The enlightenment project in analytic social science

pp. 292-316

in: Nicholas Capaldi, The enlightenment project in the analytic conversation, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

The concept of 'social science" is the most salient feature of the Enlightenment Project. If there could be social science then we could derive from it the social technology that is the ultimate practical objective of the Enlightenment Project. In this chapter we show how the Enlightenment Project survives and functions within analytic social science. Specifically, we argue (1) that the unity of science thesis exemplifies the Project; (2) that during its eliminative phase analytic social science adheres not only to a covering law model of explanation but to a methodological individualism that makes social science derivative from psychology; (3) that during its subsequent exploratory stage, methodological individualism gives way to a social theory of meaning; and (4) that exploration achieves its Hegelian moment within the Enlightenment Project by leading to Marxism. Finally, we indicate what social thought as explication would be as an alternative to the Enlightenment Project in social science. The analytic understanding of human beings as outlined in the previous chapter and this one, and its reflection of the Enlightenment Project of a social technology, will be crucial for the analytic understanding of ethical and political philosophy in the subsequent chapters.