Dlittle30
I am a philosopher of social science with a strong interest in China and Southeast Asia. Paying attention to the logical and conceptual issues raised by the social sciences is key to better understanding the modern world. I think philosophers need to interact seriously and extensively with working social scientists and historians if they are going to be able to make a useful contribution.
MY BLOGS
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Understanding Society
http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/
Innovative thinking about social agency and structure in a global world
LATEST ARTICLES ( 862 )
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Tolstoy's Philosophy of History
Isaiah Berlin's essay The Hedgehog and the Fox is a particularly interesting combination of philosophical analysis and literary criticism. Read more
Posted on 29 April 2022 SOCIETY -
Can Nietzsche Support a Decent Political Philosophy?
Nietzsche's anti-moralism is a key theme in his philosophy and civilizational criticism. He regarded traditional European morality as "herd morality", the... Read more
Posted on 24 April 2022 SOCIETY -
Realism About Social Entities
Critical realism depends on the key notion that sociologists are justified in construing their statements about social entities as real, objective features of... Read more
Posted on 19 April 2022 SOCIETY -
Machiavelli and the Totalitarian State
Isaiah Berlin's essay on Machiavelli in Against the Current is penetrating and detailed, valuable both for the specialist and the general philosophical reader. Read more
Posted on 10 April 2022 SOCIETY -
The Open Texture of the Social World
What is involved in arriving at scientific knowledge about the social world? The position I have consistently taken emphasizes contingency and heterogeneity of... Read more
Posted on 06 April 2022 SOCIETY -
Philosophies of the Far Right
image: Joseph de MaistreThe ideologies of the far right have a particularly strong grip on a segment of democratic society in the current epoch. Read more
Posted on 02 April 2022 SOCIETY -
Classification of Political Systems and Theories
Graph of political systems (click image for full resolution)It is possible to analyze much of the history of modern political philosophy -- political theory... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2022 SOCIETY -
Carlyle's Critique of Modernity
What is wrong with life in the modern world? The complaint that modern society represents a toxic reduction of the importance of community in the lives of... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2022 SOCIETY -
An Extremism Index for Elected Officials
Senator Mike Braun (R-Indiana) made news in the past few days by questioning whether the Supreme Court was right to rule in 1967 that state bans on interracial... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2022 SOCIETY -
Russia's Aggression Against Ukraine as a War Crime
When Nazi Germany attacked Poland in 1939 it committed a war crime, codified by the standards established in preparation for the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. Read more
Posted on 16 March 2022 SOCIETY -
Advancing High-energy Physics in the United States
Here is an interesting and important scientific question: where is high-energy physics going? What future discoveries are possible in the field? And what... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2022 SOCIETY -
Durkheim's Social Holism
Emile Durkheim is celebrated for many achievements in the founding of the discipline of sociology, but most striking is his endorsement of the autonomy and... Read more
Posted on 05 March 2022 SOCIETY -
Vasily Grossman on Good and Evil
Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate was long delayed in its publication because of Soviet censorship but has come to be recognized as one of the greatest... Read more
Posted on 25 February 2022 SOCIETY -
Atrocious and Evil -- Russian Aggressive War in Ukraine
The moment has come, after months of insistent, indignant jabber from Vladimir Putin that he has no intention of invading Ukraine: Russian forces have invaded... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2022 SOCIETY -
How to Think About Deliberate Social Change
What is involved in trying to create a better world? That is: what is involved in being an activist, a reformer, a radical, a revolutionary, or – for that matte... Read more
Posted on 24 February 2022 SOCIETY -
A Topology of Political Theories?
We sometimes think of political philosophies as falling on a spectrum from left to right. Bernie Sanders is on the left and Greg Abbott is on the right. Read more
Posted on 21 February 2022 SOCIETY -
Factions, Insurrections, and the Federalist Papers
Sometimes political philosophers think of the The Federalist Papers as fairly minor contributions to the history of political theory -- time-bound, parochial,... Read more
Posted on 10 February 2022 SOCIETY -
Alexander Herzen's Radical Liberalism
image: Meissonier, Massacre during June Days, 1848, ParisAlexander Herzen's From the Other Shore (1850) is an exceptionally important example of an intelligent... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2022 SOCIETY -
Thomas Carlyle on Government and England's Poor
Thomas Carlyle was an acerbic conservative social thinker, given to assuming the fundamental legitimacy of social and political hierarchies and hostile to... Read more
Posted on 30 January 2022 SOCIETY -
Silence About the Holocaust After 1945
Image: Holocaust memorial at Camp Westerbork, The NetherlandsEach of the great evils of the twentieth century -- the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Gulag -- was... Read more
Posted on 24 January 2022 SOCIETY