Relativism and the Social Sciences

Ernest Gellner (Author)

9780521337984, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 February 1987

212 pages
21.6 x 13.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.232 kg

' … one of the pleasures of reading Gellner is just that he always finds a more apt phrase, a sharper comment, a better example than most of us could make up for ourselves.' New Society

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS]