Knowing the social world
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Knowing the social world
Open University Press, 1998
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. [178]-192
Includes indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
* What is the relationship between philosophy, social theory and empirical research?
* In what ways can we claim to 'know' the social world?
* What properties does the social world possess and what are their implications?
This ground-breaking and multi-disciplinary book brings together a distinguished team of leading thinkers to discuss issues surrounding and informing questions such as: what is the 'social', in what ways can we 'know' it, and how can our findings be validated? These issues are discussed in an accessible way, including the relationship of philosophical and research issues to each other, the nature of social reality, properties that may be ascribed to the social, research accounts and rhetorical 'persuasion', and the relations between 'gender and knowing'. The overall concern of the book is to clarify how and in what ways we can claim to know the social world and what implications and consequences this may have for social scientific practice.
For too long philosophers, social theorists and methodologists have talked past each other, often unaware of the mutually beneficial insights that each offers the other. This book is intended to contribute to a more constructive encounter and dialogue in order to advance understanding of the problems and possibilities surrounding the quest to know the social world. With this overall aim in mind, it will be essential reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students in the social sciences, as well as philosophers, social theorists, methodologists and social researchers in general.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction
knowing the social world
The social world as knowable
Naturalisms and anti-naturalisms
When the knower is also the known
Social properties and their basis
Social theory and the analysis of society
The reality of social domains
implication for theory and method
Relationism, Cubism, and reality
beyond relativism
Feminists' knowledge and the knowledge of feminisms
epistemology, theory, methodology and method
Quantitative and qualitative research strategies in knowing the social world
Reflections and reflexivity
Bibliography
Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"