Often find yourself deep down social science rabbit holes? This book may be able to save you some time. Alan Macfarlane has written a history of sociaOften find yourself deep down social science rabbit holes? This book may be able to save you some time. Alan Macfarlane has written a history of social science paradigms in the spirit of Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault. This or another book like it may help you avoid falling too deep down old rabbit holes, unless you get your kicks out of exploring them.
This book was based on a series of lectures that Macfarlane originally taught at Cambridge in 1982. In 2012 he updated them for a series of videos that he uploaded to YouTube, and in 2024 he converted them into this book. In the book Macfarlane traces the worldviews behind the main directions in Western social science from ancient societies up through the present. His overarching premise is that the scholarship and the worldviews in which that scholarship form are consciously or unconsciously products of their societies and their place in the world.
In a journey through social science history, Macfarlane takes the reader through the emergence of linear views of progress in the Enlightenment, their eclipse in the conservatism and pessimism following the French Revolution, the development of evolutionary theories of social development in age of imperialism, their eclipse following WWI and the emergence of structuralism and functionalism, the waxing in the Postwar years marked by American hegemony of scholarship in the disciplines with new broadly evolutionary views of development, and their relative waning in the new global era that has emerged in the 21st century.
Macfarlane is erudite and the book is clearly well researched. As a matter of pacing he spends about half of his time and energy on the years and theories between about 1750 and 1850 from the Scottish Enlightenment through the heyday of first-wave evolutionism. In my mind a little more time on the ancient forerunners of social science and on the mid to late 20th century social sciences may have rounded out and added a little more balance to the account. Regardless at least from my perspective the book filled a gap in the literature and my understanding of the development of the social sciences. Glad I encountered it....more
Actually, I’m a little disappointed in this book. It feels like a missed opportunity to be a better work. Desmond’s heart is in the right place. For pActually, I’m a little disappointed in this book. It feels like a missed opportunity to be a better work. Desmond’s heart is in the right place. For people unfamiliar with the social and economic inequality in America, this may be a good place to start. The first half of the book is filled with some analysis fueled by moral outrage. It can be edifying and cathartic to fume. A little indignation to raise consciousness every now and then is welcome. However, poverty in America is such a big intractable problem. We could hope for a fresh take or a new pathway to fight. Sadly, as it goes along, the text seems to get stuck in second gear. For those versed in these intractable problems, Desmond fails to reckon with the thing standing in the way of change which is entrenched power. Instead, he just jumps into policy recommendations. The last half of the book reads like a long suggestions list, which is often the final weakest chapter of many books. Who exactly is the audience for these prescriptions? Is it the same as the readership for this book? Can they do anything about it? Without reckoning with power, this is a long wish list. A better book would grapple with a theory of change and the hard path to get there. Maybe, as is, it helps new initiates get up to speed....more
This is a short book—really a series of thematically connected essays—written by Giddens in the early 80s. The 80s as we all know were, among other thThis is a short book—really a series of thematically connected essays—written by Giddens in the early 80s. The 80s as we all know were, among other things, a decade of ascendant neoliberalism, social retrenchment, and an intellectual interregnum. Giddens attempts to navigate this landscape by engaging with and critiquing leading figures of fading functionalism including Durkheim and Parsons, the quickly ascendant and descending structuralism, the Frankfurt school by way of Marcuse and Habermas, the influences of hermeneutics and phenomenology, western Marxism, and Weber and neo-Weberians. In so doing, Giddens attempts to cut a path through the subjectivist and objectivist approaches prevalent at the time. For better, or more likely worse, our intellectual landscape in the 2020s has not really changed profoundly since the time of this book. Rather there has been a proliferation of approaches, primarily on the subjectivist side. Giddens is more or less successful in laying out the framework for such a path. The main criticisms may be that even in the 80s it was too late and what was really needed was an approach in reality and practice and not one in theory. His theoretical approach laid out in greater detail in other works really got lost in the mix with the torrent of other momentarily sexier works that were in vogue at the time and continue to attract acolytes to this day. Regardless, this was an enjoyable foray through the social theory limelight of the not too distant past....more
Until recently, segregation in the United States was often understood through a juridical lens. In a common interpretation, the discourse on segregatiUntil recently, segregation in the United States was often understood through a juridical lens. In a common interpretation, the discourse on segregation was bookmarked by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) enshrining "separate but equal" on the one hand, and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) beginning the process of integration on the other hand, followed by an ensuing seven decades where segregation was publicly and privately debated and in some quarters was assumed to have disappeared. As a subset of this conventional discourse, it was commonly assumed that Civil Rights brought an end to the “bad old days” of segregation. Where these assumptions were challenged, the thinking went that de jure segregation sanctioned by the force of law was replaced—where segregation existed at all—by de facto segregation that may exist in fact but was not officially sanctioned. Emerging out of a relatively burgeoning political science and public policy literature, the research and argument in Segregation by Design is part of a reinterpretation that challenges these conventional understandings.
