The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (Paperback)

This academic study is a jump ahead of the usual polemical assessments of the state of theorizing about the social sciences. Over and over we have heard that the to social and political studies must be challenged by gumshoe empiricist approach sounder concepts of the value-fact duality. Bernstein, a Haverford philosophy professor, outlines three sorts of attempts to supersede "value-neutrality" and "brute fact" premises, appraises their successes, and concludes that their own practitioners need to go further in realizing "the critical function of theory." The three are linguistic analysis and other branches of structuralism (Thomas Kihn's seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is categorized here); phenomenology from Husserl to, in particular, the emigre Alfred Schutz; and the investigation of "praxis," represented here by Frankfurt School specialist Jurgen Habermas. Bernstein judges them in some analytic detail, his sobriety sometimes almost tongue-in-cheek, as when he makes Schutz' elaborate distinction between purposes and past causal influences seem absurdly commonsensical, or when he wryly suggests that the Teutonic Habermas has ended up a mere pragmatist, denying that theory can actually shape practical judgment. But has Bernstein shown that, in running up against their own limitations, these thinkers are pointing toward further progress, as he claims, or is he documenting a new level of sterility? In any case, this is a suggestive, demanding resume, more restricted but more up-to-date than Alan Ryan's Philosophy of Social Science (1972). (Kirkus Reviews)

"Anyone who wants to understand the profound changes that have overtaken the social disciplines in the course of the past decade ought to read Bernstein's book. He examines an extraordinarily wide range of theories with the most scrupulous care, in each case adding a series of extremely perceptive criticisms."--Quentin Skinner, New York Review of Books "Valuable . . . for identifying the requirements for all rational life."--Religious Studies Review Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research.

General

Imprint:	University of PennsylvaniaPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	March 1978
First published:	1978
Authors:	Richard J. Bernstein
Dimensions:	235 x 155 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	316
ISBN-13:	978-0-8122-7742-5
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory
LSN:	0-8122-7742-2
Barcode:	9780812277425

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