Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Kaidesoja on Emergence

  

  Tuukka Kaidesoja's recent book Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology devotes a chapter to the topic of emergence as it is treated within critical... Read more

  Posted on 08 March 2014 SOCIETY

• Social Plasticity and Ontology

  

  Ruth Groff has created a valuable blog and Facebook page on "Powers, Capacities, Dispositions"aimed at creating a community of scholars interested in the... Read more

  Posted on 04 March 2014 SOCIETY

• New Thinking About Metaphysics

  

  It seems that there is a lot happening in metaphysics these days. There is of course the return to Aristotle that has occurred within the resurgent field of... Read more

  Posted on 02 March 2014 SOCIETY

• Social Powers?

  I am one of those people who think that causal claims are the foundation of almost all explanations. When we ask for an explanation of something, we generally... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2014 SOCIETY

• A Causal Narrative?

  

  source: Edward Tufte, edwardtufte.comIn a recent post I referred to the idea of a causal narrative (link). Here I would like to sketch out what I had in mind... Read more

  Posted on 21 February 2014 SOCIETY

• Lincoln and Marx

  

  Robin Blackburn has assembled a fascinating book drawing out some surprising connections between Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx, An Unfinished Revolution: Karl... Read more

  Posted on 18 February 2014 SOCIETY

• Causal Narratives, Mechanisms, and Powers

  

  A million termites move around industriously without supervisors or external coordination. Some months later, a great structure has arisen — a termite... Read more

  Posted on 16 February 2014 SOCIETY

• "How Does It Work" Questions

  

  Source: Karl Ove Moene in Alternatives to Capitalism, p. 85One of the strengths of the causal-mechanisms approach to social explanation is how it responds to a... Read more

  Posted on 13 February 2014 SOCIETY

• Skocpol on the 1979 Revolution in Iran

  

  An earlier post reviewed Theda Skocpol's effort in States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China to provide a comparative,... Read more

  Posted on 12 February 2014 SOCIETY

• Skocpol on the Chinese Revolution

  

  (Sources: States and Social Revolutions, pp. 155, 282)In States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China (1979) Theda Skocpol... Read more

  Posted on 08 February 2014 SOCIETY

• Understanding the Chinese Revolution

  

  source: Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, frontispieceThe Chinese Revolution is one of the world-historical events that has set the stage for th... Read more

  Posted on 04 February 2014 CULTURE, HISTORY, SOCIETY

• The Historian and the Archives

  

  Generally speaking everyone understands that one important kind of research conducted by historians takes place in archives -- repositories of records and... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2014 SOCIETY

• Mechanisms and Methodology

  

  In its origin the causal mechanisms approach (link) is chiefly an answer to the question, “what is a good social explanation?”. Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2014 SOCIETY

• SSHA 2014 Call for Papers

  

  SSHA CALL FOR PAPERSMacrohistorical Dynamics Network39th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History AssociationToronto, Ontario 6-9 November 2014Submission... Read more

  Posted on 19 January 2014 SOCIETY

• Mechanisms and Intellectual Movements

  

  I am particularly interested in the idea that we can explain social outcomes by identifying the social mechanisms that (often, typically, occasionally) bring... Read more

  Posted on 19 January 2014 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Ruth Groff on Causal Powers

  

  Ruth Groff is Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Louis University. She specializes in the philosophical underpinnings of Western social and... Read more

  Posted on 14 January 2014 SOCIETY

• ANT and the Philosophy of Social Science

  

  What does Actor-Network Theory have to add to the kinds of issues in the foundations of the social sciences that are of interest here? Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2014 SOCIETY

• How Do the Poles of Current PSS Interact?

  

  An earlier post offered a diagram of current topics in the philosophy of social science. The three poles of this diagram were analytical sociology, critical... Read more

  Posted on 09 January 2014 SOCIETY

• New Philosophy of Social Science

  

  The philosophy of social science is a living field with several distinct areas of growth and dozens of talented young contributors bringing fresh ideas and... Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2014 SOCIETY

• International Relations and Complexity Theory

  

  Hilton Root has published some very interesting ideas about systems thinking in international relations theory in Dynamics among Nations: The Evolution of... Read more

  Posted on 02 January 2014 SOCIETY