As a generalization, politics may be concisely described as the process that decides who gets what, when, and how. As an elaborate study of this characterization, in this book Trounstine attempts to describe local government policy as it drives race and class segregation in American cities since the late 1800s, the advancement of industrialization and urbanization, and the growth and maturation of cities. Throughout the book, she charts the course of urban segregation during this timespan through to the contemporary era. On the ground below the national legal and political environment, she argues that space, urban design, public service provision, and (more indirectly) property values are matters influenced and pursued through the local political process, with benefits and spoils accruing to those in power and their supporters. In the historical narrative, she offers a periodizing approach where the basic model of local political influence and power remains roughly constant but the strategies, tactics, and terrain shift midcentury. Employing the basic conceptual framework, her arguments follow a basic formula where she presents historical narrative and then offers quantitative analyses supporting the developments presented in the narrative. In so doing, Trounstine attempts to weave together a historical theoretical structure with empirical analyses and evidence to support the conclusions. The historical narrative conceptualizes the development of American urban society and the influence of homeowners and businesses on the local policy process; the empirical analyses provide statistical evidence to show the impact of the policies on segregation and inequality. Viewed independently, the theoretical analyses read as conceptually driven historical narrative and the empirical analyses read as a series of postpositivist studies. Together, the two approaches strive to reinforce one another with the historical case studies quantified and verified by the empirical analyses.
In framing this research, Trounstine pursues four general lines of investigation. First, she seeks to elaborate on the circumstances where communities and cities are more likely to enact policies that generate segregation. In this line, she attempts to flesh out the landed and monied interests that drive policies that help generate and give rise to segregation. Second, as a means to protect their interests, she documents the local policies that are advanced by property owners and businesses that intentionally or unintentionally help generate and shape segregation. Where these policies are in place, she traces the impacts of segregation based on race and class lines. Third, tracking the changes over the course of the long 20th century, Troustine follows how segregation evolved in and between American cities from the late 19th century through the early 21st century. Following these changes over the decades, she records how segregation is manifested in terms of inequalities and social spending in different blocks, neighborhoods, and cities. Finally, she looks at the other salient effects of segregation, and how segregated cities and neighborhoods impact other political behaviors, often in the interest of maintaining property values (e.g. NIMBY), promoting social spending in your neighborhood but not in other neighborhoods for others, and most recently lowering social spending for all once groups have the goods for themselves.
There are, however, limitations and areas for improvement in each of the approaches. The historical studies of the cities discussed in the book are, just that, case studies. Completing quantitative analyses to support the conclusions does not change the underlying study design. In addition, the cities selected seemed to be based on a convenience sample. As such, the cities could be representative of other cities in America. However, with this apparent convenience sample, the cities could also not be representative of other cities in the United States. A more rigorous sampling methodology would help improve the generalizability of Trounstine’s findings. Otherwise, as in this case, caution is warranted before attempting to generalize from the cities studied to other cities, much less the American experience in the aggregate. In further assessing the approach, Trounstine apparently attempts to increase the validity of her analysis and the reliability of her findings by the volume of city case studies discussed and empirical analyses included throughout the book. However, there is still the large threat of selection bias. In fact, there is a particular type of selection bias known as "selecting on the dependent variable" where the author picks the case studies because they illustrate the outcome that the author is trying to demonstrate. In common parlance, we would call this "cherry picking" and the author can then work backward to find the independent variables that led to these outcomes. This is a common problem in social science works published outside of peer-reviewed journals, e.g. mass market books. Since this threat of selection bias has not been controlled for, the findings and conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.
With that said, as a whole, in the book Trounstine makes a compelling case about the persistence and evolution of segregation in American cities as driven by local policies. The work may represent an instance where the overall product of the theoretical and empirical approaches is more persuasive than the rigor of the approaches on their own would seem to warrant. In the last analysis, the book provides ample fodder to question the conventional narrative that segregation is only a thing of the past. As Faulkner famously quipped: the past is not dead; it's not even past....more
For those who were interested, there was some interesting work being done in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s by some of the elder statesmen of North AmeriFor those who were interested, there was some interesting work being done in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s by some of the elder statesmen of North American philosophy, including Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Taylor, and their lesser-known contemporary Joseph Margolis, among others. At this relatively late date in their lives and the history of philosophy, they made a fairly major effort to push American philosophy back into the social lifeworld and the human sciences.
