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Start Over Search Limiters Peer Reviewed Topic argument Publication Year Range Last 10 years Journal journal for the theory of social behaviour
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1. The impossibility of sociology as a science; arguments from within the discipline.

Author

Balon, Jan and Holmwood, John

Subjects
SOCIOLOGY, ARGUMENT, SOCIAL criticism, POSITIVISM, IDEOLOGY
Abstract

This paper addresses a key moment in the development of sociology when its status as a science was criticised from within by ethnomethodologists (Harvey Sacks and Harold Garfinkel), post‐Althusserian Marxists (Barry Hindess) and Michel Foucault. These criticisms seemed to come from different sides, but they converged in arguing their positions from the point of view of a proper conception of science through which mainstream sociology was found wanting. Neither secured its own position and each had a similar legacy of a form of interpretivism hostile both to scientific sociology and its critical project. The paper situates this moment and its legacy where both correspondence and coherence criteria for sociological knowledge claims come to be undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2019
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2. Arguments for the cognitive social sciences.

Author

Kaidesoja, Tuukka, Sarkia, Matti, and Hyyryläinen, Mikko

Subjects
COGNITIVE science, ARGUMENT, SOCIAL sciences, INFERENCE (Logic)
Abstract

This article analyses the arguments for the integration between the cognitive and social sciences. We understand interdisciplinary integration as an umbrella term that includes different ways of bringing scientific disciplines together. Our focus is on four arguments based on different ideas about how the cognitive sciences should be integrated with the social sciences: explanatory grounding, theoretical unification, constraint and complementarity. These arguments not only provide different reasons why the cognitive social sciences—i.e. disciplines and research programs that aim to integrate the social sciences with the cognitive sciences—are needed but also subscribe to different visions as to how these sciences might look like. We discuss each argument in three stages: First, we provide a concrete example of the argument. Second, we reconstruct the argument by specifying its premises, inferential structure and conclusion. Third, we evaluate the argument by analyzing its presuppositions, the plausibility of its premises, the soundness of its inferences and potential conceptual ambiguities. In the final discussion, we compare these arguments and identify the most compelling reasons why the cognitive social sciences are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2019
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3. The Nature of Social Responsibility: Exploring Emancipatory Ends

Author

Helen Mussell

Subjects
Social Psychology, Social philosophy, Flourishing, media_common.quotation_subject, 05 social sciences, Social change, Epistemology, Fundamental human needs, Philosophy, Argument, 0502 economics and business, Corporate social responsibility, Sociology, 050207 economics, Social responsibility, 050203 business & management, General Psychology, Skepticism, media_common
Abstract

Social responsibility (SR) initiatives within a corporate environment (CSR) continue to be met with deep scepticism. My concern is with exploring this scepticism, which I argue is due to there being more to the underlying objectives of SR than has previously been investigated. I begin by outlining and substantiating my project as a social ontological enquiry, one in which I unpack key concepts to reveal the nature of SR. These ontological findings then underpin my argument that SR is problematically grounded in liberalist thinking, and CSR is in fact just one manifestation of SR. I advance the thesis that SR has emancipatory ends, of meeting human needs and flourishing, and that it is best explicated using feminist care ethics. The argument is then focussed on both shoring up and advancing the emancipatory project of SR. The scepticism of interest is revealed to be the incongruity between care and business; that businesses are deemed as being incompatible with SR, at least in their present capacity. Any claims to the contrary by the business community are branded inauthentic and the aforementioned scepticism ensues. The paper concludes with a brief discussion concerning implications for CSR initiatives and future changes and developments are considered.

Published
2016