Theses and Dissertations

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Metaethics, ontology, and epistemology in American sociology: Emile Durkheim and Gilles Deleuze
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Franzen, Jim, author; Carolan, Michael S., advisor; Browne, Katherine E., committee member; Chaloupka, William J., committee member; Sherman, Kathleen A., committee member
For over one hundred years, leading sociologists have criticized their own discipline for its "moralistic identity" and its "scientistic rationale." These markers directly reflect the first principles of the modern institutions of sociology. Metaethical commitments to moral realism, ontological commitments to transcendental forms, and epistemological commitments to a deductive-nomological logic, all first articulated by Emile Durkheim, became the foundation of American sociology. These commitments informed our answers to the intellectual, organizational, and sociocultural requirements for the institutionalization of a new academic science. Gilles Deleuze offers a different set of commitments. His metaethics suggests a new approach to our identity as interventionists. His ontology and epistemology supports an enhancement and expansion of our quantitative warrants.