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This paper contains a novel and coherent reading of Weberian ideal type construction, based on recent philosophical approaches to conceptual engineering. This reading makes transparent the dialectics of Weber's approach, resulting in a more nuanced interpretation of his methodological work. It will become apparent that Weber, when introducing his notion of an ideal type, did not merely summarize his views on methodology in the social sciences, but, rather, presented a two‐step argument in favor of these views. The reconstruction will directly bear on issues in the methodology of the social sciences. Weber not only presented a methodology that is, at some level of abstraction, strikingly similar to Carnapian explication (the canonical point of reference in the contemporary debate on conceptual engineering). He also diagnosed, in a systematic fashion, types of problems we face when dealing with ordinary and scientific concepts that play a key role in the description of social reality, and he foreshadowed what is today sometimes described as "debunking" projects. From a philosophy of science perspective, I propose Weber's view (on the reconstruction proposed here) as a serious candidate for an adequate theory of concept replacement in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a broadened understanding of the social scientific thought of a leading logical empiricist and advocate of the unity of science. Often portrayed as a reductive physicalist on account of his temperamental interventions against geisteswissenschaftliche obscurantists in the time of the Weimar Republic, Otto Neurath in fact was a defender and practitioner of interpretive methods who warned against their abuse inside and outside of academic social science and history. After placing Neurath's efforts in the context of the Vienna Circle, his talk of "social behaviorism" and his criticisms of Max Weber are clarified (both represent prominent stumbling blocks for an appreciation of Neurath's views) and his view on the role of empathetic understanding is reconstructed. Further support for this interpretation is then adduced from various instance of his pre‐Vienna Circle work (incl. his critique of Spengler and his own work in economic history and history of ideas). Having been trained in the Historical School, Neurath never abandoned his hermeneutic insights but sought to integrate them in a non‐dichotomous conception of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can one both be an Aristotelian in ethics and a negativist, whereby the latter involves subscribing to the view that the good cannot be known in our social context but that ethical guidance is nonetheless possible in virtue of a pluralist conception of the bad (of which this context and human history provide us ample knowledge)? Moreover, is it possible to combine Aristotelianism with a thoroughly historical outlook? I have argued that such combinations are, indeed, possible, and that we can find an example of them in Adorno's work. In this paper, I reply to three critics (Allen, Celikates and O'Connor) who cast doubt on this proposal. I also reply to other concerns they raise, regarding immanent critique, negativism, the role of social theory in Adorno's work, and the danger of being co-opted. I stress the holism of Adorno's position, and, amid some more deflationary moves, insist on the distinctiveness of the Aristotelian position that results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I consider the relation between the role recognition plays in Axel Honneth's social theory and its function in a fundamentally second‐personal normative moral and political theory. I argue, first, that Honneth's social explanatory claims need not strictly depend on any normative propositions of moral and political philosophy. It may be sufficient for Honneth's explanatory purposes that the attitudes through which his explanations run have normative content, even fundamentally second‐personal normative content. And that can be true whether or not the propositions having this content hold as matters of normative moral and political theory. Even so, second‐personal moral philosophy may be able to vindicate these normative propositions. Perhaps more important, however, is the way in which second‐personal moral philosophy can draw on Honnethian recognitional social theory to provide a distinctive approach to nonideal moral and political theory. I argue that nonideal theory should be viewed as a distinctively second‐personal form of theorizing that aims to hold its addressees accountable for injustices that consist in failures adequately to recognize our equal second‐personal authority as persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]