This was originally published in VoegelinView on January 5, 2021. Working Knowledge: Making the Human Sciences from Parsons to Kuhn. Joel Isaac. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Working Knowledge presents an institutional history of the “human sciences” at Harvard University with attention to Parsons, Skinner, Quine, and Kuhn. It was the practice of pedagogy and inquiry and the irregular institutional arrangements between the human and natural sciences that ideas about epistemology, the nature of theory, and what constituted scientific activity emerged in mid-twentieth century Harvard. Concepts such as “system,” “theory,” “operational definitions,” “meaning,” and “paradigms” were the products of this time at Harvard and still resonant today.
To what extent, if any, does Isaac aim at reducing the "positive" element of science/knowledge to social forces? To what extent, if any, does he invite reflection upon any irreducibility of knowledge (and thereby philosophy) to its "historical context"?
To what extent, if any, does Isaac aim at reducing the "positive" element of science/knowledge to social forces? To what extent, if any, does he invite reflection upon any irreducibility of knowledge (and thereby philosophy) to its "historical context"?