The History of Understanding in Analytic Philosophy: Around Logical Empiricism

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Interpretive understanding of human behaviour, known as verstehen, underpins the divide between the social sciences and the natural sciences. Taking a historically orientated approach, this collection offers a fresh take on the development of understanding within analytic philosophy before, during and after logical empiricism. In doing so, it reinvigorates debates on the role of the social sciences within contemporary epistemology. Bringing together leading experts including Martin Kusch, Thomas Uebel, Karsten Stueber and Giuseppina DOro, it is an authoritative reference on the logical empiricists philosophy of social science. Charting the various reformulations of verstehen as proposed by Wilhem Dilthey, Max Weber, R.G Collingwood and Peter Winch, the volume explores the reception of the social sciences prior to logical empiricism, before surveying the positive and negative critiques from Otto Neurath, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft and other logical empiricists. As such, chapters reveal that verstehen was not altogether rejected by the Vienna Circle, but was subject to various conceptual uses and misuses. Along with systematic historical coverage, the book situates verhesten within contemporary interdisciplinary developments in the field, shedding light on the 21st-century turn to understanding among analytic philosophers and opening further lines of inquiry for philosophy of social science.

Reviews

This volume is a triumphant collection of essays. It offers a range of historical and contemporary accounts of the status of the notion of Verstehen that is unmatched by any other volume available. No volume in the near future will be able to provide scholarship of this quality and essays that work in such highly complementary yet non-redundant ways. * Paul Roth, Distinguished Professor, Philosophy and Jewish Studies, UC Santa Cruz, USA *
This anthology provides a noteworthy and very welcome addition to the resurgent interest in the problem of understanding in contemporary philosophy. It will be a go-to resource for anybody interested in the history of this complex philosophical problem in the 20th century. * Karsten Stueber, Professor of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, USA *

Author Bio

Adam Tamas Tuboly is leader of the MTA Lendlet Values and Science Research Group at the Research Centre for Humanities at Budapest, and Research Fellow at the ITD in the Medical School at the University of Pcs, Hungary.