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Author: Frank Hearn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000155838
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
How has reason, believed since the Enlightenment to be the ally of freedom in the search for a better, more humanly satisfying world, been reduced to a technical rationality that has actually impoverished the bases of human freedom? What might be the options and obligations for sociologists who wish to restore reason to its proper status? Working within the tradition of C. Wright Mills and Jurgen Habermas, Frank Hearn sets out to answer these questions. He surveys the treatment of the relation between reason and freedom in both the classical tradition (especially the writings of Saint-Simon, Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Freud) and an increasingly significant segment of social thought and criticism (and, for example, in the contrasting visions of Daniel Bell and Christopher Lasch.) He then analyses both the concrete social and historical forms of expression taken by what Mills calls 'rationality without reason' and their impact on individual autonomy and the freedoms associated with democratic politics. Finally, he develops Mills's and Habermas's claims that the cultivation of democratic publics and a critical social theory committed to a vibrant public life are indispensable to the protection and revitalization of the values of reason and freedom and of the practices they entail. This book updates and enriches Mills's influential argument by demonstrating its affinity with critical theory, by showing its contributions to a critical understanding of the classical tradition, and by showing its implications for contemporary social, political, and economic developments.
Author: Frank Hearn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000155838
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Get Book Here
Book Description
How has reason, believed since the Enlightenment to be the ally of freedom in the search for a better, more humanly satisfying world, been reduced to a technical rationality that has actually impoverished the bases of human freedom? What might be the options and obligations for sociologists who wish to restore reason to its proper status? Working within the tradition of C. Wright Mills and Jurgen Habermas, Frank Hearn sets out to answer these questions. He surveys the treatment of the relation between reason and freedom in both the classical tradition (especially the writings of Saint-Simon, Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Freud) and an increasingly significant segment of social thought and criticism (and, for example, in the contrasting visions of Daniel Bell and Christopher Lasch.) He then analyses both the concrete social and historical forms of expression taken by what Mills calls 'rationality without reason' and their impact on individual autonomy and the freedoms associated with democratic politics. Finally, he develops Mills's and Habermas's claims that the cultivation of democratic publics and a critical social theory committed to a vibrant public life are indispensable to the protection and revitalization of the values of reason and freedom and of the practices they entail. This book updates and enriches Mills's influential argument by demonstrating its affinity with critical theory, by showing its contributions to a critical understanding of the classical tradition, and by showing its implications for contemporary social, political, and economic developments.
Author: Mariam Thalos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131739495X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
In A Social Theory of Freedom, Mariam Thalos argues that the theory of human freedom should be a broadly social and political theory, rather than a theory that places itself in opposition to the issue of determinism. Thalos rejects the premise that a theory of freedom is fundamentally a theory of the metaphysics of constraint and, instead, lays out a political conception of freedom that is closely aligned with questions of social identity, self-development in contexts of intimate relationships, and social solidarity. Thalos argues that whether a person is free (in any context) depends upon a certain relationship of fit between that agent’s conception of themselves (both present and future), on the one hand, and the facts of their circumstances, on the other. Since relationships of fit are broadly logical, freedom is a logic—it is the logic of fit between one’s aspirations and one’s circumstances, what Thalos calls the logic of agency. The logic of agency, once fleshed out, becomes a broadly social and political theory that encompasses one’s self-conceptions as well as how these self-conceptions are generated, together with how they fit with the circumstances of one’s life. The theory of freedom proposed in this volume is fundamentally a political one.
Author: Axel Honneth
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745680062
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 441
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Book Description
The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their “field of application” - namely, social reality. Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within Western liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms “democratic ethical life”: a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established. Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789350027639
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
Author: Frank Hearn
Publisher: Unwin Hyman
ISBN: 9780043011959
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
Author: Michele Dillon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405170026
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577
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Book Description
Combining carefully chosen primary quotes with extensive discussion and everyday illustrative examples, this book provides an in-depth introduction to classical and contemporary theory. Uses a wide range of newspaper examples to illustrate the relevance to sociological theory Contains excerpts from theorists’ primary texts Includes chapter-specific glossaries of all theoretical concepts discussed in the book Short biographies and historical timelines of significant events provide context to various theorists’ ideas Incorporates a range of pedagogical features Supporting website includes multiple choice and essay questions, PowerPoint slides, a quotation bank, and other background materials Visit www.wiley.com/go/dillon for additional student and instructor resources.
Author: Richard Stivers
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791478033
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Explores how Enlightenment values have been transformed in a technological civilization.
Author: Johannes F.M. Schick
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800732341
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
By studying how different societies understand categories such as time and causality, the Durkheimians decentered Western epistemology. With contributions from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, media studies, and sinology, this volume illustrates the interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor of the “category project” which did not only stir controversies among contemporary scholars but paved the way for other theories exploring how the thoughts of individuals are prefigured by society and vice versa.
Author: Uta Gerhardt
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781409427674
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Exploring the conceptual baseline of Parsons's sociology and maintaining focus on its links with 20th century history, this book sheds light on the requirements of analytical rigor in the social sciences through examination of the debates in which Parsons was engaged throughout his life. In addition to revisiting Parsons's extensive oeuvre, Uta Gerhardt takes up various themes in current research and theory - including social inequality, civic culture, and globalization - thus demonstrating what the conceptual approaches of Parsons can accomplish today.
Author: Pierre Charbonnier
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509543732
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.
