Jason Blakely
Biographic Data
| ID | 1693409 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jason Blakely |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jason |
| FAMILY NAME | Blakely |
| SIGNATURE | BLAKELY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pepperdine University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Radicalizing and De-Radicalizing Charles Taylor
This article aims is to clarify two opposing interpretations of Charles Taylor’s philosophy against the backdrop of the current crisis of liberal capitalism. The first, de-radicalizing reading, insists that liberal modernity is reformable and radical transformation to a post-capitalist society untenable. The second, radicalizing reading, underscores the possibility of transcending liberal-capitalism but paradoxically through the fulfillment of li…
We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics, and Power
Over the last fifty years, pseudoscience has crept into nearly every facet of our lives. Popular sciences of everything from dating and economics, to voting and artificial intelligence, radically changed the world today. The abuse of popular scientific authority has catastrophic consequences, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis; the failure to predict the rise of Donald Trump; increased tensions between poor communities and the police; and …
Nihilism as Rightwing Political Rhetoric
This paper advances a critical analysis of the neoconservative discourse on "nihilism" in the United States. The crisis of "nihilism" is tied to attempts to rollback civil rights, feminism, and multiculturalism. Manufacturing this crisis is part of a wider political theology that is in discontinuity with the philosophers most often evoked as its sources. Applying a hermeneutic approach to rightwing claims of nihilism reveals a defective philosoph…
Naturalism and Its Inadvertent Defenders
The interpretive turn in the social sciences, although much discussed, has effectively stalled and even begun to backslide. With the publication of Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach, we provide a systema- tic defense of interpretive inquiry intended to help reinvigorate this mode of study across the human sciences. This defense, unfortunately, needs to be deployed not only against social scientists who unwittingly adopt nat…
Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach
In this book Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely set out to make the most comprehensive case yet for an 'interpretive' or hermeneutic approach to the social sciences. Interpretive approaches are a major growth area in the social sciences today. This is because they offer a full-blown alternative to the behavioralism, institutionalism, rational choice, and other quasi-scientific approaches that dominate the study of human behavior. In addition to present…
The Hermeneutics of Policing: An Analysis of Law and Order Technocracy
Contemporary American policing practices are marked by increasingly top-down, racialized, militarized, and pseudo-scientific features. Social scientists have played a central role in creating this political situation: social-scientific advocates of “law and order,” far from providing a value-neutral description of social reality, appear instead to have contributed to the creation of a peculiarly modern form of power
Why Political Science Is an Ethical Issue
Many advocates of interpretive approaches to the study of politics emphasize that what is at stake is a conflict between “quantitative” versus “qualitative” methods. By contrast, we begin by suggesting that political scientists are free to use whichever method they find most useful for their research purposes. Instead of methodological reasons for making the interpretive turn, political scientists have ethical reasons for adopting this paradigm. …
Leo Strauss, Political Science, and the Trouble with a “Great Books” Approach to the Study of Politics
I argue that Leo Strauss’s critique of political science has been deeply misunderstood. Moreover, once the true nature of Strauss’s critique is clarified, I argue that he does not provide a viable alternative to contemporary political science. Instead, his philosophy has mostly justified a “great books” approach to the study of politics, which has contributed to the self-isolation of political theory from the rest of political science. Political …
How Charles Taylor Philosophizes with History: A Review of Dilemmas and Connections
Charles Taylor’s latest collection of essays, Dilemmas and Connections , is the most recent installment in his development of a grand history of the rise of a modern, secular age. In this review, I show how the historical narrative that defines Taylor’s late work is in continuity with his earlier hermeneutic commitments, while also allowing him to advance new inquiries into areas as diverse as secularism, religion, nationalism, and human rights d…
Returning to the Interpretive Turn: Charles Taylor and His Critics
In skirmishes over the interpretive turn, the work of Charles Taylor is frequently cited as representing the state of the art. Yet a systematic assessment of Taylor's interpretivism in light of the most salient criticisms made against it has not been conducted. This paper argues that Taylor's interpretivism withstands the strongest criticisms made of it so far, and therefore is an essential resource for revitalizing the interpretive turn. Althoug…
The Forgotten Alasdair MacIntyre: Beyond Value Neutrality in the Social Sciences
