Philosophy and the Social Science: A History of Social Theory

FAIN: FS-10485-76

Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)
Maurice Mendelbaum (Project Director: January 1977 to present)

To analyze how four basic philosophical problems affect social theorizing in political theory, the philosophy of history, and general anthropological and sociological theory. The problems are: theories concerning the psychological basis of human culture, the contrast between methodological individualism and various forms of holism, purposive vs. non-purposive explanations of institutions and institutional change, and relativism vs. historicism in the field of values.