"It is penetrating in its discussion of the issues but written in an engaging and accessible way. Highly recommended." Choice "In a textbook fashion that is accessible to undergraduate and graduate students alike, Fay offers a multicultural/dialectical approach to social inquiry that is designed to eliminate the traditional dualistic way of thinking that currently dominates the philosophy of social science. For those who are wont to explore the many questions that philosophers of social science are most interested in examining, I would definitely suggest Fay's book. He clearly articulates and assesses many of the difficult arguments in the philosophy of social science." Philosophia, Vol 28, June 2001
Brian C. Fay (born October 5, 1943) is an American philosopher and William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University. He is known for his works on the philosophy of social sciences.[1][2]
fay contemporary philosophy of social science
This understanding of the relation of philosophy and the sciencesremains broadly Kantian. Even while rejecting the role of philosophy astranscendental judge, he still endorses its normative role, to theextent that it still has the capacity to organize the claims ofempirical forms of knowledge and to assign each a role in the normativeenterprise of reflection on historically and socially contextualizedreason. This unstable mixture of naturalism with a normativephilosophical orientation informed much of the critical social scienceof the Frankfurt School in the 1930s.
In the next two sections, I will discuss two aspects of thistransformed conception of Critical Theory. First, I turn to the role ofsocial theory in this more pragmatic account of critical socialinquiry. Contrary to its origins in Marxian theoretical realism, Iargue for methodological and theoretical pluralism as the best form ofpractical social science aimed at human emancipation. Second, Iillustrate this conception in developing the outlines of a criticaltheory of globalization, in which greater democracy and nondominationare its goals. This theory also has a normative side, which is inquiryinto democracy itself outside of its familiar social container of thenation state. In this sense, it attempts not just to show constraintsbut also open possibilities. Critical Theorists have failed not only totake up the challenge of such new social circumstances but also therebyto reformulate democratic ideals in novel ways. I shift first to theunderstanding of the philosophy of social science that would help inthis rearticulation of Critical Theory as critical social inquiry as apractical and normative enterprise.
There are two common, general answers to the question of whatdefines these distinctive features of critical social inquiry: onepractical and the other theoretical. The latter claims that criticalsocial inquiry ought to employ a distinctive theory that unifies suchdiverse approaches and explanations. On this view, Critical Theoryconstitutes a comprehensive social theory that will unify the socialsciences and underwrite the superiority of the critic. The firstgeneration of Frankfurt School Critical Theory sought such a theory invain before dropping claims to social science as central to theirprogram in the late 1940s (Wiggershaus 1994). By contrast, according tothe practical approach, theories are distinguished by the form ofpolitics in which they can be embedded and the method of verificationthat this politics entails. But to claim that critical social scienceis best unified practically and politically rather than theoreticallyor epistemically is not to reduce it simply to democratic politics. Itbecomes rather the mode of inquiry that participants may adopt in theirsocial relations to others. The latter approach has been developed byHabermas and is now favored by Critical Theorists.
The practical alternative offers a solution to this problem bytaking critical social theory in the direction of a pragmaticreinterpretation of the verification of critical inquiry that turnsseemingly intractable epistemic problems into practical ones. The roleof critical social science is to supply methods for making explicitjust the sort of self-examination necessary for on-going normativeregulation of social life. This practical regulation includes thegoverning norms of critical social science itself. Here the relation oftheory to practice is a different one than among the originalpragmatists: more than simply clarifying the relation of means and endsfor decisions on particular issues, these social sciences demandreflection upon institutionalized practices and their norms ofcooperation. Reflective practices cannot remain so without criticalsocial inquiry, and critical social inquiry can only be tested in suchpractices. One possible epistemic improvement is the transformation ofsocial relations of power and authority into contexts of democraticaccountability among political equals (Bohman 1999a; Epstein 1996).
Properly reconstructed, critical social inquiry is the basis for abetter understanding of the social sciences as the distinctive form ofpractical knowledge in modern societies. Their capacity to initiatecriticism not only makes them the democratic moment in modern practicesof inquiry; that is, the social are democratic to the extent that theyare sufficiently reflexive and can initiate discussion of the socialbasis of inquiry within a variety of institutional contexts. Normativecriticism is thus not only based on the moral and cognitive distancecreated by relating and crossing various perspectives; it also has apractical goal. It seeks to expand each normative perspective indialogical reflection and in this way make human beings more aware ofthe circumstances that restrict their freedom and inhibit the full,public use of their practical knowledge. One such salient circumstanceis the long-term historical process of globalization. What is adistinctively critical theory of globalization that aims at such a formof practical knowledge? How might such a theory contribute to wishesand struggles of the age, now that such problematic situations aretransnational and even global? What normative standards can criticsappeal to, if not those immanent in liberalism? While in the nextsection I will certainly talk about critical theorists, I will alsoattempt to do critical social inquiry that combines normative andempirical perspectives with the aim of realizing greater and perhapsnovel forms of democracy where none presently exist.
This critical and practical orientation gives rise to threedifferent questions about critical social inquiry. First, does CriticalTheory suggest a distinctive form of social inquiry? Second, what sortof knowledge does such inquiry provide in order to provide insight intosocial circumstances and justify social criticism of current ideals andinstitutions? Finally, what sort of verification does critical inquiryrequire? In light of the answers to these questions on the practical,democratic, and multiperspectival interpretation defended here, it islikely that Critical Theory is no longer a unique approach.Methodologically, it becomes more thoroughly pluralistic. Politically,it loses its capital letters as the aims and struggles of the age ofglobalization become more diverse and not automatically connected bythe commitment to any particular holistic social theory. Given its owndemocratic aims, it would be hard to justify any other interpretation.In a period in which philosophy cooperates with empirical sciences anddisciplines, Critical Theory offers an approach to distinctly normativeissues that cooperates with the social sciences in a nonreductive way.Its domain is inquiry into the normative dimension of social activity,in particular how actors employ their practical knowledge and normativeattitudes from complex perspectives in various sorts of contexts. Italso must consider social facts as problematic situations from thepoint of view of variously situated agents.
This kind of normative practical knowledge is thus reflexive andfinds its foothold in those ongoing, self-transforming normativeenterprises such as democracy that are similarly reflexive in practice.By discussing democracy in this way, I have also tried to show just howdeep the connections are between it and critical social science:critical theories are not democratic theories, but their practicalconsequences are assessed and verified in democratic practice andsolved by inquiry into better democratic practice. Perhaps one of themore pernicious forms of ideology now is embodied in the appeal of theclaim that there are no alternatives to present institutions. In thisage of diminishing expectations, one important role that remains forthe social scientifically informed, and normatively oriented democraticcritic is to offer novel alternatives and creative possibilities inplace of the defeatist claim that we are at the end of history. Thatwould not only mean the end of inquiry, but also the end ofdemocracy.
cosmopolitanism critical-race-theory democracy epistemology feminist philosophy, interventions: epistemology and philosophy of science globalization Habermas, Jürgen liberty: positive and negative Marxism, analytical pragmatism rationality scientific explanation
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