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Verstehen - The Uses of Understanding in Social Science (Hardcover)
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Verstehen - The Uses of Understanding in Social Science (Hardcover)
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In late nineteenth-century German academic circles, the term
"verstehen" (literally, understanding, or comprehension) came to be
associated with the view that social phenomena must be understood
from the point of view of the social actor. Advocates of this
approach were opposed by positivists who stressed the unity of
method between the social and natural sciences and an external,
experimental, and quantitative knowledge. Although modified over
time, the dispute between positivists and antipositivists--nowadays
called naturalists and antinaturalists--has persisted and still
defines many debates in the field of philosophy of social sciences.
In this volume, Michael Martin offers a critical appraisal of
"verstehen" as a method of verification and discovery as well as a
necessary condition for understanding. In its strongest forms,
"verstehen" entails subjectively reliving the experience of the
social actor or at least rethinking his or her thoughts, while in
its weaker forms it only involves reconstructing the rationale for
acting. Martin's opening chapter offers a reconsideration of the
debate between the classical "verstehen" theorists--Wilhelm
Dilthey, Max Weber, R.G. Collingwood--and the positivists. Chapters
2 and 3 deal with positivist critiques of "verstehen" as a method
of social scientific verification and understanding. In the
subsequent chapters Martin considers contemporary varieties of the
"verstehen" position and argues that they like the classical
positions, they conflict with the pluralistic nature of social
science. Chapter 4 discusses Peter Winch's and William Dray's
variants of "verstehen," while chapters 5 through 9 consider recent
theorists--Karl Popper, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz--whose work
can be characterized in "verstehen"ist terms: In his conclusion
Martin defines the limitations of the classical and recent
"verstehen" positions and proposes a methodological pluralism in
which "verstehen" is justified pragmatically in terms of the
purposes and contexts of inquiry. This volume is the only
comprehensive and sustained critique of "verstehen" theory
currently available. It will be of interest to sociologists,
philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.
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