Alasdair MacIntyre is often recognized for his contributions to moral philosophy. In this article, I argue that his reputation should be rehabilitated as a theorist who has realized an essentially critical conception of social science that moves beyond the old dogma of value neutrality. The article’s first section narrates how MacIntyre’s unique conception of a critical social science arose out of debates with Peter Winch, whose defense of value …
Political Relativism in the Work of Martin Heidegger
Much of the scholarly debate over the Heidegger controversy has endeavored to either connect or free his philosophy from fascism. Against both these tendencies, I argue that the central concepts of Heidegger's philosophy are politically underdetermined. Throughout both his late and early periods, Heidegger's primary ambition remained the illumination of the question of being, a project that I argue made his ontological framework inherently relati…
Analytic ethics in the central period
Analytic ethics in the central period – extending from the beginning of the twentieth century to post-World War II linguistic analysis – is too often construed by historians and philosophers alike in monolithic terms as the emotivism of A. J. Ayer. In contrast, we argue that a multiplicity of ethical doctrines were developed by analytic philosophers at this time of which Ayer's emotivism was just one. Moreover, we maintain that this multiplicity …
Why Political Science Is an Ethical Issue
Many advocates of interpretive approaches to the study of politics emphasize that what is at stake is a conflict between “quantitative” versus “qualitative” methods. By contrast, we begin by suggesting that political scientists are free to use whichever method they find most useful for their research purposes. Instead of methodological reasons for making the interpretive turn, political scientists have ethical reasons for adopting this paradigm. …
Returning to the Interpretive Turn: Charles Taylor and His Critics
In skirmishes over the interpretive turn, the work of Charles Taylor is frequently cited as representing the state of the art. Yet a systematic assessment of Taylor's interpretivism in light of the most salient criticisms made against it has not been conducted. This paper argues that Taylor's interpretivism withstands the strongest criticisms made of it so far, and therefore is an essential resource for revitalizing the interpretive turn. Althoug…
The Forgotten Alasdair MacIntyre: Beyond Value Neutrality in the Social Sciences
Alasdair MacIntyre is often recognized for his contributions to moral philosophy. In this article, I argue that his reputation should be rehabilitated as a theorist who has realized an essentially critical conception of social science that moves beyond the old dogma of value neutrality. The article’s first section narrates how MacIntyre’s unique conception of a critical social science arose out of debates with Peter Winch, whose defense of value …
Naturalism and Its Inadvertent Defenders
The interpretive turn in the social sciences, although much discussed, has effectively stalled and even begun to backslide. With the publication of Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach, we provide a systema- tic defense of interpretive inquiry intended to help reinvigorate this mode of study across the human sciences. This defense, unfortunately, needs to be deployed not only against social scientists who unwittingly adopt nat…
The Hermeneutics of Policing: An Analysis of Law and Order Technocracy
Contemporary American policing practices are marked by increasingly top-down, racialized, militarized, and pseudo-scientific features. Social scientists have played a central role in creating this political situation: social-scientific advocates of “law and order,” far from providing a value-neutral description of social reality, appear instead to have contributed to the creation of a peculiarly modern form of power
Analytic ethics in the central period
Analytic ethics in the central period – extending from the beginning of the twentieth century to post-World War II linguistic analysis – is too often construed by historians and philosophers alike in monolithic terms as the emotivism of A. J. Ayer. In contrast, we argue that a multiplicity of ethical doctrines were developed by analytic philosophers at this time of which Ayer's emotivism was just one. Moreover, we maintain that this multiplicity …
Analytic ethics in the central period
Analytic ethics in the central period – extending from the beginning of the twentieth century to post-World War II linguistic analysis – is too often construed by historians and philosophers alike in monolithic terms as the emotivism of A. J. Ayer. In contrast, we argue that a multiplicity of ethical doctrines were developed by analytic philosophers at this time of which Ayer's emotivism was just one. Moreover, we maintain that this multiplicity …
Political Relativism in the Work of Martin Heidegger
Much of the scholarly debate over the Heidegger controversy has endeavored to either connect or free his philosophy from fascism. Against both these tendencies, I argue that the central concepts of Heidegger's philosophy are politically underdetermined. Throughout both his late and early periods, Heidegger's primary ambition remained the illumination of the question of being, a project that I argue made his ontological framework inherently relati…
How Charles Taylor Philosophizes with History: A Review of Dilemmas and Connections
