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Purity in Concepts: Defending the Social Sciences

Couto, Alexandra (2016) Purity in Concepts: Defending the Social Sciences. In: Kelsen, Hans, ed. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook. Springer, pp. 257-266. ISBN 978-3-319-21875-5. (doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21876-2_13) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:64004)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-...

Abstract

In Secular Religion, his posthumously published book, Kelsen intended to defend the prevalent theories in the social sciences from the threat of discredit. The drawing of analogies between the social sciences and religion was indeed quite common at that time among intellectuals (such as Eric Voegelin, Raymon Aron and Ernst Cassirer) and Kelsen thought that this analogy created a serious risk to the credibility of the social sciences. I argue that (1) the drawing of analogies between social sciences and religion is not necessarily bad for the social sciences (2) this rhetorical battle between historians of ideas was much less dangerous for the credibility and survival of the social sciences than Kelsen estimated (3) the method chosen by Kelsen to defend the social sciences, conceptual analysis, might not have been the best method for this purpose.

Item Type: Book section
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/978-3-319-21876-2_13
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Alexandra Couto
Date Deposited: 13 Oct 2017 19:27 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 12:22 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/64004 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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