Understanding Society

The Crimea is now securely within the grasp of Russia. This shift occurred as the result of the use of military force seemingly unconcerne...

Do causes make their effects “necessary” in any useful sense? This is the claim that Hume rejected — the notion that there is any “necessa...

Image: Mason-Pfizer monkey virus ( link ) Image: organization chart of General Motors What does it mean to say that the social worl...

It is a fair question to ask, whether the concept of emergence is perhaps less important than it initially appears to be. Part of the inter...

Tuukka Kaidesoja's recent book Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology  devotes a chapter to the topic of emergence as it is...

Ruth Groff has created a valuable blog and Facebook page on "Powers, Capacities, Dispositions"aimed at creating a community o...

It seems that there is a lot happening in metaphysics these days. There is of course the return to Aristotle that has occurred within the...

I am one of those people who think that causal claims are the foundation of almost all explanations. When we ask for an explanation of somet...

source: Edward Tufte, edwardtufte.com In a recent post I referred to the idea of a causal narrative ( link ). Here I would like to ske...

Robin Blackburn has assembled a fascinating book drawing out some surprising connections between Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx, An Unfini...