Wesley W Sharrock
Biographic Data
| ID | 4591653 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wesley W Sharrock |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wesley W |
| FAMILY NAME | Sharrock |
| SIGNATURE | SHARROCK W W |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Language, reality and rationality
The nature and role of language has become the contentious focus for so many of the main issues in philosophy, including epistemological ones. Relativists may argue that the idea of &s;language-independent reality&s; is a valid one by holding that reality is produced, constituted or constructed through language, and that therefore one can know reality, but it is not and can never be a language and-thought-independent reality. The idea of action a…
Positivism and the language of social research
Social scientists, in the main, took their ideas about the natural sciences from the philosophy of science, with positivism as their main inspiration. Following the supposed &s;scientific method&s; as described by positivism was the main route through which social scientists, through the 1930s to 1960s hoped to move in the direction pioneered by the most successful of the natural sciences and, eventually, equal their achievements. The logical pos…
The interpretative alternative
Knowledge of persons could only be gained through an interpretative procedure grounded in the imaginative recreation of the experiences of others to grasp the meaning which things in their world have for them. With Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Weber accepted the importance of &s;interpretative understanding&s; as the distinctive form of knowledge for the sociohistorical sciences but only as a means towards objective knowledge. Weber&s;s analysis of the e…
The philosophy of social research
One of the principal reasons why philosophy and social research remain deeply interconnected is because of the way in which social scientists have adhered to the philosophical view known as &s;foundationalism&s;. This view treats epistemology - the inquiry into the conditions of the possibility of knowledge - as prior to empirical research. Since the nature of philosophy, and its relationship to other forms of knowledge, is itself a major matter …
Conclusion
When philosophy talks about &s;science&s; it is often really only talking about physics. This might seem to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do on the grounds that it is the exceptional achievement of physics which mainly endows the sciences with their air of distinctiveness from other forms of thought. Geology might be a better picture of the kind of natural science that the social sciences could come to resemble. In its more ambitious and sus…
Lay versus scientific conceptions
This chapter begins with illustrations of the ways in which purportedly &s;scientific&s; studies can be described as unwittingly, or unreflectively, incorporating common-sense understandings in their data collection and analysis. As discussed in connection with the correspondence theory of truth for scientific theory proposed by positivism, there is no theory-independent way of looking at the world. The criticism of the social scientific use of o…
The evaporation of meaning
The concern with the meaning of language and the meaning of actions involved, as much as anything else, a response to and critique of behaviourist tendencies in the study of social activities. D. Davidson follows Quine in assuming that understanding a language is the same as translating it. Similarly he adopts a holistic view of language. Davidson treats the business of understanding others mainly in terms of a trade-off between belief and meanin…
Positivism and the conception of science
The implications of the new philosophy of science for the social sciences are radical in some ways, inconsequential in others. What is rejected is positivism&s;s effort to build a view of science stressing the unity of its method, and its search for laws, which the social sciences, if they were to become scientific, would have to emulate. For some realists, especially those concerned with the social sciences, this kind of conclusion is unsatisfac…
The positivist orthodoxy
In the social sciences the first self-conscious proclamation of the positivist view came from Auguste Comte. He followed the optimistic impulses of Diderot and other French Enlightenment philosopher in extending Bacon&s;s ideas about the study of nature to the social. Although it is customary to trace philosophical ancestors back to the early Greeks, the more proximate origins of positivist epistemology lie in that blooming of European thought in…
The Philosophy of Social Research
This fully revised, updated and extended edition of a successful text, introduces some of the important philosophical issues arising from social research practices and historical research in the social sciences. Since its initial publication the field of social research and philosophy has been widely debated, and this expanded version incorporates the most recent discussion and theories. In this edition John Hughes and Wes Sharrock carefully anal…
Irony as a Methodological Theory: A Sketch of Four Sociological Variations
Observation, esoteric knowledge, and automobiles
The Philosophy of Social Research
