Innovating the Social Sciences - Towards more useable knowledge for society

This is a book about the necessities and possibilities of innovations in the social sciences in order to realize societal changes. The natural sciences became the dominant model for the social sciences, resulting in positivism as ideology and in the organizational structuring of the social sciences into disciplines. In order to overcome the problems of scientism, a shift to a radical new ontological framework is necessary. In parallel, it is necessary to introduce participative research designs, move concepts and theories from one discipline to another and focus upon developing world views. Innovations in the social sciences are possible and necessary. But for these to happen, new societal pressures and demands will have to be present. Changing the social sciences is not a voluntary process that can be undertaken by social scientists alone.

About the author

Luk Van Langenhove is Director of UNU-CRIS at the United Nations University in Bruges and also teaches at the College of Europe and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Product details

• Authors: Luk Langenhove, Luk Van Langenhove
• Publisher: Passagen Verlag
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2007
• EAN: 9783851657487
• ISBN: 978-3-85165-748-7
• No. of pages: 328
• Weight: 606 g
• Series: Social Science Perspectives; Social Science Perspectives
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / Theorie, Philosophie, Anthropologie, Wissenschaft / Sozialwissenschaften