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 ( 893 )
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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 -
Poetry in Remembrance of the Shoah
Theodor Adorno wrote that “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." But there are good reasons not to agree with Adorno. There is a body of powerful,... Read more
Posted on 22 January 2022 SOCIETY -
Frankl and Shalamov on Existence in the Camps
Image: Viktor FranklImage: Varlam Shalamov, NKVD photoViktor Frankl, born in Austria in 1905, had the tragic misfortune to be swept up into the maelstrom of... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2022 SOCIETY -
Bandera, Shukhevych, and Memory Debates About the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement
When in 2007 Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko designated Roman Shukhevych as a Hero of Ukraine, he brought new heat into the debate in Ukraine and in the... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2022 SOCIETY -
Strange Defeat
One of the consequential puzzles of the Second World War was the sudden, catastrophic collapse of the French army following German invasion in 1940. Read more
Posted on 01 January 2022 SOCIETY -
Inclusivity as a Democratic Goal
Many organizations express the goal of embracing diversity and inclusiveness. This is an admirable goal, but it is often only weakly pursued in practical terms. Read more
Posted on 29 December 2021 SOCIETY -
De-mythologizing Ukraine Under Nazi Occupation
Ukraine was quickly and violently occupied by the Nazi military in 1941 in the onset of Hitler's Barbarossa plan for defeat of the Soviet Union, and the most... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2021 SOCIETY -
Greenblatt's New Historicism
Stephen Greenblatt is a pathbreaking literary critic. But since the 1990s I've also looked at Greenblatt as a genuinely innovative and insightful contributor... Read more
Posted on 22 December 2021 SOCIETY -
Online Mobilization Strategies by Right-wing Extremists
graphic: White supremacist podcast network (SPLC link)The surge of right-wing extremism has been evident in the United States for the past five years,... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2021 SOCIETY -
China's Food-safety Governance System
Food safety is a very high-level concern for ordinary consumers. This is true because the food we eat can poison us or ruin our health, and yet consumers have... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2021 SOCIETY
