| Description |
1 online resource (xi, 322 pages) |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-313) and index. |
| Contents |
The social science wars -- Science turned upside down -- In defense of disunity -- The politics of disunity -- The politics of redescription -- Reclaiming the language of emancipation -- Sciences that disturb -- Conclusion: pluralism, power, Perestroika, and political inquiry. |
| Summary |
In the past several years two academic controversies have migrated from the classrooms and courtyards of college and university campuses to the front pages of national and international newspapers: Alan Sokal's hoax, published in the journal Social Text, and the self-named movement, "Perestroika," that recently emerged within the discipline of political science. Representing radically different analytical perspectives, these two incidents provoked wide controversy precisely because they brought into sharp relief a public crisis in the social sciences today, one that raises troubling questions about the relationship between science and political knowledge, and about the nature of objectivity, truth, and meaningful inquiry in the social sciences. In this provocative and timely book, Keith Topper investigates the key questions raised by these and other interventions in the "social science wars" and offers unique solutions to them. Engaging the work of thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar, and Hannah Arendt, as well as recent literature in political science and the history and philosophy of science, Topper proposes a pluralist, normative, and broadly pragmatist conception of political inquiry, one that is analytically rigorous yet alive to the notorious vagaries, idiosyncrasies, and messy uncertainties of political life. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Social sciences -- Methodology.
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Social sciences -- Methodology. |
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Social sciences -- Philosophy.
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Social sciences -- Philosophy. |
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Political science -- Methodology.
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Political science -- Methodology. |
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Political science -- Philosophy.
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Political science -- Philosophy. |
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Naturalism.
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Naturalism. |
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Power (Social sciences)
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Power (Social sciences) |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Topper, Keith Lewis, 1958- Disorder of political inquiry. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, ©2005 0674016785 9780674016781 (DLC) 2004060692 (OCoLC)56905232 |
| ISBN |
9780674044401 (electronic book) |
|
0674044401 (electronic book) |
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9780674016781 (alkaline paper) |
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0674016785 (alkaline paper) |
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0674016785 (alkaline paper) |
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