How the Social Sciences Think about the World's Social: Outline of a Critique (Beyond the Social Sciences)

At the beginning of the new millennium, the social sciences took an epochal 'turn' that revolutionized their theory-building. As a response to what they called the globalization of the social, they found the need to globalize their theorizing as well. It is curious that only after two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, after two world wars and several economic world crises, did they discover that there is a world beyond the national socials; it is even more strange that the social sciences globalize their theorizing by comparing theories about nationally confined socials and by creating all sorts of 'local' theories, as if any national social was a secluded social biotope. Trying to globalize the social sciences, they argue that globalizing social science theorizing means finding a way of theorizing that must, above all, be liberated from 'scientism' in order to allow a 'provincialization' of thinking. Not surprisingly, the globalizing social sciences have also rediscovered mythological and moral thinking as a means for a true scientific universalism. Michael Kuhn argues that the oddities of the globalizing social sciences are not accidents, but a consequence of the nature of how the social sciences theorize about the social. Acknowledgements............................................;............................ 7 Preface............................................................................................... 9 Why a theory about social sciences?.........................................ii Chapter A: The world's social in social science thinking.... 23 Social sciences detect the world's social beyond the national biotopes.............. 23 ...by assembling theories about nation state social biotopes................................29 ...off-thinking the world's social................................................................................. 33 ... reflected on through the nation state constructs................................................ 45 ...ever critically measured against idealized nation state rationales...................49 The universalization of social science thinking...................................................... 53 ....completing the globalization of social science theorizing as a multiplicity of scientific patriotisms...................................................................57 From Marx to Heidegger: Critical theorizing in the anti-colonial movements—self-purified for constructive imperial nation state views........... 64 ...opposing a monopoly on spatiological thought in the "centres"....................... 70 .... liberating global social thought from scientific^ for creating patriotic theories....................................................... 76 ... and anti-scientificy to practice global social sciences.......................................82 From patriotic to imperial social science thinking................................................ 84 Nationalism: A service for.imperial social science theorizing..............................91 ...thought back by alternative imperial social science models.............................96 ...critiquing an unequal knowledge imperialism..................................................... 99 The world's nation states serving the world's mankind.......................................103 Chapter B: Categorical essentials ofdisciplinarythinking... 105 The cognitive architecture of disciplinary thinking..............................................107 Essential concepts founding theorizing in the classical social science disciplines................................................................. 115 Anthropology—Regimen as the demand of man's nature....................................116 From anthropological thinking to cultural theories—nation states as cultural artefacts completing man's unfinished nature..........................126 Economic thinking in the social sciences—The bane of scarcity......................... 131 Sociological thinking—The blessing of the "community"....................................136 Political theory-political power for the politically disempowered.................... 144 Psychological thinking—the mythologization of the mind..................................148 Essentials of social sciences disciplinarythinldng...................................................... 1. The common cognitive lie founding the categories of disdplinaiy thinking........................................................... 2. The shared metaphysical nature ofthe disciplines and their speculative way oftheorizing.................................................... 3- Disciplinary social thought cannot think other about the social ljut as an idealized nation state social...............................163 4- The catejgorical essentials: Critically affirmative and idealistically domesticative......................................... 154 5- The world's social in disciplinary thinking—absent.................................... i66 Chapter C: The social science approach to scientific thinking—advancements ofteleological theorizing...........169 The social science mode ofthinkingcognitive operations of a methodological idealism..............................................173 Social sciences theorizing about social science thinking..................................... 179 Why teleological thinking must be the nature ofthinking.................................. 187 The stigma ofthe natural sciences— and the self-destruction of an envied hero....................................................... ^95^ The envied hero....................................................................... ...and his self-destruction................................................................. The decline of scientific knowledge towards ephemeral knowledge............... 200 Chapter D: The discourse about and the progress ofsocial science knowledge.....................209 The discursive creation of acknowledged true knowledge..................................210 Paradoxes of acknowledged knowledge in the global social science discourse........................................................... 218 Global discourse about acknowledged knowledge ruling social science theorizing................................................................. 220 Arguing about the position national knowledge bodies hold.............................224 The progress of acknowledged knowledge........................................................ 229 How to create a globally shared truth ruling global theorizing..................... 235 The ephemeral progress of ephemeral knowledge.............................................. 