Relativism and the social sciences

Bibliographic Information

Relativism and the social sciences

Ernest Gellner

(Cambridge paperback library)

Cambridge University Press, 1986, c1985

  • : pbk

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Note

"First paperback edtion 1986"--T.p. verso

Includes bibliograpical references (p. [188]-193) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted, of course, to the limited sphere of natural science and technology; and that immediately raises the second main theme of this volume - the differences between the human and natural sciences. These essays reach towards a new style and mode of enquiry - a mixture of philosophy, history and anthropology - that promises to prove more revealing and fruitful.

Table of Contents

  • Editorial preface I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi
  • Introduction
  • 1. Positivism against Hegelianism
  • 2. The gaffe-avoiding animal or a bundle of hypotheses
  • 3. Relativism and universals
  • 4. The scientific status of the social sciences (und leider auch Sociologie)
  • 5. What is structuralism?
  • 6. No haute cuisine in Africa
  • 7. Concepts and community
  • Sources
  • Bibliography
  • Name index
  • Subject index.

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