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A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy

Sociology

Publication ,  Chapter
Healy, K
January 1, 2008

Productive exchange between disciplines faces a paradox. Modern fields of enquiry are large, differentiated, and always growing. This means their boundaries are extensive, and there are many areas of potential contact between them. We are spoiled for shared topics and overlapping questions. Yet differentiation also entails a high degree of specialization at any particular point, and so traffic across disciplinary borders is less common than it ought to be. The trouble with interdisciplinary work is that you need disciplines in order to do it, and a discipline is a kind of exclusive conversation. Over time, participants come to share reference points and assumptions. The conversation gets more involved. Instead of looking outside, disciplines will reproduce for themselves (in miniature and unsatisfactorily) tools and concepts that are better developed in cognate fields. Economists produce a working psychology, sociologists make a sketch of historical development, political philosophers know some stylized facts about social institutions. This process is guaranteed to produce straw men and errors of fact, but it is also inevitable because the ability to assume away some topics as settled or irrelevant is a precondition for any successful discipline.

Duke Scholars

DOI

ISBN

9781405136532

Publication Date

January 1, 2008

Start / End Page

88 / 117
 

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Healy, K. (2008). Sociology. In A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (pp. 88–117). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405177245.ch4
Healy, K. “Sociology.” In A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 88–117, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405177245.ch4.
Healy K. Sociology. In: A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. 2008. p. 88–117.
Healy, K. “Sociology.” A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2008, pp. 88–117. Scopus, doi:10.1002/9781405177245.ch4.
Healy K. Sociology. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. 2008. p. 88–117.
Journal cover image

DOI

ISBN

9781405136532

Publication Date

January 1, 2008

Start / End Page

88 / 117