397681054

Beyond Relativism : Raymond Boudon, Cognitive Rationality and Critical Realism

Hamlin, Cynthia Lins,i1969- [Verfasser]

1st ed.

Abingdon, Oxon : Taylor and Francis, 2004

Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest

1 Online-Ressource (167 pages)

Routledge Studies in Critical Realism (Routledge Critical Realism) ; v.2

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources

978-0-203-16753-3 ; 978-0-415-25851-7

This book argues that critical realism offers the theory of cognitive rationality a real way of overcoming the limitations of methodological individualism by recognising both the agents' - and the social structure's - causal powers and liabilities. Cynthia Lins Hamlin persuasively argues that critical realism represents a better safeguard against the relativism which springs from the conflation of social reality and our ideas about it. This is an important book for sociologists and anyone working in the social sciences, and for all those concerned with the methodology, and philosophy, of social science.