Pattern and Meaning in History (RLE Social Theory): Wilhelm Dilthey's Thoughts on History and Society (Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1138786233 ISBN 13: 9781138786233

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

'One may state Dilthey's significance in most general fashion by characterizing his work as the first thorough-going and sophisticated confrontation of history with positivism and natural science. Dilthey's sweep was universal: he strove to reduce to order the multifarious realms of knowledge, the conflicting traditions of cultural study, that he had embraced. Thus Dilthey laid out a program that no mortal – and certainly no one whose mind had been formed in the third quarter of the nineteenth century – could hope to bring to completion. Yet despite its inconclusiveness, Dilthey's work exerted enormous influence. The distinction he had drawn between natural and cultural science became standard for historians and, to a lesser extent, for social scientists also. After Dilthey historians no longer needed to apologize for the "unscientific" character of their discipline: they understood why its methods could never be quite the same as those of natural science. And the contemporary tradition of intellectual history grew naturally out of Dilthey's teaching.' – H. Stuart Hughes

About this title

About the Author

In the area of social theory I am interested in how agency and structure combine in social life. In relation to this I have developed the 'theory of social domains' which represents my own attempt to deal with the agency-structure problem. I have also developed a methodological approach called 'adaptive theory'. This attempts to harness the creative synergy between 'received' (or 'preconceived') and 'emergent' theory, but also depends on a close connection between the construction of explanatory theory and the collection of empirical data. My ongoing interests are in drawing out the links between the 'theory of social domains' and 'adaptive theory' in the context of empirical research. With these objectives in mind I have recently completed studies of self-identity, emotion, intimacy, and power and control in social life.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138786233
• ISBN 13: 9781138786233
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 172
• Editor: Rickman H.P.