Böcker av Martin Hollis

This textbook by Martin Hollis offers an exceptionally clear and concise introduction to the philosophy of social science. It examines questions which give rise to fundamental philosophical issues. Are social structures better conceived of as systems of laws and forces, or as webs of meanings and practices? Is social action better viewed as rational behaviour, or as self-expression? By exploring such questions, the reader is led to reflect upon the nature of scientific method in social science. Is the aim to explain the social world after a manner worked out for the natural world, or to understand the social world from within?

In this 1995 collection of essays, culled from twenty-five years' work, Martin Hollis argues that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction, nor by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms, principles, practices and ends.

In this book the author attempts to make sense, as a philosopher, of the ideas of rationality put forward by economists, sociologists and political theorists. The book's central concern is with the true nature of social actors and the proper character of social science.

All social theorists and philosophers who seek to explain human action have a 'model of man'; a metaphysical view of human nature that requires its own theory of scientific knowledge. In this influential book, Martin Hollis examines the tensions that arise from the differing views of sociologists, economists and psychologists. He then develops a rationalist model of his own which connects personal and social identity through a theory of rational action and a priori knowledge, allowing humans to both act freely and still be a subject for scientific explanation. Presented in a fresh series livery and including a specially commissioned preface written by Geoffrey Hawthorn, Hollis's important work is made available to a new generation of readers.