How the Social Sciences Think about the World’s Social - Outline of a Critique

Description

At the beginning of the new millennium, the social sciences took an epochal 'turn' that revolutionized their theory-building. As a response to what they called the globalization of the social, they found the need to globalize their theorizing as well. It is curious that only after two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, after two world wars and several economic world crises, did they discover that there is a world beyond the national socials; it is even more strange that the social sciences globalize their theorizing by comparing theories about nationally confined socials and by creating all sorts of 'local' theories, as if any national social was a secluded social biotope. Trying to globalize the social sciences, they argue that globalizing social science theorizing means finding a way of theorizing that must, above all, be liberated from 'scientism' in order to allow a 'provincialization' of thinking. Not surprisingly, the globalizing social sciences have also rediscovered mythological and moral thinking as a means for a true scientific universalism. Michael Kuhn argues that the oddities of the globalizing social sciences are not accidents, but a consequence of the nature of how the social sciences theorize about the social. Acknowledgements............................................;............................ 7 Preface............................................................................................... 9 Why a theory about social sciences?.........................................ii Chapter A: The world's social in social science thinking.... 23 Social sciences detect the world's social beyond the national biotopes.............. 23 ...by assembling theories about nation state social biotopes................................29 ...off-thinking the world's social................................................................................. 33 ... reflected on through the nation state constructs................................................ 45 ...ever critically measured against idealized nation state rationales...................49 The universalization of social science thinking...................................................... 53 ....completing the globalization of social science theorizing as a multiplicity of scientific patriotisms...................................................................57 From Marx to Heidegger: Critical theorizing in the anti-colonial movements—self-purified for constructive imperial nation state views........... 64 ...opposing a monopoly on spatiological thought in the "centres"....................... 70 .... liberating global social thought from scientific^ for creating patriotic theories....................................................... 76 ... and anti-scientificy to practice global social sciences.......................................82 From patriotic to imperial social science thinking................................................ 84 Nationalism: A service for.imperial social science theorizing..............................91 ...thought back by alternative imperial social science models.............................96 ...critiquing an unequal knowledge imperialism..................................................... 99 The world's nation states serving the world's mankind.......................................103 Chapter B: Categorical essentials ofdisciplinarythinking... 105 The cognitive architecture of disciplinary thinking..............................................107 Essential concepts founding theorizing in the classical social science disciplines................................................................. 115 Anthropology—Regimen as the demand of man's nature....................................116 From anthropological thinking to cultural theories—nation states as cultural artefacts completing man's unfinished nature..........................126 Economic thinking in the social sciences—The bane of scarcity......................... 131 Sociological thinking—The blessing of the "community"....................................136 Political theory-political power for the politically disempowered.................... 144 Psychological thinking—the mythologization of the mind..................................148 Essentials of social sciences disciplinarythinldng...................................................... 1. The common cognitive lie founding the categories of disdplinaiy thinking........................................................... 2. The shared metaphysical nature ofthe disciplines and their speculative way oftheorizing.................................................... 3- Disciplinary social thought cannot think other about the social ljut as an idealized nation state social...............................163 4- The catejgorical essentials: Critically affirmative and idealistically domesticative......................................... 154 5- The world's social in disciplinary thinking—absent.................................... i66 Chapter C: The social science approach to scientific thinking—advancements ofteleological theorizing...........169 The social science mode ofthinkingcognitive operations of a methodological idealism..............................................173 Social sciences theorizing about social science thinking..................................... 179 Why teleological thinking must be the nature ofthinking.................................. 187 The stigma ofthe natural sciences— and the self-destruction of an envied hero....................................................... ^95^ The envied hero....................................................................... ...and his self-destruction................................................................. The decline of scientific knowledge towards ephemeral knowledge............... 200 Chapter D: The discourse about and the progress ofsocial science knowledge.....................209 The discursive creation of acknowledged true knowledge..................................210 Paradoxes of acknowledged knowledge in the global social science discourse........................................................... 218 Global discourse about acknowledged knowledge ruling social science theorizing................................................................. 220 Arguing about the position national knowledge bodies hold.............................224 The progress of acknowledged knowledge........................................................ 229 How to create a globally shared truth ruling global theorizing..................... 235 The ephemeral progress of ephemeral knowledge.............................................. 255 Chapter E: Going beyond the social sciences......................263 Postscript.................................................................................... ...269