Interpretive understanding of human behaviour, known as verstehen, underpins the divide between the social sciences and the natural sciences. Taking a historically orientated approach, this collection offers a fresh take on the development of understanding within analytic philosophy before, during and after logical empiricism. In doing so, it reinvigorates debates on the role of the social sciences within contemporary epistemology.
Bringing together leading experts including Martin Kusch, Thomas Uebel, Karsten Stueber and Giuseppina D’Oro, it is an authoritative reference on the logical empiricists’ philosophy of social science.
Charting the various reformulations of verstehen as proposed by Wilhem Dilthey, Max Weber, R.
G Collingwood and Peter Winch, the volume explores the reception of the social sciences prior to logical empiricism, before surveying the positive and negative critiques from Otto Neurath, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft and other logical empiricists. As such, chapters reveal that verstehen was not altogether rejected by the Vienna Circle, but was subject to various conceptual uses and misuses. Along with systematic historical coverage, the book situates verhesten within contemporary interdisciplinary developments in the field, shedding light on the 21st-century ‘turn’ to understanding among analytic philosophers and opening further lines of inquiry for philosophy of social science.
Edited by:
Adam Tamas Tuboly (Hungarian Academy of Sciences Hungary)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350290266
ISBN 10: 1350290262
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 22 February 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. Introduction, Adam Tamas Tuboly Part I. Before Logical Empiricism 2. Georg Simmel on Historical Understanding, Martin Kusch 3. Understanding, psychology, and the human sciences: Dilthey and Völkerpsychologie, Lydia Patton 4. The Heuristic and Epistemic Account of Verstehen in 20th Century American Philosophy, Fons Dewulf Part II. Logical Empiricism 5. Is There a Hermeneutic aspect in Carnap’s Aufbau, Christian Damböck 6. More on Neurath on Verstehen: The Rejection of Weber’s Ideal-Type Nethodology, Thomas Uebel 7. Andreas Vrahimis: Neurath’s Debate with Horkheimer and the Critique of Verstehen, Thomas Uebel 8. Viktor Kraft on Verstehen, Jan Radler Part III. After Logical Empiricism 9. The Leopard does not Change its Spots: Naturalism and the Argument Against Methodological Pluralism in the Sciences, Jonas Ahlskog and Giuseppina D’Oro 10. Georg Henrik von Wright on Understanding (and Explanation), Henriikaa Hannula 11. Psychological Understanding, Tamas Demeter 12. Verstehen Redux: Understanding in Contemporary Epistemology, Aaron Preston Index
Adam Tamas Tuboly is leader of the MTA Lendület “Values and Science” Research Group at the Research Centre for Humanities at Budapest, and Research Fellow at the ITD in the Medical School at the University of Pécs, Hungary.
Reviews for The History of Understanding in Analytic Philosophy: Around Logical Empiricism
This volume is a triumphant collection of essays. It offers a range of historical and contemporary accounts of the status of the notion of Verstehen that is unmatched by any other volume available. No volume in the near future will be able to provide scholarship of this quality and essays that work in such highly complementary yet non-redundant ways. * Paul Roth, Distinguished Professor, Philosophy and Jewish Studies, UC Santa Cruz, USA * This anthology provides a noteworthy and very welcome addition to the resurgent interest in the problem of understanding in contemporary philosophy. It will be a go-to resource for anybody interested in the history of this complex philosophical problem in the 20th century. * Karsten Stueber, Professor of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, USA *
