The Social Science Wars have precipitated a renewed interest in the
character, purpose and methods of social science. Positivists and
naturalists are criticized by interpretivists and critical
theorists, while quantitative researchers are challenged by those
who favour qualitative and ethnographic techniques. In turn,
mainstream social scientists have responded with a vigorous defence
and restatement of their commitments.
Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory
proposes a novel approach to practising social and political
analysis based on the role of logics. The authors articulate a
distinctive perspective on social science explanation that avoids
the problems of scientism and subjectivism by steering a careful
course between lawlike explanations and thick descriptions. Drawing
upon hermeneutics, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, and
post-analytical philosophy, this new approach offers a particular
set of logics - social, political and fantasmatic - with which to
construct critical explanations of practices and regimes.
While the first part of the book critically engages with
lawlike, interpretivist and causal approaches to critical
explanation, the second part elaborates an alternative grammar of
concepts informed by an ontological stance rooted in
poststructuralist theory. In developing this approach, a number of
empirical cases are included to illustrate its basic concepts and
logics, ranging from the apartheid regime in South Africa to recent
changes in higher education.
The book will be a valuable tool for scholars and researchers in
a variety of related fields of study in the social sciences,
especially the disciplines of politicalscience and political
theory, international relations, social theory, cultural studies,
anthropology and philosophy.
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