Pluralism, indeterminacy and the social sciences: Reply to Ingram and Meehan [Book Review]
Human Studies 20 (4):441-458 (1997)
Abstract
This article defends methodological and theoretical pluralism in the social sciences. While pluralistic, such a philosophy of social science is both pragmatic and normative. Only by facing the problems of such pluralism, including how to resolve the potential conflicts between various methods and theories, is it possible to discover appropriate criteria of adequacy for social scientific explanations and interpretations. So conceived, the social sciences do not give us fixed and universal features of the social world, but rather contribute to the task of improving upon our practical knowledge of on-going social life. After arguing for such a thorough-going pluralism based on the indeterminacy of social action, I defend it from the post-modern and hermeneutic objections by suggesting the possibility of an epistemology of interpretive social science as a form of practical knowledge.Author's Profile
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2004
DOI
10.1023/a:1005357623902
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Citations of this work
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Education(al) Research, Educational Policy-Making and Practice.Charles Clark - 2011 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 45 (1):37-57.
'What it Makes Sense to Say': Education, Philosophy and Peter Winch on Social Science.Paul Smeyers - 2006 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 40 (4):463-485.
References found in this work
Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment.Robert Brandom - 1994 - Harvard University Press.
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Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action.David M. Rasmussen - 1993 - Philosophical Quarterly 43 (173):571.
Language and Symbolic Power.Ian Buchanan, Pierre Bourdieu, Gino Raymond & Matthew Adamson - 1993 - Substance 22 (2/3):342.