Meaning, Agency and the Making of a Social World

Amitabha Das Gupta is former Professor of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad, India. He has published extensively in the areas of philosophy of language, philosophy of linguistics and philosophy of social science. He has held several research and teaching positions both in India and elsewhere.

This book explores the complex nature of the social world and presents a philosophy of social science. It shows that a systematic philosophical engagement with the social world may be conceived in terms of three basic concerns - the epistemic, the methodological, and the ethical.

Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction: A Three-Layered Approach to Social Science Part I. Our Epistemic Engagement with the World 1. Reconstruction of the Scientific View of the World and the Revival of Human Subject 2. Historicity: A Foundation for Scientific Knowledge and Philosophical Understanding 3. Historicity as the Process of Understanding Science: A Two-Level Reflection Part II. Social Science in Its Methodological Engagement 4. Meaning, Human Action and the Nature of Social Explanation 5. Meaning-Embedded Nature of Social Reality: The Two Contrastive Approaches 6. Text: The Common Paradigm for Social and Literary Theory 7. Scientific Methodology and the Overcoming of Fact/Value Dichotomy 8. Marx on Fact/Value Dichotomy and the Idea of a Unified Science 9. Objectivity or Solidarity? The Limits of Relativism in Social Science Part III. Social Science in Its Ethical Engagement 10. Phron¿sis and the Ethical Basis of Social Science 11. On the Primitive Nature of Human Agency 12. How does Human Agency Function? A Normative Conceptualization 13. Change, Development and a Theory of Social Science