Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 866 )

• Guest Post by Ruth Groff on the Ontology of Critical Realism

  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 08 December 2013 SOCIETY

• Is Ontology an Apriori Field of Knowledge?

  The critical realists -- Roy Bhaskar in particular -- attach a great deal of importance to the question of ontology. A theory of ontology should describe the... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2013 SOCIETY

• Cruickshank's Central Critique

  

  Justin Cruickshank is a friendly critic to critical realism, not a hostile one. He criticizes the philosophical method but supports many of the substantive... Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2013 SOCIETY

• Bhaskar's Core Ideas

  

  Critical realism has become an important topic within sociological theory, and several prior (and upcoming) posts have addressed the theory. Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2013 SOCIETY

• Making Institutions

  

  The new institutionalists have largely focused on the maintenance and evolution of major social and political institutions. So Kathleen Thelen's excellent... Read more

  Posted on 01 December 2013 SOCIETY

• Relevant to What?

  

  source: Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature (cover) source: Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, p. Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Who Made Economics?

  

  The discipline of economics has a high level of intellectual status, even hegemony, in today’s social sciences — especially in universities in the United States. Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2013 SOCIETY

• The West and the East

  

  Ian Morris has written a pair of books that are intended to contribute to a particularly important set of disagreements in comparative economic history: what... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Elizabeth Anderson on Race in American Politics

  

  Elizabeth Anderson is John Dewey Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author most recently of... Read more

  Posted on 19 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Cruickshank on Philosophical Issues with Critical Realism

  Justin Cruickshank is an interesting commentator on the philosophical underpinnings of critical realism. Critical realism was developed initially by Roy... Read more

  Posted on 14 November 2013 SOCIETY

• European Network for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences Call for Papers

  

  THE THIRD CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN NETWORK FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (ENPOSS) UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA UNED MADRID,... Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Structural Realism and Social Realities?

  

  The topic of realism has come up frequently here -- causal realism, critical realism, scientific realism. Each of these realisms comes out of somewhat... Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Jeroen Van Bouwel: On Microfoundations and Macrofoundations

  

  [Jeroen Van Bouwel accepted my invitation to offer his thoughts about several recent posts here on the topic of microfoundations. Jeroen is co-author (with... Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Thorstein Veblen's Critique of the US System of Business

  

  Thorstein Veblen was certainly a heterodox observer of modern capitalism. He was trained in the late nineteenth-century iteration of neoclassical economics,... Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2013 BUSINESS, SOCIETY

• Thorsten Veblen's Critique of the American System of Business

  

  Thorsten Veblen was certainly a heterodox observer of modern capitalism. He was trained in the late nineteenth-century iteration of neoclassical economics, but... Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Six Years of Understanding Society

  

  This week celebrates six years of Understanding Society.  This effort represents over 850 posts, on topics ranging from current debates in philosophy about... Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2013 SOCIETY

• Mechanisms and Powers

  

  source: William Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology The causal-powers approach to the understanding of causation is... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2013 SOCIETY

• Causality and Metaphysics

  

  Advocates of the causal powers approach attach a great deal of importance to the metaphysics of causation -- the sorts of properties and relations that we... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2013 SOCIETY

• Change in Higher Education

  

  There are a couple of former university presidents whose opinions seem particularly insightful on the subject of the strengths and weaknesses of universities... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2013 SOCIETY

• Causal Powers from a Metaphysical Point of View

  

  A number of scholars who are interested in causation have recently expressed new interest in the concept of causal powers. This makes sense in a very... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2013 SOCIETY