Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• An Evolutionary View of Research Frameworks

  

  It was noted in prior posts that there is a great diversity of research frameworks in the social sciences, and that there is much to be gained by attempting to... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2015 SOCIETY

• The French Left Since 1945

  

  Bertolt BrechtFerdinand LasalleJohn MacleanJean JauresRene Marx DormoySalvador AllendeIn an earlier post I suggested rethinking some of Lucien Goldmann's... Read more

  Posted on 16 May 2015 SOCIETY

• Lucien Goldmann on Dialectics and History

  

  Lucien Goldmann made important contributions to French Marxist theory and philosophy in the 1960s. Unlike other luminaries like Althusser and Poulantzas,... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2015 SOCIETY

• Positive Organizational Behavior

  

  source: Rob Cross, Wayne Baker, Andrew Parker, "What creates energy in organizations?" (link)Organizations need study for several important reasons. Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2015 SOCIETY

• Youth Service and America's Progress

  

  Several hundred leaders from around the country convened this week in Washington, D.C. to participate in the 2015 City Year National Leadership Summit. Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2015 SOCIETY

• Gorski on Critical Realism

  

  Earlier posts have considered the reception of critical realism by two major historical sociologists, Peggy Somers and George Steinmetz (link, link). Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2015 SOCIETY

• Gross on the History of Analytic Philosophy in America

  

  Neil Gross has a remarkably good ear for philosophy. And this extends especially to his occasional treatments of the influences that helped shape the... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2015 SOCIETY

• History of Sociology

  

  Sociology is a discipline with a short history and a very dense and complex tree of topics and methods. So writing its history — even limited to the past centur... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2015 SOCIETY

• A Short Course in Critical Causality

  For anyone interested in getting a deep exposure to current thinking about causation within the critical realist tradition, Ruth Groff's 2008 collection... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2015 SOCIETY

• Frédéric Vandenberghe's Social Theory

  

  Frédéric Vandenberghe is an important contributor to the philosophy of critical realism. His interesting book A Philosophical History of German Sociology... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2015 SOCIETY

• Debates About Field Experiments in the Social Sciences

  

  Questions about the empirical validation of hypotheses about social causation have been of interest in the past several weeks here. Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2015 SOCIETY

• Realism and Empirical Reasoning

  

  How should a realist think about confirmation of hypotheses and theories about real social structures and properties?Here is what the Ur-realist Roy Bhaskar... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2015 SOCIETY

• Mechanisms, Experiments, and Policies

  

  The social mechanisms approach to the social sciences aligns well with two key intellectual practices, experiments and policies. Read more

  Posted on 24 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Ethics as Culture

  

  Gabriel Abend has recently published The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics, a remarkable book on what seems initially to be a... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Improving Skilled Performance

  

  What can ordinary experience tell us about how skilled practitioners can be brought to a high level of competence and performance? Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Coleman's House-of-cards Theory of Structures

  

  image: Henri Bonaventure Monnier, Crowded Restaurant 1860image: James Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory, p. 245James Coleman offers a skeptical position on... Read more

  Posted on 08 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Structures, Diagrams, Rules, and Flows

  

  When we refer to the structure of some complex entity, we often intend to capture one of the following ideas:the parts and their arrangementsthe parts and... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Globalization and the Planetary Knowledge Business

  

  It is a commonplace that modern social and economic systems are intensely knowledge-based, and that the centers of knowledge production are no longer exclusivel... Read more

  Posted on 03 March 2015 SOCIETY

• Three Concepts of Social Structure

  

  There is an important ambiguity in the idea of social structure that needs to be addressed. The word is sometimes used to refer to functioning entities or... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2015 SOCIETY

• Sellars and Bhaskar

  

  Robert Brandom has just published a highly interesting book about the coherence of the philosophical thought of Wilfrid Sellars, From Empiricism to Expressivism... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2015 SOCIETY