255 Chapter E: Going beyond the social sciences......................263 Postscript.................................................................................... ...269 That we live in a world ruled and confused by cultural diversities has become common sense. It was the social sciences that gave birth to a new theoretical paradigm, the creation of cultural theories. Since then, social science theorizing applies to any social phenomenon across the world exploring cultural diversities in any social practice—except in regard to the social sciences and how they practice the creation of knowledge. How academics in the social sciences across the world create knowledge is no topic for cultural theories. Social science theorizing seemingly assumes that creating knowledge does not know such diversities. Kazumi Okamoto presents the development of an analytical instrument that helps study ‘academic culture', analyze ‘academic practices'of how social sciences create and distribute knowledge, and the influence the ‘academic environment'has on their knowledge productions. Applying this theoretical tool to the academe in Japan, she further presents a case study about how social scientists in Japan interpret academic practices and how they are affected by their academic environment. Studying the academic culture in the case of Japan, she reveals that not only the academic practices and the academic environment of the academe in Japan show much less diversities than cultural theories tend to presuppose, but that the assumption that creating social science knowledge does not know cultural diversities is an error as well. The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by “subaltern” social sciences, their “talking back”, has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from “Southern” social sciences of “Western” social sciences has somehow turned “Southern” as well as “Western” social sciences into competing contributors to the same “globalizing” social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the “Western” as in the “Southern” discourse. "The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism of their approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; thus criticism of European social sciences by subaltern social sciences, their 'talking back, ' has become a frequent line of reflection. The relabeling of the critique of the European approach as a critique from 'Southern' social sciences of 'Western' social sciences has in effect turned 'Southern' as well as 'Western' social sciences into competing contributors to the same 'globalizing' social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe should prevail. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences, or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the 'Western' as in the 'Southern' discourse"--Page 4 of cover At the beginning of the new millennium, the social sciences discover an epochal “turn” making it necessary to revolutionize their theory-building: As a response to what they call the globalization of the social, they find the need to globalize their theorizing as well. It is odd to discover after two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, after two world wars and several economic world crises that there is a world beyond the national socials; it is even more strange that the social sciences globalize their theorizing by comparing theories about nationally confined socials and by creating all sorts of, preferably, “local theories”, just as if any national social was a secluded social biotope. Discussing how to globalize the social sciences, they argue that globalizing social science theorizing means finding a way of theorizing that must, above all, be liberated from “scientism” in order to allow a “provincialization” of thinking. Not surprisingly, the globalizing social sciences also rediscover mythological and moral thinking as a means for a “true scientific universalism”. Michael Kuhn's new book presents many thought-provoking arguments on the oddities of the globalizing social sciences and on how these oddities are not accidents, but a consequence of the nature of how the social sciences theorize about the social. That we live in a world ruled and confused by cultural diversity has become common sense. The social sciences gave birth to a new theoretical paradigm, the creation of cultural theories. Since then, social science theorizing applies to any social phenomenon across the world exploring cultural diversities in any social practice--except the social sciences and how they create knowledge, which is is off limits. Social science theorizing seemingly assumes that creating knowledge does not know such diversities. In this book, Kazumi Okamoto develops analytical tools to study academic culture, analyze how social sciences create and distribute knowledge, and the influence the academic environment has on knowledge production. She uses the academy in Japan as a case study of how social scientists interpret academic practices and how they are affected by their academic environment. Studying Japanese academic culture, she reveals that academic practices and the academic environment in Japan show much less diversity than cultural theories tend to presuppose In the past, the European social sciences labelled and discredited knowledge that did not follow the definition for scientific knowledge as applied by the European social sciences as an alternative concept of knowledge, as “indigenous” knowledge. Perception has changed with time: Not only has indigenous knowledge become an entrance ticket to the European social science world, but the indigenization of European theories is seen by some as the contribution of “peripheral” social sciences to join the theories of the “centers”. This book offers contributions to the discourses about alternative concepts of knowledge, inviting the reader to decide if they are alternative, indigenous, or European types of knowledge. However, in order to make this decision, the reader must know what the nature of the European concepts of science and of scientific knowledge is; this might be a motivation to read a book that presents thoughts claiming to be alternative concepts of knowledge, alternative to the European concept of science. This innovative book provides new perspectives on the globalization of knowledge and the notion of hegemonic sciences. Tying together contributions of authors from all across the world, it challenges existing theories of hegemonic sciences and sheds new light on how they have been and are being constructed. Examining more closely the notions of 'human rights' and 'individualization', this much-needed volume offers new and alternative ideas on how to transform the universalization of the Western model of science and can serve as an eye-opener for all those interested in non-hegemonic scientific discourse.-- Provided by Publisher In the past, the European social sciences labelled and discredited knowledge that did not conform to their own definition of scientific knowledge as an alternative kind of knowledge, as indigenous' knowledge. Perception has changed with time: not only has indigenous knowledge become an entrance ticket to the world of European social science, but the indigenization of European theories is seen by some as the contribution of peripheral social sciences to join the theories of the centers. This book offers contributions to the conversation on alternative concepts of knowledge, inviting the reader