Logic of Society : A Philosophical Study.
Title:
Logic of Society : A Philosophical Study.
Author:
Addis, Laird.
ISBN:
9780816655090
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (237 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- I: Introduction -- General Frame of Reference -- Themes of the Essay -- Some Matters of Ontology -- II: Philosophy of Science -- Lawfulness and Causation -- Process, Determinism, and Interaction -- Laws of Coexistence -- III: Minds, Beliefs, and Actions -- Mind and Body -- Behavior and Action -- Belief and Action -- IV: Reduction-The Nature of Social Objects -- Reduction of Objects and Reduction of Explanations -- Descriptive Individualism -- Descriptive Emergentism -- Durkheim and Ortega y Gasset on Social Objects -- V: Reduction-The Nature of Social Explanations -- Reduction and Composition Rules -- The Reduction of Sociology to Psychology -- Four Issues -- Twelve Possibilities -- VI: History and Social Laws -- Historical Explanation -- "Free Will" and Historical Explanation -- The Imperfection of Society -- VII: Laws of Historical Development -- General Characterization of Laws of Historical Development -- Three Major Possibilities -- Historicism -- Popper on Historicism -- VIII: Monistic Theories of Society -- Introductory Comments -- Monistic Theories Abstractly Considered -- Monistic Social Theories -- Hook's Objections to Monistic Theories -- Plamenatz on Monistic Theories -- Summary and Conclusion -- IX: Ideas and Society -- Ideas as Reflections -- Ideas and Idealism -- Intentions and Society -- Summary and Conclusion -- X: The Individual, Freedom, and Purpose in History -- The Role of the Individual in History -- Freedom of the Individual -- Purpose in History -- XI: Abstract Marxism -- General Comments on Marxism -- Historical Materialism -- Monism and Economic Determinism -- Holism -- Process Theory and Pluralism -- Historicism -- Determinism and Fatalism -- Materialism and Naturalism -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U.
V -- W.
Abstract:
The Logic of Society was first published in 1975. In recent years challenges have arisen from various quarters, even within analytic philosophy itself, to the positivist conception of science, especially in its application to history and other social sciences. From a neo-positivist viewpoint Professor Addis attempts to meet some of these challenges. Underlying his work are the beliefs that every even that occurs, including human choices and actions, is capable of being given an explanation of the hypothetico-deductive sort, that the task of all the sciences therefore is the search for knowledge of a lawful kind, and that this knowledge is to be had only by methods which are similar throughout the sciences. The author's neo-positivism is qualified in various ways: among others by an insistence on the necessity of a metaphysical basis for the philosophy of history and other social sciences and the contention that none of the social sciences, at least as their limits of investigation are usually conceived, can expect ever to have theories of the scope and reliability of the most highly developed sciences. The chapters deal with several traditional and contemporary issues in the philosophy of history and social sciences. Among them are the nature of social reality, the possibility of reducing sociological explanations to psychological explanations, the limits and possibilities of social theory, historical explanation, and historicism and the laws of historical development. Thinker whose ideas are given substantial treatment are Durkheim, Marx, Ortega y Gasset, Popper, Plamenatz, and MacIntyre. Other theorists who are discussed critically include Sartre, Lenin, Hook, Brodbeck, and Donagan.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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