Kevin McMillan

The Constitution of Social Practices

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Practices - specific, recurrent types of human action and activity - are perhaps the most fundamental "building blocks" of social reality. This book argues that the detailed empirical study of practices is essential to effective social-scientific inquiry. It develops a philosophical infrastructure for understanding human practices, and argues that practice theory should be the analytical centrepiece of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. What would social scientists' research look like if they took these insights seriously? To answer this question, the book offers an analytical framework to guide empirical research on practices in different times and places. The author explores how practices can be identified, characterised and explained, how they function in concrete contexts and how they might change over time and space. The Constitution of Social Practices lies at the intersection of philosophy, social theory, cultural theory and the social sciences. It is essential reading for scholars in social theory and the philosophy of social science, as well as the broad range of researchers and students across the social sciences and humanities whose work stands to benefit from serious consideration of practices.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Routledge
• Seitenzahl: 210
• Erscheinungstermin: 31. Januar 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 12mm
• Gewicht: 327g
• ISBN-13: 9780367229580
• ISBN-10: 0367229587
• Artikelnr.: 56925565

Autorenporträt

Kevin McMillan

Inhaltsangabe

List of Figures
Introduction
1 A "Cultural" Approach to Social Science
2 Practice Theory Today
3 Core Ontological Commitments
4 Sketch of the Argument
5 Of Philosophy and Social Science
Chapter 1: What Are Practices?
1 Actions under a Description
2 Looping Effects
3 Historical Constitution
Chapter 2: Knowledge
1 Knowledgeable Practices
2 Conceptualising Knowledge
Chapter 3: Retroactive Redescription
1 The Validity of Retroactive Redescription
2 The Effects of Retroactive Redescription
3 Functional Concepts and Typological Classification;
4 What Is at Stake?
Chapter 4: Identification and Context
1 Identifying Practices "in All Their Specificity"
2 Relations and Relational Properties
3 Criteria of Identification
Chapter 5: Specificity and Generalisation
1 Functions
2 Implications for Generalisation, Explanation and Description
3 Patchwork Holism
Chapter 6: Possibility and Capacities
1 Possibility
2 Capacities
Chapter 7: Constitutive Relations and Constitutive Theory
1 Constitutive Theory
2 Constitutive Relations
3 Stability and Change
Conclusion
1 Culture and Action in the Social Sciences
2 Some Benefits of Studying Practices
Works Cited