Social Reality and Tradition: Essays in Modes of Understanding

Book Details

• Author: Bijoy H. Boruah

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• Edition: 1st Edition

• Binding: Hardcover

• Pages: 214

• ISBN: 8131600408

• Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches

About the Book

"The Idea of Human Sciences" is a transcript of papers presented at a workshop titled The Idea of Human Sciences, held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. This book engages with fundamental questions about the nature of human social reality and its connection to social sciences. It examines whether human social reality can be explained using the same methods of objectivity as those used in the physical sciences.

The book delves into whether historical and cultural influences on human existence hinder the objectivity of the human sciences, and whether paradigms like Marxism and Ethnomethodology offer an alternative model of social objectivity. It also explores the issue of cultural relativism, questioning whether the diversity of traditions limits our understanding of society and humanity. The work discusses these critical questions from various philosophical perspectives, offering an illuminating exploration of human self-understanding and the philosophy of social inquiry.

About the Author

Bijoy H. Boruah is a Philosophy teacher at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has authored Fiction and Emotion: A Study in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Mind and has published several papers in the fields of philosophical aesthetics, philosophy of mind, and value theory. Currently, he is working on a book on Virtue Metaphysics and the Self.

Ramashankar Misra, who co-edited this work, taught Philosophy at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, until his retirement in 2003. He has also published numerous papers in social, political, and moral philosophy and co-edited Man, Meaning and Morality.