This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wallerstein, I. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Time and Duration: The Unexcluded Middle, or Reflections on Braudel and Prigogine

One reason for the problematic status of the social sciences is that their claim to legitimacy has been undermined by two opposite models of inquiry: the nomothetic idea of science, with its emphasis on universal laws, and the idiographic conception of history as a record of particular events. It can be argued that both of them excluded the temporal dimension of socio-historical reality; more precisely, they were ill-equipped to analyze the unstable structures which emerge and undergo transformations over varying periods of time. This previously excluded middle has been rediscovered by pioneering scientists on both sides of the divide; the paper compares Prigogine's critique of Newtonian natural science with Braudel's reorientation of history. The former line of argument privileges time, the latter duration, but they lead to similar conclusions.

Key Words: duration • history • natural science • social science • time

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?