Empiricism and Sociology

Empiricism and Sociology
Author: M. Neurath
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 490
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9401025258

On the last day of his life, Otto Neurath had given help to a Chinese philosopher who was writing about Schlick. Only an hour before his death he said to me: "Nobody will do such a thing for me." My answer then was: "Never mind, you have Bilston, isn't that better?" There were con sultations in new housing schemes, an exhibition, and hopes for a fruitful relationship of longer duration. I did not dream at that time that I would one day work on a book like this. The idea came from Horace M. Kallen, of the New School for Social Research, New York, years later; to encourage me he sent me his selection from William James' writings. Later I met Robert S. Cohen. Carnap had sent him to me with the message: "If you want to find out what my political views were in the twenties and thirties, read Otto Neurath's books and articles of that time; his views were also mine." In this way Robert Cohen became ac quainted with Otto Neurath. Even more: he became interested; and when I asked him, would he help me as an editor of an Otto N eurath volume, he agreed at once. In previous years I had already asked a number of Otto Neurath's friends to write down for me what they especially remembered about him.

Empiricism and Sociology

Empiricism and Sociology
Author: M. Neurath
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 504
Release: 1973-12-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789027702593

On the last day of his life, Otto Neurath had given help to a Chinese philosopher who was writing about Schlick. Only an hour before his death he said to me: "Nobody will do such a thing for me." My answer then was: "Never mind, you have Bilston, isn't that better?" There were con sultations in new housing schemes, an exhibition, and hopes for a fruitful relationship of longer duration. I did not dream at that time that I would one day work on a book like this. The idea came from Horace M. Kallen, of the New School for Social Research, New York, years later; to encourage me he sent me his selection from William James' writings. Later I met Robert S. Cohen. Carnap had sent him to me with the message: "If you want to find out what my political views were in the twenties and thirties, read Otto Neurath's books and articles of that time; his views were also mine." In this way Robert Cohen became ac quainted with Otto Neurath. Even more: he became interested; and when I asked him, would he help me as an editor of an Otto N eurath volume, he agreed at once. In previous years I had already asked a number of Otto Neurath's friends to write down for me what they especially remembered about him.

Social Empiricism

Social Empiricism
Author: Miriam Solomon
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2007-01-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780262264648

For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations.

The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism

The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism
Author: Alan Richardson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 624
Release: 2007-09-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139826433

If there is a movement or school that epitomizes analytic philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century, it is logical empiricism. Logical empiricists created a scientifically and technically informed philosophy of science, established mathematical logic as a topic in and tool for philosophy, and initiated the project of formal semantics. Accounts of analytic philosophy written in the middle of the twentieth century gave logical empiricism a central place in the project. The second wave of interpretative accounts was constructed to show how philosophy should progress, or had progressed, beyond logical empiricism. The essays survey the formative stages of logical empiricism in central Europe and its acculturation in North America, discussing its main topics, and achievements and failures, in different areas of philosophy of science, and assessing its influence on philosophy, past, present, and future.

Practical Sociology

Practical Sociology
Author: Christopher Bryant
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1996-01-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780745614939

This book offers a new analysis of some basic issues in sociology and social theory, arguing that the social sciencs can, and should, play a major practical role in modern social life.

Statistics, New Empiricism and Society in the Era of Big Data

Statistics, New Empiricism and Society in the Era of Big Data
Author: Giuseppe Arbia
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2021-04-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783030730291

This book reveals the myriad aspects of Big Data collection and analysis, by defining and clarifying the meaning of Big Data and its unique characteristics in a non-technical and easy-to-follow way. Moreover, it discusses critical issues and problems related to the Big Data revolution and their implications for both Statistics as a discipline and for our everyday lives. The author identifies various problems and limitations in the quantitative analysis of Big Data, with regard to e.g. its volume, velocity and variety, as well as its reliability and veridicity. Dedicated chapters focus on the epistemological aspects of data-based knowledge and ethical aspects of the use of Big Data, while also addressing paradigmatic cases such as Cambridge Analytica and the use of data from social networks to influence election outcomes.

Science in the Age of Sensibility

Science in the Age of Sensibility
Author: Jessica Riskin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0226720853

Empiricism today implies the dispassionate scrutiny of facts. But Jessica Riskin finds that in the French Enlightenment, empiricism was intimately bound up with sensibility. In what she calls a "sentimental empiricism," natural knowledge was taken to rest on a blend of experience and emotion. Riskin argues that sentimental empiricism brought together ideas and institutions, practices and politics. She shows, for instance, how the study of blindness, led by ideas about the mental and moral role of vision and by cataract surgeries, shaped the first school for the blind; how Benjamin Franklin's electrical physics, ascribing desires to nature, engaged French economic reformers; and how the question of the role of language in science and social life linked disputes over Antoine Lavoisier's new chemical names to the founding of France's modern system of civic education. Recasting the Age of Reason by stressing its conjunction with the Age of Sensibility, Riskin offers an entirely new perspective on the development of modern science and the history of the Enlightenment.

Knowledge and Social Imagery

Knowledge and Social Imagery
Author: David Bloor
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 215
Release: 1991-09-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226060977

The first edition of this book profoundly challenged and divided students of philosophy, sociology, and the history of science when it was published in 1976. In this second edition, Bloor responds in a substantial new Afterword to the heated debates engendered by his book.