Mapping Reality: An Evolutionary Realist Methodology for the Natural and Social Sciences (SUNY series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences) - Hardcover

Azevedo, Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0791432076 ISBN 13: 9780791432075

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1997

Synopsis

Using the insights of evolutionary epistemology, the author develops a new naturalist realist methodology of science, and applies it to the conceptual, practical, and ethical problems of the social sciences.

With postmodernism and postructuralism sweeping the social sciences and humanities, a whole generation of students from disciplines as diverse as history, English literature, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology are learning that "truth" is bogus―a tired old liberal humanist fiction. Language is incapable of telling the truth, and science, nothing but a socially constructed discourse, functions to maintain the status quo. There is much to be said for this point of view, but ironically, relativists face precisely the same quandary, for if all claims to knowledge are equally valid, then de facto the knowledge claims of the most powerful are the ones disseminated and acted upon. This timely book offers a way out of the current realist/relativist impasse. Azevedo uses the insights of evolutionary epistemology to develop a naturalist realist methodology of science, the "mapping model of knowledge," and applies it to solving the conceptual, practical, and ethical problems faced by sociology as a discipline. The model is developed from the practice of the natural sciences, and comes with an easily applied and powerful heuristic based on mapping, filling the gap left by the downfall of positivist and empiricist methodologies. It shows the inescapably social nature of science, but argues that scientific theories can in fact be validated in perspective-neutral ways ―not despite the social and interest-driven nature of science, but because of it.

About this title

Review

"Azevedo sets out a case for an evolutionary realism that supports pluralism without acceding to relativism. She gives appropriate historical and contextual consideration to contemporary discussions of relativism and other forms of realism and introduces her own theory in the context of examining the appropriateness of different maps for different purposes. Rather than subscribing to one or another of the traditional 'unity of science' themes, she proposes a complementarity based on diverse purposes of inquiry." -- Lenore Langsdorf, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Synopsis

An Australian sociologist and philosopher of science provides students of the social sciences and humanities with a way out of the impasse between realism and relativism that has arisen with postmodernism and poststructuralism. She draws on the practice of the natural sciences and evolutionary epistemology to develop a naturalist realist methodolog

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0791432076
• ISBN 13: 9780791432075
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 322