Michel Meyer's Problematology: Questioning and Society

by Nick Turnbull

Overview

In today's society, everything is in question. The reflexive questioning of modernity has fundamentally problematized society, including philosophy, which has experienced a crisis of metaphysics. Michel Meyer's problematology answers this crisis by questioning questioning, unfolding a new way of doing philosophy, with special relevance for the study of society. In this first-ever extended treatment of Meyer's work, Nick Turnbull examines the main features of problematology, including the principle of questioning and the deduction of an original conception of difference, based on the question-answer relationship. Turnbull shows how these concepts produce new perspectives in the philosophy of the emotions, history, meaning, politics, rhetoric and science. He applies Meyer's ideas to key questions in the philosophy of social science, showing how problematology offers important insights for understanding contemporary society.

The book compares problematology with the work of well-known thinkers, including Bourdieu, Castoriadis, Collingwood, Derrida, Dewey, Gadamer, Heidegger and Lyotard. Turnbull uses problematology and rhetoric to explain how meaning is constructed through practice in the negotiation of social distance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474242073
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/22/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Nick Turnbull is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, UK.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Why Problematology? A New Philosophical Approach to Social Science
1. Problematology: A New Foundation for Reason
2. The Problematological Critique of Post-foundationalism
3. Questioning in the Philosophy of Social Science
4. Questioning, Contingency and Meaning
5. Problematology and the Emotions
6. Rhetoric and Social Distance
Conclusion: Problematology and Social Inquiry
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"For Michel Meyer, questioning is fundamental to philosophy, to human creativity and to the organisation of society in general. Nick Turnbull's elegant and lucid exploration illuminates the critical power of Meyer's 'problematology' both as a paradigm of thought and as a tool of social inquiry. This is an important and insightful book that will stimulate discussion -- and questioning -- across the Social Sciences and Humanities." --James Martin, Professor of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.

"Long a mainstay for francophone philosophers, Michel Meyer remains unduly unappreciated by English-speaking readers. With his lucid approach and clear prose, Nick Turnbull continues his longstanding efforts to explain the pertinence of Meyer's powerful corpus of work on problematology for philosophers, and also demonstrates the value and profundity of Meyer's wide-ranging thought for a range of research areas including metaphysics, politics, ethics, literature, aesthetics, logic and rhetoric. Emphasizing the importance of viewing questioning, rather than Being, as the starting point from which philosophy can and should, begin, Meyer provides tools to review critical discussions with unexpected insights that, as Turnbull aptly demonstrates in this wonderful book, could reinvigorate studies of society that are currently dominated by a small and, from this perspective, rather narrow cadre of thinkers." --Robert F. Barsky, Professor of English, French and Italian, and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University, USA.

From the Publisher

Long a mainstay for francophone philosophers, Michel Meyer remains unduly unappreciated by English-speaking readers. With his lucid approach and clear prose, Nick Turnbull continues his longstanding efforts to explain the pertinence of Meyer's powerful corpus of work on problematology for philosophers, and also demonstrates the value and profundity of Meyer's wide-ranging thought for a range of research areas including metaphysics, politics, ethics, literature, aesthetics, logic and rhetoric. Emphasizing the importance of viewing questioning, rather than Being, as the starting point from which philosophy can and should, begin, Meyer provides tools to review critical discussions with unexpected insights that, as Turnbull aptly demonstrates in this wonderful book, could reinvigorate studies of society that are currently dominated by a small and, from this perspective, rather narrow cadre of thinkers.

Robert F. Barsky

For Michel Meyer, questioning is fundamental to philosophy, to human creativity and to the organisation of society in general. Nick Turnbull's elegant and lucid exploration illuminates the critical power of Meyer's 'problematology' both as a paradigm of thought and as a tool of social inquiry. This is an important and insightful book that will stimulate discussion -- and questioning -- across the Social Sciences and Humanities.

James Martin