On knowing : the social sciences / Richard McKeon ; compiled and edited by David B. Owen and Joanne K. Olson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKeon, Richard (Richard Peter), 1900-1985, author.

Contributor:

Owen, David B., 1942- compiler, editor.

Olson, Joanne K., compiler, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social sciences--Philosophy.

Social sciences.

Liberty--Philosophy.

Liberty.

Power (Philosophy).

History--Philosophy.

History.

Physical Description:

xxi, 441 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Summary:

As a philosopher, Richard P. McKeon spent his career developing Pragmatism in a new key, specifically by tracing the ways in which philosophic problems arise in fields other than philosophy-across the natural and social sciences and aesthetics-and showed the ways in which any problem, pushed back to its beginning or taken to its end, is a philosophic problem. The roots of this book, On Knowing-The Social Sciences, are traced to McKeon's classes where he blended philosophy with physics, ethics, politics, history, and aesthetics. This volume-the second in a series-leaves behind natural science themes to-embrace freedom, power, and history, which, McKeon argues, lay out the whole field of human action. The authors McKeon considers-Hobbes, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Kant, and J.S. Mill-show brilliantly how philosophic methods work in action, via analyses that do not merely reduce or deconstruct meaning, but enhance those texts by reconnecting them to the active history of philosophy and to problems of ethics, politics, and history. The waves of modernism and postmodernism are receding. Philosophic pluralism is now available, fully formulated, in McKeon's work, spreading from the humanities to the social sciences. Book jacket.

Contents:

Lecture 1. Philosophical problems in the social sciences

Lecture 2. Freedom: Method

Discussion. Hobbes

Lecture 3. Freedom: Interpretation

Lecture 4. Freedom: Principle

Discussion. Spinoza

Lecture 5. Freedom: Selection

Lecture 6. Freedom: Selection (Part 2)

Discussion. Kant

Lecture 7. Power: Selection and interpretation

Lecture 8. Power: Interpretation (Part 2) and method

Discussion. Mill, On liberty

Lecture 9. Power: Method (Part 2)

Lecture 10. Power: Principle; and History: Interpretation

Discussion. Machiavelli

Lecture 11. History: Method and principle, and conclusion

Discussion. Review

Appendix A. Class schedule

Appendix B. List of names

Appendix C. One alternate introduction to the course

Appendix D. Schema of philosophic semantics

Appendix E. Reading selections from Hobbes's Leviathan and Philosophical rudiments

Appendix F. Kant, Fundamental principles: three editions with major sections

Appendix G. Mill, On liberty: four editions with major sections' pagination

Appendix H. McKeon notes on freedom and history

Appendix I. Final examination

Appendix J. Semantic profiles of selected Western thinkers

Appendix K. Alternative definitions of freedom, power, and history.

Notes:

Lectures and materials from a course on "Concepts and Methods: The Social Sciences" offered at the University of Chicago in 1965.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226340180

022634018X

9780226340210

022634021X

OCLC:

921863790