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(2009) Human Studies 32 (3).
In his recent book-length study of the current state of the philosophy of the social sciences, Patrick Baert takes aim at the usual methodological understanding of the field, an understanding that unites and limits many naturalist and nonnaturalist approaches alike. If the social sciences were instead inspired by pragmatism, they would aim at “self-knowledge,” the end exhibited in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and, perhaps surprisingly, also in the work of pragmatists such as John Dewey. Such knowledge examines the deep cultural presuppositions of our practices, and in doing so “expands the scope of human possibilities” (pp. 8–9). Other philosophers who might appear to have affinities with pragmatism, such as critical theorists of various kinds, have not rid themselves of the pervasive influence of the spectator theory of knowledge and thus fail to consistently take the pragmatic turn. Social science, Baert tells us, ought to finally rid itself of...
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s10746-009-9126-0
Full citation:
Bohman, J. (2009). Review of Pluralism, pragmatism and self-knowledge,. Human Studies 32 (3), pp. 375-.
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