Berlin is talking about Weber's ideal type explanations. There is a basic difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences. His arguments are weighted against the natural sciences rather than the social sciences in explaining history. It seems to me that both Berlin and Popper refused to see a fundamental difference in methodology between the natural and social sciences.
@@alexanderthedude5474 Where to begin? Peter Winch, "The Idea of a Social Science" George Lakoff, "Philosophy in the Flesh" Steven Lukes, "Moral Relativism" Margaret Gilbert "On Social Facts" John Dewey, "The Quest for Certainty" David Graeber, "Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value" Niklas Luhmann, "The Reality of the Mass Media", Marcel Mauss, "The Gift", Habermas, Foucault, Ian Hacking, " The Social Construction of What?" Kim Sterelney " The Pleistocene Contract"....I'm not sure if you are looking for Sociologists or Philosophers. Most sociologists are not positivists. I'm not sure I know what you mean by positivist. Do you mean someone who only accepts causal explanations as real?
@@alexanderthedude5474 I take back what I said about sociologists. Auguste Comte, the founder of Sociology was also the founder of Positivism. Emile Durkheim was a positivist. But I am more familiar with philosophy than with sociology. More philosophers to look into: Richard Rorty: "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" Frederick Ferre, "Living and Value", Helmuth Plessner, "Levels of the Organic Life and the Human", Ernest Cassirer, "The Logic of the Humanities". There are many many more non-positivist social philosophers out there, but that should give you an idea.
Berlin makes a good case for why knowledge of an individual, with her particular personality and circumstances, cannot be abstracted; however, I’m still not convinced that societal developments and mass behavior can’t be abstracted. Sure, a mass is only a collection of individuals, but the potential for predicting the behavior of a collection of people is much higher than predicting that of a single person. This is precisely why we can develop the statistical sciences. One of the things that some philosophers of history do is to downplay the significance of “great men” figures of history like Churchill and argue that, had they never existed, the existing material or economic conditions would have produced similar figures, and the same or similar events would have happened anyway. In this lecture, Berlin hasn’t convinced me otherwise.
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Love me some Isaiah Berlin.
Berlin is talking about Weber's ideal type explanations. There is a basic difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences. His arguments are weighted against the natural sciences rather than the social sciences in explaining history. It seems to me that both Berlin and Popper refused to see a fundamental difference in methodology between the natural and social sciences.
hi, do you have any suggestions on where to explore arguments for this view? i’m interested in non-positivist views of social science
@@alexanderthedude5474 Where to begin? Peter Winch, "The Idea of a Social Science"
George Lakoff, "Philosophy in the Flesh" Steven Lukes, "Moral Relativism" Margaret Gilbert "On Social Facts" John Dewey, "The Quest for Certainty" David Graeber, "Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value" Niklas Luhmann, "The Reality of the Mass Media", Marcel Mauss, "The Gift", Habermas, Foucault, Ian Hacking, " The Social Construction of What?" Kim Sterelney " The Pleistocene Contract"....I'm not sure if you are looking for Sociologists or Philosophers. Most sociologists are not positivists. I'm not sure I know what you mean by positivist. Do you mean someone who only accepts causal explanations as real?
@@alexanderthedude5474 I take back what I said about sociologists. Auguste Comte, the founder of Sociology was also the founder of Positivism. Emile Durkheim was a positivist. But I am more familiar with philosophy than with sociology. More philosophers to look into: Richard Rorty: "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" Frederick Ferre, "Living and Value", Helmuth Plessner, "Levels of the Organic Life and the Human", Ernest Cassirer, "The Logic of the Humanities". There are many many more non-positivist social philosophers out there, but that should give you an idea.
Berlin makes a good case for why knowledge of an individual, with her particular personality and circumstances, cannot be abstracted; however, I’m still not convinced that societal developments and mass behavior can’t be abstracted. Sure, a mass is only a collection of individuals, but the potential for predicting the behavior of a collection of people is much higher than predicting that of a single person. This is precisely why we can develop the statistical sciences.
One of the things that some philosophers of history do is to downplay the significance of “great men” figures of history like Churchill and argue that, had they never existed, the existing material or economic conditions would have produced similar figures, and the same or similar events would have happened anyway. In this lecture, Berlin hasn’t convinced me otherwise.
❤