David Williams
![Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science (Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies) David Williams]( "Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science (Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies) David Williams")
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1
Average rating: 3.0 of 5
Interesting dabbles 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. It deserves three-and-a-half stars. On the one hand we have a fascinating polemic touching on all the essential realms of modern thought. On the other hand, we have a political indictment that suffers from an excess in name dropping and citation packing along with an untamed fascination with Edward Said.At whatever measure, the book is provocative in a number of ways. It really only has to do with Japan on its periphery. In reality, it (fleetingly) touches on Japan's political uniqueness and its (slight) place in the history of thought in the grand scheme of an indictment of logical positivism/economic rationalism in the social sciences. At times an impassioned defense of the empirical method, and the 'changeableness' of truth; at other times the book takes on an almost 'ad hominem' tone towards rationalism to the detriment of the work as a whole. The book contributes, in my opinion, a valuable critique of the social sciences, and attempts to defend political science methodology from the positivism of political economy.
Williams ranges from Kant, to Marx, to Said, to Saussere, to Chomsky, to Nietzsche, to Mill, to Foucault, to Francis Ford Coppola, to Alan Bloom, to Dewey, etcetera, etcetera. He pulls off this journey at times, with interesting insight into the place of thought in social science disciplines. Other times, however, he becomes enmired in demonstrating how many different thinkers he can namedrop in a paragraph.
It could be a good book (maybe only as a reference) for an intermediate course in scientific method and/or the history of philosophy. It is almost a compendium of philosophical positions. Although he slants his descriptions of some schools of thought, he is good at presenting arguments undermining many dogmatic perspectives. His critique of structuralism, post-structuralism, and political correctness is excellent. His chapter on linguistics is a little garbled, but interesting nonetheless.
At the beginning is a glossary that is useful for understanding Williams' position, although the definitions are almost comically self-serving. He is relentless in his citations, with a large section of endnotes. Helpfully, he includes a bibliography of all the works cited.
Editorial Review:
Davis Williams explores the historical experience of Japan in the period since it embarked on"modernization" which illuminates the limitations of Western social theory. He criticizes Western social science, and explains why mainstream economists, and historians of political thought have ignored Japan's modern achievements.
