Philosophical Excursus

Excursus 130 – On Eponymous Schools of Thought

Alfred Russel Wallace, classification, Darwin, eponymy, founder-independent theory, intellectual genealogy, Marx, schools of thought, terminology, theoretical identity
Excursus 129 – On the End of the Age of the Intellectual Giant

collaboration, communication, democratization, intellectual giants, intellectual history, philosophy of science, research communities, scientific progress, specialization
Excursus 128 – On Definitions and Their Instances

Abstraction, classification, communication, concepts, conceptual analysis, counterinstances, definition, instances, methodology
Excursus 127 – On Multiple Levels of Explanation in Social Science

behavioral ecology, biological variation, evolutionary biology, explanation levels, interdisciplinary methodology, multidimensional analysis, social science, sociality, sociology
Excursus 126 – On the Methodological Limits of Classical Sociobiology

adaptationism, behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary game theory, genetics, methodology, quantitative genetics, social science, sociality, sociobiology
Excursus 125 – On the Geometry of Ideas

classification, conceptual distance, conceptual space, decision-making, economic concentration, geometry of ideas, ideological reductionism, liberalism, Marxism, multidimensional comparison, political philosophy, ring species, topology
Excursus 124 – On the Relationship Between Disciplines and Their Subject Matter

academic disciplines, Aristotle, Bacon, conceptual frameworks, interdisciplinary research, organization of knowledge, philosophy of science, specialization, subject matter, terminology
Excursus 123 – On the Epistemic Uses of Imagination

epistemology, explanation, imagination, Jonathan Swift, mythology, philosophy of science, science fiction, speculation, thought experiments
Excursus 122 – On the Interpretive Authority of Early and Late Writings

authorship, early writings, editorial principles, hermeneutics, intellectual development, interpretation, Marx, mature works, methodology
Excursus 121 – On the Interpretation of Early Philosophical Writings

authorship, early writings, exegesis, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, intellectual development, intellectual history, interpretation, methodology, philosophical development
Excursus 120 – On Dialectics as a Heuristic Rather than an Explanation

causation, conceptual framework, Dialectics, empirical investigation, explanation, heuristic, historical inquiry, historical sociology, methodology, philosophy of science
Excursus 119 – On the Many Meanings of “Empirical”

Bacon, empirical, empirical evidence, empiricism, Gurvitch, Hume, Locke, observation, philosophy of science
Excursus 118 – On the Metaphysical and Historical Senses of Materialism

Berkeley, dialectical materialism, historical materialism, Hobbes, idealism, Marx, materialism, ontology, philosophy of history
Excursus 117 – On Dialectic as Method and as Ontology

contradiction, dialectic, Dialectics of Nature, Engels, epistemology, Hegel, immanence, laws of nature, methodology, ontology, Socrates, Stephen Jay Gould
Excursus 116 – On the Origin of Marx’s Concept of Alienation

alienation, craftsmanship, democracy, division of labor, Entäußerung, Entfremdung, Feuerbach, Hegel, humanism, industrialization, labor process, machinery, management, Marx, participation
Excursus 115 – On Reading Earlier Philosophers Through Later Traditions

Aristotle, Christianity, conceptual continuity, Darwin, Hegel, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, intellectual history, interpretation, Marxism, Plato, Social Darwinism, Thomism
Excursus 114 – On Darwin-independent Reconstruction of Evolution

biogeography, consilience, Darwin, evolution, interdisciplinary evidence, paleontology, philosophy of science, quantitative genetics, scientific reconstruction
Excursus 113 – On Illustrative and Demonstrative Examples

conceptual analysis, dialectic, empirical evidence, examples, Hegel, methodology, philosophy of science, quantity and quality, thermodynamics
Excursus 112 – On Closed and Open Dialectics

change, dialectic, Georges Gurvitch, hermeneutics, metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of religion, Plotinus, process theology, Saint Augustine
Excursus 111 – On Ultimate Unifying Principles

Christianity, Comte, Durkheim, Fichte, Hegel, history of philosophy, metaphysics, ontology, Plato, Plotinus, systematic philosophy, ultimate principles