Charles Taylor’s latest collection of essays, Dilemmas and Connections , is the most recent installment in his development of a grand history of the rise of a modern, secular age. In this review, I show how the historical narrative that defines Taylor’s late work is in continuity with his earlier hermeneutic commitments, while also allowing him to advance new inquiries into areas as diverse as secularism, religion, nationalism, and human rights d…
Returning to the Interpretive Turn: Charles Taylor and His Critics
In skirmishes over the interpretive turn, the work of Charles Taylor is frequently cited as representing the state of the art. Yet a systematic assessment of Taylor's interpretivism in light of the most salient criticisms made against it has not been conducted. This paper argues that Taylor's interpretivism withstands the strongest criticisms made of it so far, and therefore is an essential resource for revitalizing the interpretive turn. Althoug…
The Forgotten Alasdair MacIntyre: Beyond Value Neutrality in the Social Sciences
Alasdair MacIntyre is often recognized for his contributions to moral philosophy. In this article, I argue that his reputation should be rehabilitated as a theorist who has realized an essentially critical conception of social science that moves beyond the old dogma of value neutrality. The article’s first section narrates how MacIntyre’s unique conception of a critical social science arose out of debates with Peter Winch, whose defense of value …
Leo Strauss, Political Science, and the Trouble with a “Great Books” Approach to the Study of Politics
I argue that Leo Strauss’s critique of political science has been deeply misunderstood. Moreover, once the true nature of Strauss’s critique is clarified, I argue that he does not provide a viable alternative to contemporary political science. Instead, his philosophy has mostly justified a “great books” approach to the study of politics, which has contributed to the self-isolation of political theory from the rest of political science. Political …
Why Political Science Is an Ethical Issue
Many advocates of interpretive approaches to the study of politics emphasize that what is at stake is a conflict between “quantitative” versus “qualitative” methods. By contrast, we begin by suggesting that political scientists are free to use whichever method they find most useful for their research purposes. Instead of methodological reasons for making the interpretive turn, political scientists have ethical reasons for adopting this paradigm. …
Nihilism as Rightwing Political Rhetoric
This paper advances a critical analysis of the neoconservative discourse on "nihilism" in the United States. The crisis of "nihilism" is tied to attempts to rollback civil rights, feminism, and multiculturalism. Manufacturing this crisis is part of a wider political theology that is in discontinuity with the philosophers most often evoked as its sources. Applying a hermeneutic approach to rightwing claims of nihilism reveals a defective philosoph…
Naturalism and Its Inadvertent Defenders
The interpretive turn in the social sciences, although much discussed, has effectively stalled and even begun to backslide. With the publication of Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach, we provide a systema- tic defense of interpretive inquiry intended to help reinvigorate this mode of study across the human sciences. This defense, unfortunately, needs to be deployed not only against social scientists who unwittingly adopt nat…
Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach
In this book Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely set out to make the most comprehensive case yet for an 'interpretive' or hermeneutic approach to the social sciences. Interpretive approaches are a major growth area in the social sciences today. This is because they offer a full-blown alternative to the behavioralism, institutionalism, rational choice, and other quasi-scientific approaches that dominate the study of human behavior. In addition to present…
The Hermeneutics of Policing: An Analysis of Law and Order Technocracy
Contemporary American policing practices are marked by increasingly top-down, racialized, militarized, and pseudo-scientific features. Social scientists have played a central role in creating this political situation: social-scientific advocates of “law and order,” far from providing a value-neutral description of social reality, appear instead to have contributed to the creation of a peculiarly modern form of power
We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics, and Power
Over the last fifty years, pseudoscience has crept into nearly every facet of our lives. Popular sciences of everything from dating and economics, to voting and artificial intelligence, radically changed the world today. The abuse of popular scientific authority has catastrophic consequences, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis; the failure to predict the rise of Donald Trump; increased tensions between poor communities and the police; and …
Radicalizing and De-Radicalizing Charles Taylor
This article aims is to clarify two opposing interpretations of Charles Taylor’s philosophy against the backdrop of the current crisis of liberal capitalism. The first, de-radicalizing reading, insists that liberal modernity is reformable and radical transformation to a post-capitalist society untenable. The second, radicalizing reading, underscores the possibility of transcending liberal-capitalism but paradoxically through the fulfillment of li…
Epistemology (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Law (6 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (4 works) · Environmental ethics (4 works)