Bøger af Michael Kuhn

The social sciences and humanities worldwide are discovering the necessity to self-critically reshape their theorizing: The first critique of social science theorizing calls for ¿globalizing¿, the second, parallel critique, for ¿de-colonizing¿ social thought. In his highly topical book, Michael Kuhn discusses· why and how the ¿globalization¿ of social science theorizing introduces thinking through nation state perspectives as an up-to-date methodological must; · how the ¿de-colonialization¿ of social science theorizing with the critique of Eurocentrism and its thinking through space paves the way for the worldwide implementation of thinking through nation-state views, transforming the social science world into a multiplicity of ¿provincialized¿ theories; · with which odd argumentations the ¿indigenization¿ of thought produces contributions to the ideological armament of the new states in the so-called 3rd world after their transformation into the very society system of the former colonizers;· how these indigenized theories make discourses among de-colonized theories a matter of which ¿provincialized¿ theory manages to rule the worldwide creation of theories;· how the masterminds of globally de-colonized thinking present imperial thought as guiding theories for mankind¿s thinking;· what templates for the turn from anti-capitalist towards nationalistic thinking Historical Materialism has provided, and · what consequences all this has for the social sciences as a voice in political debates about the world.

The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by "subaltern" social sciences, their "talking back", has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from "Southern" social sciences of "Western" social sciences has somehow turned "Southern" as well as "Western" social sciences into competing contributors to the same "globalizing" social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails.If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the "Western" as in the "Southern" discourse.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the social sciences discover an epochal "turn" making it necessary to revolutionize their theory-building: As a response to what they call the globalization of the social, they find the need to globalize their theorizing as well.It is odd to discover after two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, after two world wars and several economic world crises 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, preferably, "local theories", just as if any national social was a secluded social biotope. Discussing how 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 also rediscover mythological and moral thinking as a means for a "true scientific universalism".Michael Kuhn''s new book presents many thought-provoking arguments on the oddities of the globalizing social sciences and on how these oddities are not accidents, but a consequence of the nature of how the social sciences theorize about the social.