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Cover -- Half Title -- Endorsements -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction The 'Object of Enquiry' versus the 'Knowing Subject' -- Part One Theoretical Considerations: The Concept of 'Perspectivism' -- Chapter One Nietzsche and the Origins of the Concept of 'Perspectivism' -- Chapter Two Karl Mannheim, Perspectivism and the Sociology of Knowledge -- Chapter Three Max Weber's Concept of Objectivity in the Social Sciences -- Chapter Four Pragmatism and Perspectivism -- Part Two Application of the Concept of Perspectivism to a Number of Different Concepts in the Social Sciences -- Preface to Part Two -- Chapter Five Power as a Mutually Contested Concept -- Chapter Six The Concept of Equality Reconsidered -- Chapter Seven A Three/Four-Dimensional Concept of Crime -- Chapter Eight The Social Construction of Sexual Difference: The Concepts of Sex, Gender, Intersexuality, Bisexuality, Homosexuality and Heterosexuality Reconsidered from a Perspectivist Point of View -- General Conclusion -- Appendix Perspectivism and Art -- Bibliography -- Index.

"Perspectivism: A Contribution to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences advances the philosophy of perspectivism, showing how its capacity to assess competing views of a particular concept by approaching them as different 'sides' of a multi-dimensional object supports a concept of 'adequate' rather than 'absolute' truth. Presenting four case studies - of the social scientific concepts of power, equality, crime, and sex and gender - Smith demonstrates the manner in which the perspectivist approach does not take all differing views of a concept to be equally good, but views all perspectives taken together as contributing towards the best that we can know about any given concept at the present time. An exposition and analysis of the means by which perspectivism allows for truth and objectivity in the social sciences, this volume will appeal to scholars of philosophy and across the social sciences with interests in questions of epistemology and research methodology"--

This book, first published in 1951, focuses on the hitherto ignored contemporary critics of Malthus, giving them the attention they so rightly deserve.Dr Smith traces the Malthusian controversy step by step, from 1798, the date of the First Essay, to the death of Malthus in 1834. Investigating the precursors of Malthus and the genesis of the Malthusian Theory of Population, the book subjects the theory to a searching analysis in the light of not only contemporary criticism, but also subsequent developments and modern ideas. In addition, the book examines the application of the theory to the do