This fully revised, updated and extended edition of a successful text, introduces some of the important philosophical issues arising from social research practices and historical research in the social sciences. Since its initial publication the field of social research and philosophy has been widely debated, and this expanded version incorporates the most recent discussion and theories. In this edition John Hughes and Wes Sharrock carefully anal…
Observation, esoteric knowledge, and automobiles
Irony as a Methodological Theory: A Sketch of Four Sociological Variations
Observation, esoteric knowledge, and automobiles
Irony as a Methodological Theory: A Sketch of Four Sociological Variations
Language, reality and rationality
The nature and role of language has become the contentious focus for so many of the main issues in philosophy, including epistemological ones. Relativists may argue that the idea of &s;language-independent reality&s; is a valid one by holding that reality is produced, constituted or constructed through language, and that therefore one can know reality, but it is not and can never be a language and-thought-independent reality. The idea of action a…
Positivism and the language of social research
Social scientists, in the main, took their ideas about the natural sciences from the philosophy of science, with positivism as their main inspiration. Following the supposed &s;scientific method&s; as described by positivism was the main route through which social scientists, through the 1930s to 1960s hoped to move in the direction pioneered by the most successful of the natural sciences and, eventually, equal their achievements. The logical pos…
The interpretative alternative
Knowledge of persons could only be gained through an interpretative procedure grounded in the imaginative recreation of the experiences of others to grasp the meaning which things in their world have for them. With Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Weber accepted the importance of &s;interpretative understanding&s; as the distinctive form of knowledge for the sociohistorical sciences but only as a means towards objective knowledge. Weber&s;s analysis of the e…
The philosophy of social research
One of the principal reasons why philosophy and social research remain deeply interconnected is because of the way in which social scientists have adhered to the philosophical view known as &s;foundationalism&s;. This view treats epistemology - the inquiry into the conditions of the possibility of knowledge - as prior to empirical research. Since the nature of philosophy, and its relationship to other forms of knowledge, is itself a major matter …
Conclusion
When philosophy talks about &s;science&s; it is often really only talking about physics. This might seem to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do on the grounds that it is the exceptional achievement of physics which mainly endows the sciences with their air of distinctiveness from other forms of thought. Geology might be a better picture of the kind of natural science that the social sciences could come to resemble. In its more ambitious and sus…
Lay versus scientific conceptions
This chapter begins with illustrations of the ways in which purportedly &s;scientific&s; studies can be described as unwittingly, or unreflectively, incorporating common-sense understandings in their data collection and analysis. As discussed in connection with the correspondence theory of truth for scientific theory proposed by positivism, there is no theory-independent way of looking at the world. The criticism of the social scientific use of o…
The evaporation of meaning
The concern with the meaning of language and the meaning of actions involved, as much as anything else, a response to and critique of behaviourist tendencies in the study of social activities. D. Davidson follows Quine in assuming that understanding a language is the same as translating it. Similarly he adopts a holistic view of language. Davidson treats the business of understanding others mainly in terms of a trade-off between belief and meanin…
Positivism and the conception of science
The implications of the new philosophy of science for the social sciences are radical in some ways, inconsequential in others. What is rejected is positivism&s;s effort to build a view of science stressing the unity of its method, and its search for laws, which the social sciences, if they were to become scientific, would have to emulate. For some realists, especially those concerned with the social sciences, this kind of conclusion is unsatisfac…
The positivist orthodoxy
In the social sciences the first self-conscious proclamation of the positivist view came from Auguste Comte. He followed the optimistic impulses of Diderot and other French Enlightenment philosopher in extending Bacon&s;s ideas about the study of nature to the social. Although it is customary to trace philosophical ancestors back to the early Greeks, the more proximate origins of positivist epistemology lie in that blooming of European thought in…
The Philosophy of Social Research
This fully revised, updated and extended edition of a successful text, introduces some of the important philosophical issues arising from social research practices and historical research in the social sciences. Since its initial publication the field of social research and philosophy has been widely debated, and this expanded version incorporates the most recent discussion and theories. In this edition John Hughes and Wes Sharrock carefully anal…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (3 works) · Positivism (3 works) · Critical Realism in Sociology (2 works) · Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies (2 works)