The Trouble with Theory

The educational costs of postmodernism
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-74175-522-0
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 236 Seiten, Format (B × H): 129 mm x 198 mm, Gewicht: 260 g

Postmodern theory has engaged the hearts and heads of the brightest students because of its apparent political and social radicalism. Despite this Professor Gavin Kitching claims that, 'At the heart of postmodernism is very poor, deeply confused and misbegotten philosophy. As a result even the very best students who fall under its sway produce radically incoherent ideas about language, meaning, truth and reality.'

This is not another conservative attack on postmodernism. Rather, it is a carefully considered analysis from a dedicated university teacher who is convinced that we have gone terribly astray. He shows that postmodern theory is at best irrelevant to, and at worst undermining of, persuasive political arguments, and reveals the basic philosophical confusion at its heart which makes this so.

Essential reading for any student writing a thesis in the humanities and the social sciences, and for their teachers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kitching, Gavin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Mediensoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Dekonstruktivismus, Strukturalismus, Poststrukturalismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Bildungswesen: Organisation und Verwaltung
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Addendum: Research methodology and book structure

PART I TIED IN KNOTS: THEORY AND CONFUSION

1 Doing theory', or creating a landscape

2 Relationships', or arranging objects in the landscape

3 Zapping landscapes and setting objects alight: Power

4 The social construction of reality: Equivocations

5 Language and discourse

PART II LOOSENING THE COILS: WITTGENSTEIN

6 An outsider's view of the world: The contemplative stance of the theorist

7 Theory and Tractatus epistemology

Addendum: The Philosophical Investigations, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Augustinian picture' of language: An aside on a technical but relevant issue in Wittgensteinian exegesis

8 The last and most tangled knot: The linguistic construction of subjectivity

Addendum: Wittgenstein's conception of language as a city, or theory as

Über Autor(innen)

Gavin Kitching is Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and has research interests in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, globalisation, and agricultural development in the Third World.