also argues for a stronger epistemological claim – that history is the most powerful explanatory principle. After conceptual and theoretical reflection on history, some limitations of Vygotsky’s historicizing of the history of psychic development will be pointed out and related to general epistemological problems of historicizing. Finally, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, an edifice built up in the 1930s but relying on the rich philosophical and psychological legacy available up to that time, will be positioned against the pluralistic, postmodern and hermeneutic turn in contemporary social and human sciences. (shrink)

Karl Popper has been one of the few philosophers of sciences who has influenced scientists. I evaluate Popper's influence on our understanding of evolutionary theory from his earliest publications to the present. Popper concluded that three sorts of statements in evolutionary biology are not genuine laws of nature. I take him to be right on this score. Popper's later distinction between evolutionary theory as a metaphysical research program and as a scientific theory led more than one scientist to misunderstand his (...) position on evolutionary theory as a scientific theory. In his later work Popper also introduced what he took to be improvements of evolutionary theory. Thus far these improvements have had almost no influence on evolutionary biology. I conclude by examining the influence of Popper on the reception of cladistic analysis. (shrink)

Nearly thirty years after the first stirrings of the Kuhnian revolution, history and philosophy of science continues to galvanize methodological discussions in all corners of the academy except its own. Evidence for this domestic stagnation appears in Warren Schmaus's thoughtful review of Social Epistemology in which Schmaus takes for granted that history of science is the ultimate court of appeal for disputes between philosophers and sociologists. As against this, this essay argues that such disputes may be better treated by experimental (...) psychology. Humanistic methods typically (though not always) blind the historian to cognitive biases and limitations that make it difficult for philosophers and sociologists to mobilize historical research for settling their differences. It is also observed that the failure of philosophers to incorporate the methods and findings of experiemental psychology is symptomatic of an artificially restrictive understanding of the normative dimension of their enterprise. (shrink)

Jean Piaget, along with Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner, is one of the most influential thinkers in psychology. His influence on developmental and cognitive psychology, pedagogy and the so-called cognitive revolution is without doubt. The contributors to the book under review aim to show his past, contemporary as well as future relevance to important areas of psychology. I argue that they fail because they use Piaget’s own terminology, instead of explaining his ideas and relevance in a way accessible to (...) someone not already familiar with or sceptical about his assumptions and ideas. Thus, the book neither meets the authors’ own stated goals, nor provides an accessible exposition of Piaget for the uninitiated or sceptical reader. A companion book like this one should help give answers to questions which someone unfamiliar with or sceptical of, but curious about, Piaget’s work would ask. (shrink)

Popper's critique of the philosophical doctrines underlying totalitarian ideology is powerful. Yet, having the regimes of Hitler and Stalin in full view before him, he did not give full and balanced consideration to the range of effects these doctrines can have within actually existing ideologies and regimes. The ideas he correlates with totalitarianism can and do exist in benign forms or tempered by other ideas and by institutions. Moreover, the struggle with totalitarianism is only partly a struggle of philosophical ideas. (...) Political argument and rhetoric appeal to feeling as well as intellect. This tends to be a blindspot of liberalism that often weakens it in the competition with its adversaries. (shrink)