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Author: C.R. Badcock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652347
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
What is the significance of Structuralism for social science? How original is Lévi-Strauss' contribution to social theory? Is he Marxist? Though Structuralism, and its leading representative Lévi-Strauss, are central to sociology, anthropology and psychology, the complexity of his work and the obscurity of his commentators have often proved a barrier to understanding. Now for the first time, Dr Badcock provides a jargon-free assessment of Lévi-Strauss' place in the tradition of French sociological thought – particularly to predecessors such as Comte, Durkheim and Mauss – discusses his relationship to Marx, Sartre, Freud and Talcott Parsons and provides a concise, non-technical account of his complex ideas on kinship, totenism and myth.
Author: C.R. Badcock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652347
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Get Book Here
Book Description
What is the significance of Structuralism for social science? How original is Lévi-Strauss' contribution to social theory? Is he Marxist? Though Structuralism, and its leading representative Lévi-Strauss, are central to sociology, anthropology and psychology, the complexity of his work and the obscurity of his commentators have often proved a barrier to understanding. Now for the first time, Dr Badcock provides a jargon-free assessment of Lévi-Strauss' place in the tradition of French sociological thought – particularly to predecessors such as Comte, Durkheim and Mauss – discusses his relationship to Marx, Sartre, Freud and Talcott Parsons and provides a concise, non-technical account of his complex ideas on kinship, totenism and myth.
Author: Mike Gane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652460
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Baudrillard is widely recognised as a powerful new force in cultural and social criticism, and is often referred to as the ‘High Priest of Postmodernism’. This study presents a detached assessment of his social thought and his reputation, challenging the way his work has been received in postmodernism and proposing a new reading of his contribution to social theory. Using many sources currently available only in French, Mike Gane provides the keys to understanding Baudrillard’s project and reveals the extent and scope of Baudrillard’s challenge to modern social theory and cultural criticism. He looks at the sources of Baudrillard’s ideas, analysing how Baudrillard has turned these sources against themselves. He describes Baudrillard’s dramatic encounter with critical Marxist theory and psychoanalysis, showing how Baudrillard’s post-Marxist writings define, through the exploration of fatal theory, a new episode in cultural history: a period of cultural implosion. This balanced account of Baudrillard’s social theory emphasises the originality of his work and argues that his significance can only be understood by grasping the paradoxes of his project – Baudrillard’s work is poetic, yet, at the same time, critical and fatal.
Author: Michael Mulkay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
M.J. Mulkay traces the development of certain recent versions of functionalism and exchange theory in sociology, with special attention to 'theoretical strategy'. He uses this term to refer to the policies which theorists adopt to ensure that their work contributes to their long range theoretical objectives. Such strategies are important, he believes, because they place limits on the theories with which they are associated. He shows how each of the theorists he studies devised a new strategy to replace the unsuccessful policies of a prior theory in a process of 'strategical dialectic'. This often has unforeseen consequences for the direction of theoretical growth, and the author interprets changes in theoretical perspective largely as products of these strategical innovations.
Author: John Rex
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
These essays, commissioned by John Rex, reflect the state of sociology in Britain today. Leading representatives of the diverse ‘schools’ provide lucid accounts of their own particular approaches to this complex discipline and in doing so demonstrate the techniques described. Topics covered include the empirical study of stratification, social evolution, survey techniques, mathematical sociology, systems theory, phenomenological approaches, Weberian sociology, structuralism, contemporary Marxism, and the development of theory after Talcott Parsons.
Author: James B. Wilbur
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
The annual Conferences on Value Inquiry bring together philosophers, scientists and humanists to discuss the many facets of the problem of value in the experience of the individual and in contemporary society. One of the criteria in choosing papers for the Conference is the ability to stimulate discussion and clarification. The papers in the present volumes show deep concern with the problems and responsibilities in making choices of value.
Author: Eric Carlton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651715
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Truly interdisciplinary work between Sociology and History is are, because one discipline usually exploits the concerns or data of the other. Eric Carlton, however, has succeeded in bringing together the distinctive orientations of sociology and ancient history into a clearly written discussion of concerns crucial to both disciplines. Based on a comparative analysis or two pre-industrial civilisations, those of Ancient Egypt and Classical Athens, the study is primarily concerned with three issues. The first is the relationship between belief and action: does belief (intellectualised as ideology) affect or determine social behaviour? Second, the author examines the ways in which belief contributes to stability and ‘good order’ in society, and asks to what extent such factors as social status and social change are related to institutionalised mechanisms of social control. Finally, he indicates possible sociological frameworks or models which are ideological rather than stratificatory, whereby complex pre-industrial systems might be analysed. By analysing the societies of Ancient Egypt and Classical Athens in institutional terms, Eric Carlton examines the potency and pervasiveness of the ideological factor and shows that it is a persistent and determinative feature of this type of society.