Said another way, these late-emerging efforts were a belated foray to strike a course between the excesses and exuberances of continental philosophy and the scientisim of analytic philosophy. As Margolis argues elsewhere, one problem with a mainline of American academic philosophy from about the time of the second world war to the present, a period dominated by mid-century analytic philosophy, is that it was too scientistic. As a consequence, they had ceded the analysis and contemplation of the individual, the culture, and the nation to others including cultural critics and literary departments. As a result, some of the major public intellectuals during this period came from other departments: bringing us the likes of Fredric Jameson and Christopher Lasch, and partisans from completely outside the academy like William Buckley. For a couple of decades towards the end of the last century, Richard Rorty was the major exception and this in part spoke to his willingness to engage in the major issues of the day beyond his particular specialization.
The major lines of continental philosophy were not subject to these limitations. Rather, in making the leap into some of the major issues of life, the leading lights of continental philosophy would bring with themselves their own personal stylistic exuberances. In a sense, they each created their own personal metaphysics to go along with their theories, methods, and analyses. Anyone who has spent any time reading continental philosophy would have little trouble identifying the varieties of these idiosyncrasies and stylistic extravagances. As a result, for about the last century or more continental philosophers had been writing the obituaries of metaphysics while simultaneously coming up with their own personal one for their own system or antisystem.
Continuing from his earlier works, in this work Margolis attempts to chart a course between these two poles. In a sense, he is attempting a contemporary update to pragmatism in light of a century of developments in linguistic philosophy and post-Darwinian paleoanthropology. The upshot is that this develops into a thoroughly developmental, socially constructivist undertaking. Pace Kant, Margolis sees the human person as a developmental linguistically enabled self. The development of the individual self and personality, as he sees it, is the result of learning and using language in the culture and human lifeworld. Following this line, and as ventured as a working hypothesis subject to revision and falsification, this is what distinguishes the developed human being and social citizen from infants and the less linguistically gifted primates. As this thread develops, all of the human sciences are then largely cultural creations. Now, most people lack the influence to help shape the culture. Those that do, though, exert influence through a give and take within their social lifeworld in a give and take with the other inhabitants; influence is the result of giving in a way that impacts others and helps shape aspects of the culture. An interesting thread, jumping off from here, would have been fleshing out what a research agenda would look like: it would likely be more constructivist than we are accustomed to for the human sciences.
There are shortcomings to this work, perhaps the most major being no fault of the author. As one can see from the Goodreads stats, this is not a well-read book and Margolis is not a particularly well-read author. In a certain important sense, philosophy and the human sciences are social undertakings. As we understand these undertakings now, they are carried out in dialogue with others. As everyone knows from cocktail parties and the like, the essence of effective persuasive dialogue is connecting into common points of reference with the other party-goers in the conversation in order to elaborate one's point and draw in the audience toward one's conclusions. The more others know the reference points, the easier it is to exert influence and make your point; the less familiar others are with the reference points, generally speaking, the less interested they are to hear out your point. So despite the many merits of this work, a major demerit is the relative anonymity of the author. This is a factor to consider before reading any work including this one. If it does not hold you back, there is much to recommend this writing....more
This book is a product of old age. In the same sense as Kant's Critique of Judgement. Erik Olin Wright had spent the first half of his career laying oThis book is a product of old age. In the same sense as Kant's Critique of Judgement. Erik Olin Wright had spent the first half of his career laying out an analytic study of classes and the second half of his career identifying pockets of real-world utopian practices. In this book, which was supposed to be a popularization of the latter, he proceeds to summarily transcend the practices and categories he spent decades researching and laying out. The title is probably the worst thing about it. What I like about it, is that he is here presenting his best case for how to go about solutions to the problems and ills of our economy and society. Everyone and their mother seems these days to have their own definition of the problem and wants to spend so much of their time telling us about it. So few are able to come up with solutions and an approach that makes sense. This is what Erik Olin Wright tries to do. Is it perfect? Certainly not. Nevertheless, it's a start and a pretty good one at that. I wish this book was around in the early 1990s. It would've saved us a lot of angst and given us a roadmap of how to direct it towards something productive....more
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