Social Inquiry After Wittgenstein and Kuhn

[The author's] vast knowledge and philosophical erudition come through loud and clear. Social Inquiry After Wittgenstein and Kuhn addresses several large issues in mainstream philosophy and the philosophy of science through a discussion of the philosophical thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Kuhn (with a substantive side glance to Paul Feyerabend). -- Dale Turner, Dartmouth University Social Inquiry After Wittgenstein and Kuhn is a highly learned and clearly written contribution to a variety of literatures, including political theory, philosophy of social science, and philosophy of science. Gunnell has a masterful command of his subject matter, and several of the chapters are a delight to read. He brilliantly shows how the challenge posed by both Wittgenstein and Kuhn has been deeply misunderstood by critics and admirers alike. -- Linda M. G. Zerilli, University of Chicago John G. Gunnell has had a long and distinguished career interrogating various claims to authority and certitude made by theorists, philosophers, and social scientists. The aim of this book is to reconsider the practice of social inquiry and its true and purported relations to reality through perspicuous re-presentations of the writings of Wittgenstein and Kuhn. What emerges is a distinctive and provocative philosophy of education that should become an essential part of the training of future political theorists and social scientists. It is a brilliant work of scholarship and philosophical creativity. -- Christopher C. Robinson, Clarkson University This book is a major milestone in the recuperation of the reputations of Wittgenstein, Kuhn and Winch. Far from being 'relativists' or abstract controversialists, Gunnell shows these three to be major figures in the 'philosophy of the sciences', figures who together can be seen as renewing our very conception of philosophy: by turning philosophy itself into what it always has been, but has always resisted being seen as: itself a form of social inquiry. Gunnell takes seriously, as few ever have before, Winch's crucial move of pointing up that social relations are "a species of internal relations". He thus brings alive a radically different conception of society from that which a widespread scientism purveys. Furthermore, Gunnell makes the Wittgensteinian point brilliantly that the social world is 'autonomous' in a way that the natural world is not: whereas natural science goes 'all the way down', for the natural world does not already have any preferred way of describing itself, social studies come up against the autonomy of the already pre-categorised social world at every turn. Gunnell's depiction of Kuhn is deft, and brings out helpfully aspects of the huge influence that Cavell had on Kuhn. This book deserves to be read by philosophers and 'social scientists' alike. -- Rupert Read, author of Wittgenstein Among the Sciences: Wittgensteinian Investigations into the "Scientific Method" Despite the special meanings of its subtitle, this book will not, in common parlance, 'leave everything as it is.' Thanks to his exacting attention to what they actually wrote and avoiding the polemical debates into which their work was subsequently drawn, John G. Gunnell vividly demonstrates the relevance of the insights of Wittgenstein and Kuhn to the conceptual, interpretive, and historical dimensions of social inquiry. Indeed, with characteristic clarity and historical acumen, Gunnell presents Wittgenstein's philosophy as the very basis for social inquiry and Kuhn's history of science as an exemplar of that social inquiry in action. If, with Wittgenstein, 'words are deeds,' then the words in this book are deeds exceedingly well done. -- James Farr, Northwestern University The author's scholarship is exceptional. His grasp of detail and the interrelations between the protagonists, Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Winch, Feyerabend, and others is extraordinary. His knowledge of the texts and of Wittgenstein especially is remarkable and detailed. Review of Metaphysics