Chapter 11. The Challenge of Scientism
1. Positivism and Behaviorism
WHAT differentiates the realm of the natural sciences from that of the sciences of human action is the categorial system resorted to in each in interpreting phenomena and constructing theories. The natural sciences do not know anything about final causes; inquiry and theorizing are entirely guided by the category of causality. The field of the sciences of human action is the orbit of purpose and of conscious aiming at ends; it is teleological.
Chapter 12. Psychology and Thymology
1. Naturalistic Psychology and Thymology
MANY AUTHORS believe that psychology is basic to the social sciences, even that it comprehends them all.
Chapter 13. Meaning and Use of the Study of History
1. The Why of History
IN THE EYES of the positivist philosopher the study of mathematics and of the natural sciences is a preparation for action. Technology vindicates the labors of the experimenter. No such justification can be advanced in favor of the traditional methods resorted to by the historians. They should abandon their unscientific anti-quarianism, says the positivist, and turn to the study of social physics or sociology.
Chapter 14. The Epistemological Features of History
1. Prediction in the Natural Sciences
THE NATURAL SCIENCES have two modes of predicting future events: the sweeping prediction and the statistical prediction. The former says: b follows a. The latter says: In x% of all cases b follows a; in (100-x)% of all cases non-b follows a.
Part Four. The Course of History
Chapter 15. Philosophical Interpretations of History
1. Philosophies of History and Philosophical Interpretations of History
THE ATTEMPTS to provide a philosophical interpretation of history must not be confused with any of the various schemes of philosophy of history. They do not aim at the discovery of the end toward which the process of human history is tending. They try to bring into relief factors that play a momentous part in determining the course of historical events.
Chapter 16. Present-Day Trends and the Future
1. The Reversal of the Trend toward Freedom
FROM THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ON, philosophers in dealing with the essential content of history began to stress the problems of liberty and bondage. Their concepts of both were rather vague, borrowed from the political philosophy of ancient Greece and influenced by the prevailing interpretation of the conditions of the Germanic tribes whose invasions had destroyed Rome’s Western empire.
Footnotes
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 2. KNOWLEDGE AND VALUE
CHAPTER 3. THE QUEST FOR ABSOLUTE VALUES
CHAPTER 5. DETERMINISM AND ITS CRITICS
CHAPTER 6. MATERIALISM
CHAPTER 7. DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
CHAPTER 8. PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
CHAPTER 9. THE CONCEPT OF HISTORICAL INDIVIDUALITY
CHAPTER 10. HISTORICISM
CHAPTER 11. THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM
CHAPTER 12.
Index
A | B | C | D | E
F | G | H | I | J
K | L | M | N | P
Q | R | S | T | U
V | W | Z
A
Adjustment, 245
“Agrarian Reformers” in China, 359 f.
The Economics and Ethics of Private Property
