The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and Its Epistemological Others

Published by Duke University Press 2005

The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences

Positivism and Its Epistemological Others

Edited by: George Steinmetz and Julia Adams
With contributions by: Webb Keane and Michael Dutton

In the series Politics, History, and Culture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822386889

Overview
Contents

About this book

Collection of new essays on the past, present, and future of positivism in the various social sciences

Author / Editor information

George Steinmetz is Professor of Sociology and German Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Regulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany and The Devil’s Handwriting: Ethnographic Discourse and “Native Policy” in the German Overseas Empire (Southwest Africa, Samoa, and Quingdao/China) (forthcoming) and the editor of State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn.

Reviews

“By contrasting the diverse trajectories and strategies of positivist method within each discipline, The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences develops a comparative perspective which has been lacking in virtually all prior treatments of positivism in social science. The contrasts in the form and prestige that positivist method assumed in each discipline are striking.”—Craig Calhoun, President of the Social Science Research Council

“George Steinmetz and his colleagues present provocative perspectives on the politics of knowledge in the human sciences. Magisterial overviews jostle with unsettling manifestos in this comprehensive and challenging collection. The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences is a necessary prolegomenon to any future epistemological debate.” —John Lie, Class of 1959 Professor and Dean of International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Positivism and Its Others in the Social Sciences George Steinmetz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part one. Positivism and Nonpositivism in Twentieth-Century Social Science
Anthropology. Estrangement, Intimacy, and the Objects of Anthropology Webb Keane Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
Area studies/asian studies. The Trick of Words: Asian Studies, Translation, and the Problems of Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Economics. Economists and the Economy in the Twentieth Century Timothy Mitchell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Economics/philosophy of science. How Positivism Made a Pact with the Postwar Social Sciences in the United States Philip Mirowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
History. The Political Unconscious of Social and Cultural History, or, Confessions of a Former Quantitative Historian William H. Sewell Jr. Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Political science/political theory. Defining ‘‘Theory’’ in Postwar Political Science Emily Hauptmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Sociology and economics. Beware Trojan Horses Bearing Social Capital: How Privatization Turned Solidarity into a Bowling Team Margaret R. Somers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Sociology. Scientific Authority and the Transition to Post-Fordism: The Plausibility of Positivism in U.S. Sociology since George Steinmetz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
Part two. Alternatives to Positivism in the Human Sciences
Philosophy and critical realism. Critical Realism Andrew Collier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Philosophy and standpoint theory. Negotiating with the Positivist Legacy: New Social Justice Movements and a Standpoint Politics of Method Sandra Harding Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	346
Economics and critical realism. A Perspective on Modern Economics Tony Lawson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	366
Process and temporality in sociology. The Idea of Outcome in U.S. Sociology Andrew Abbott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	393
Psychoanalysis as critique. Psychoanalysis and the Theory of the Subject Anthony Elliott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	427
Sociology of science. The Real and the Imaginary in Economic Methodology Daniel Breslau Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	451
Making sense in and of political science. Facts, Values, and ‘‘Real’’ Numbers Sophia Mihic, Stephen G. Engelmann and Elizabeth Rose Wingrove Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	470
Being undisciplined. On Your Marx: From Cultural History to the History of Society Geoff Eley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	496
Conclusion. Provincializing the Social Sciences Michael Burawoy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	508
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	527
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	583
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	587
Citation Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	607

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 633
Illustrations
- Other: 1 table

eBook

Published: May 16, 2005
ISBN: 9780822386889