Analyzing Concepts in Social Science (Science, Ideology & Values Series) - Hardcover

Edel, Abraham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0878551433 ISBN 13: 9780878551439

Publisher: Routledge, 1979

Synopsis

The problem created by diverse and competing modes of conceptual analysis that have been employed in the social disciplines is the topic of this first volume of the Science, Ideology, and Value series. How such conflicts are to be interpreted is the main philosophical task of this book. The introductory essay is an extended philosophical overview of major modes of analysis. Changing modes of analysis are also correlated with changes in the theory of definition. The conclusion is that a creative attitude toward analysis rather than the conflict of hardened schools, is required in contemporary social science.

The first part of the book consists of papers analyzing selected concepts in the social disciplines, both scientific and normative. The second part consists of chapters on theoretical issues of values and methods in analyzing social concepts. Edel treats in particular the controversy over values in social science against claims of a value-free science as a research issue and develops a systematic framework for detecting and locating values in political science, and again to judicial decision.

An introduction to each paper gives the social and philosophical context in which it was written; assesses its modes of analysis in comparison to the lessons of the overview in the introductory essay; and speculates occasionally on the consequences of integrated, more comprehensive modes.

About this title

About the Author:

Abraham Edel (1908-2007), a distinguished American moral and social philosopher, was research professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and before that the City College of New York. Some of his numerous books are Science and the Structure of Ethics, Aristotle and His Philosophy, and Ethical Judgment.

Review:

"This book will be of great use to students in the social sciences. It not only introduces them to a wide range of theoretical issues, but it serves as a model of how theoretical disagreements should be approached."

—Helen Block Lewis, professor (adjunct) of psychology, Yale University

"Edel employs an extraordinary range of scholarship in illuminating the modes of analysis to which concepts in the social sciences are susceptible,. . . This is an important book for philosophers and social scientists."

—Gerald E. Myers, professor of philosophy, deputy executive officer, CUNY

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0878551433
• ISBN 13: 9780878551439
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 351