Author: John Rex
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131765076X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
Professor Rex’s controversial book concerns not only those who are professional sociologists but all thinking people who live in the modern world. One of the objects of sociology is to give ‘power to the people’, to make a contribution to the understanding of political problems. Rex writes from a deep conviction that sociology is a subject whose insights should be made available to the great mass of the people, so that they may liberate themselves from the mystification of social reality that is continually and routinely presented to them through the media, by those who exercise power and by those who have influence. The book is dedicated to St Augustine and Franz Fanon, both of whom, Rex points out, were conscious of living in an age which was embarking on a new barbarism, but had the courage to use their intellects to help understand the possibility of a better future. Rex continues in this tradition, and his main preoccupations are reflected in the present book. It includes a discussion of the problem of social knowledge, an analysis of the basic problems of theory building, and, with the aid of concepts derived from Max Weber, an attempt to understand the major problems of the first, second and third worlds. The author also looks at social structures and moral perspectives, and discusses the vocation of a sociologist in a collapsing civilisation. The book is certain to stimulate debate, both in sociological and political fields and more generally, and is also a serious contribution to the discussion of the methodology and purposes of sociology.
Author: Derek Layder
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650662
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
A central problem in contemporary social theory is that of providing an account of social interaction that does justice both to the self-monitoring capacities of the individuals involved and to the society that ‘frames’ the interaction. This book attempts to resolve this problem, arguing for an objectivist or ‘structuralist’ account which does not undervalue the importance of the indexical and negotiated aspects of interaction, and which takes seriously the Marxist-rationalist critique of empiricism and humanism and the associated idea that society should be treated as a supra-individual, preconstituted and constraining object of scientific analysis. First, Dr Layder pinpoints certain of the strengths and weaknesses of various schools of thought: social psychology (scrutinized in both its sociological and psychological forms), sociology, the Marxist-rationalist approach. Whilst rejecting the mechanistic or naively deterministic theories which are often associated with an objectivist stance, he argues that the productive activities of situated actors must be understood as existing in an articulated relationship with, and within, sets of preconstituted contextual constraints. This thesis is illustrated conceptually by the development of a framework which distinguishes two types and levels of social structure, with different modes of production and reproduction, and empirically by an analysis of aspects of interaction in the occupation of acting.
Author: Werner Pelz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317648447
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
In their efforts to emulate the methodology which had proved so successful in the natural sciences, the social sciences – including sociology – have not yet faced the question as to what constitutes understanding in their area with sufficient seriousness. This book asks again: what does understanding denote in an area where man tries to understand man, where self-understanding is involved, where new understanding immediately becomes part of that which is to be understood? What can we know and what is the use and limitation of knowledge in sociology? When are we conscious that we know and understand? Werner Pelz argues for a thorough reorientation in our approach to sociological thinking, and suggests that scientistic preconceptions have often precluded possibly fruitful approaches to humane understanding. He investigates the relations between various kinds of knowing, and examines the new possibilities of understanding made available, for example, by psychoanalytical and phenomenological insights, as well as by those of poets, artists, mystics. He shows that in the social and humanistic sciences, creative or constitutive contributions illuminate rather than demonstrate, and that, for this reason, sociology has not yet found an appropriate method for conveying them without serious distortions.
Author: Josef Bleicher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651812
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185
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Book Description
In his previous book, Contemporary Hermeneutics, Josef Bleicher offered an introduction to the subject, locating it mainly within the philosophy of social science, and looking at the profound impact it is having on a wide range of intellectual pursuits. This book follows on from this and expounds the author's view that the development of the hermeneutic imagination is an indispensable condition for reflexive sociological work and emancipatory social practice. Dr Bleicher examines the various approaches to sociology – empiricist, functionalist, structuralist, interpretive, critical – by reference to a hermeneutic paradigm, and shows how the hermeneutic imagination leads to a redirection in sociology, away from scientistic presuppositions and towards an awareness of the dialogue which links the subject and object in the study of social phenomena. He argues that by allowing the hermeneutic imagination to develop, it is possible to counter the steering of social processes on the basis of technocratic imperatives, and to provide a rational anticipation of a better future.
