Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences, 1870-1930

These essays examine modernism in the human sciences and adjacent areas of philosophy and natural science. Among the contributors, David Hollinger expands his important work on the cognitive/aesthetic divide to include postmodernism. Richard Rorty offers a significant revision of his previous treatment of John Dewey. Theodore Porter identifies the central importance of "descriptionism" for the epistemology and politics of the human sciences. Dorothy Ross extends her analysis of the affinities between exceptionalist historical consciousness, social science and modernist sensibility in the United States. Jan Goldstein finds the origins of psychological modernism to lie not in a late 19th-century revolt against positivism, but rather in the positivist psychologies of early 19th-century France. Philip Pauly draws a striking portrait of the likeness between turn-of-the-century American biologists and modernist European artists. The authors conclude that the once unique and revolutionary configurations of modernism now appear to have been less singular and sudden, for their roots are embedded in the long-standing processes of modernity and national culture.