Spektorsky and the Fate of His History of Social Philosophy

Evgeny V. Spektorsky (1875–1951) based his monograph, a survey of the history of social science ideas, on his teaching experience at the universities of Warsaw, Kiev, Prague, Belgrade and Ljubljana. The manuscript, finished by mid-1931, was accepted for publication by the Slovenska Matica publishing house on the recommendation of Anton Lajovic, lawyer and composer. Entitled The History of Social Philosophy, it was translated into Slovenian by Josip Vidmar and published in two volumes in 1932 and 1933. The print run was high: 5,000 copies of Volume I and 4,500 copies of Volume II. Spektorsky argued for a genetic analysis of the history of social science thought, which he saw as a treasury of ideas influencing human life. He emphasised the impact of ideas because these had, in his view, left a deeper impact on the history of mankind than scientific studies or proofs of eternal truths. Although critical of Marxism, whose pretensions to a scientific world view he saw as a mere propaganda move, Spektorsky never accepted dogmatic views.

Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory

John Nashs formulation of noncooperative game theory was one of the great breakthroughs in the history of social science. Nashs work in this area is reviewed in its historical context to better understand how the fundamental ideas of noncooperative game theory have been developed and how they have changed the course of economic theory. It is shown in particular how the scope of economics has changed from production and allocation of material goods to the study of rational competitive behavior in any institution of society.

Victorian Social Science: From Singular to Plural*

This chapter provides an overview of the history of social science in Britain and the ways in which it was institutionalised in the nineteenth century. Nineteenth-century social science was the product of three great changes, intellectual, material and spiritual. The European Enlightenment stimulated the development of and institutionalisation of the natural sciences, creating a new model for the study of human societies. The material changes include the expansion of population, growth of industries and manufacturing and development of mass culture and democracy. Rationalism and industrialisation caused the third change, the decline of conventional Christian belief and worship. The chapter also analyses the ‘statistical movement’, a dominant genre of social science up to 1860, and social evolution, which provided the leading paradigm for sociological thinking from the mid-century onwards.