The Nature of Social Laws: Machiavelli to Mill

by Robert Brown

Overview

This volume is a study of the development of the idea that human social behaviour is governed by laws comparable to the laws of natural science. The author sets out to provide a clear account of the arguments put forward from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries about the nature and possibility of social laws. Although analytical rather than historical in approach, the discussions are always informed by a knowledge of the relevant context and sufficient detail is provided to characterise the views in question accurately. The critical expositions of the views are presented elegantly and succinctly, in a way which reveals their bearing on the problems involved - problems which are still the subject of lively debate today. The book, which is written with great clarity and balance, will be of interest to students and specialists in the history of ideas, philosophy, law, religion and the histories and methodologies of the different social sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521338295
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/14/1986
Series:	Cambridge Paperback Library
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. From isolated generalisations to the 'circle of commerce'; 2. Political principles and unintended consequences; 3. Social explanation as applied psychology; 4. The causal laws of social progress; 5. The methods of social economy; 6. Vico's humanistic science of history; 7. Comte and the objective knowledge of social stages; 8. J. S. Mill: the structure of a social science; Conclusion; Index.