Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences [Paperback]

Pauline Rosenau (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691023476 | ISBN-13: 978-0691023472 | Publication Date: November 5, 1991

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is the most lucid, concise, and comprehensive summary and analysis of the impact of post-modernism on the social sciences. . . . In sum, a brilliant yet genuinely helpful, humane, and readable work. -- Choice

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (November 5, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691023476
• ISBN-13: 978-0691023472
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Classic in the Social Sciences, April 5, 2000

By 

Alan Wells (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences (Paperback)

As a graduate student I encountered this book on several levels over the years. I first bought it in India while doing anthropological fieldwork to catch up on theory. The applications on social inquiry to the "Third world" were very helpful, especially the section on views of the west in the post-Marxist era. More recenty I have read it with an interest in public policy, and found relevant insights on the nature of the public sphere. The glossary is unique in its throroughness. This book serves as a classic--elegantly written, comprehensively researched- and more importantly a useful guide to postmodern ideas for the working academic and student alike.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely and well done, August 13, 2000

By 

Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences (Paperback)

It's really hard to know how a nihilistic movement such as post-modernism can have anything other than a renunciatory effect upon science of any kind. That notwithstanding, Rosenau distinguishes two main strands within PoMo, which may otherwise cause confusion. The skeptical strand comprises the purists who brook no compromise with their anti-foundational findings. On the other hand, are what Rosenau calls the"affirmatives". They comprise the compromisers within the broader PoMo camp, and are prepared to somehow accomodate modernist precepts within a broader PoMo framework. Whether these affirmatives compose anything more than an unworkable eclecticism, is left wisely unresolved. Even so, Rosenau believes their sensitivity to openess has the capacity to force modernism into major revisions. In any event, it is the purists, the other major strand, who define the movement itself.

If the affirmative's problem is trying to eclectically blend unblendables, the skeptics tend to refute themselves, the usual outcome of extreme abeyance. In an excellent concluding section, the author summarizes the endemic paradoxes of this position. For example, PoMo's use of theory to disavow theory; deconstruction's use of the very tools it deconstructs, viz. reason and logic; moreover, in raising the marginal at the expense of the center, a value judgement takes place even when such judgements are programmatically condemned.

Boiled down to basics, purist PoMo ends in its own version of solipsism: millions of unsynthesizable personal narratives. Small wonder that only the narrowest, most localized results are sanctioned in a prospective post-modern social science. In Rosenau's account, the possibility that such a science can emerge focuses on individuals instead of subjects or personalities. Since reason, structure, and other modes of synthesis are impossible, how such idiosyncratic accounts can even approach a threshold of science seems inexplicable to me even after reading the book.

But since PoMo is the fashion of the day, it's to the author's credit to have crystallized these topical questions in clearly understood terms.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, clear, concise, engaging summary of the issues, February 23, 2004

By 

James T. Hansen, Ph.D. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences (Paperback)

Outstanding book! One of the best overviews of the often confusing post-modern literature I have ever encountered. Highly recommended!!!