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Cargando... Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspectivepor Mario Bunge
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Mario Bunge, author of the monumental Treatise on Basic Philosophy, is widely renowned as a philosopher of science. In this new and ambitious work he shifts his attention to the social sciences and the social technologies. He considers a number of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, law, history, and management science.Bunge contends that social science research has fallen prey to a postmodern fascination with irrationalism and relativism. He urges social scientists to re-examine the philosophy and the methodology at the base of their discipline. Bunge calls for objective and relevant fact-finding, rigorous theorizing, and empirical testing, as well as morally sensitive and socially responsible policy design. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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He then puts the various social science disciplines to this philosophical test by directing particularly strong criticism against two developments in social science. The first is the popularity of relativistic and constructivistic theories which renounce scientific objectivity. Anthropology is the main target of this criticism. Amusingly, he always puts the word "interpretation" in scare quotes and condescendingly refers to the "hermeneuticists and postmodernists" whose irresponsible scepticism underlies what he calls the "Verstehen" school of social science. I think he fires away a little too indiscriminately in these sections, but some of his points are certainly valid.
The second object of criticism is the spreading of economic thought to disciplines other than economics, in the form of rational choice and public choice theory, for instance. Bunge's thesis is that economic models which are detached from empirical confirmation are at most complementary, they cannot be the core of social science no matter how pretty the mathematical formalism may look. He also criticizes the presuppositions of micro- and macroeconomics quite strongly. This is in my opinion the best part of the book. Unlike many other philosophers he also has some ideas for better methods in social research. They may be provisional and incomplete, but they still offer a lot to think about for your next research proposal.
In my opinion the book loses focus a bit in the second part where the author discusses action theory, law, business management, social policy and economic policy. His goal is to complement his analysis of basic social science with sociotechnology (how society can be changed). He jumps quite quickly from one subject to another and perhaps overextends the argument a bit. He even ventures into political philosophy and articulates his preferred social order, "integral technodemocracy", which seemed like an unnecessary addition in this book (but perhaps a good starting point for a new book).
In conclusion I certainly was impressed both by the breadth of material and the author's deep understanding of social science fundamentals. I recommend this book to social scientists, social philosophers and to everyone who makes use of social science data in one way or another. There are about one thousand references here so you won't have to look far for further reading. I've previously read "The sociology-philosophy connection" by the same author, but I think this book was clearly better.