This book brings together, in systematic and generalized form, the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems. It carries out Pareto's intention by using the "structural-functional" level of analysis.

From Descartes to Popper, philosophers have criticized and tried to improve the strategies of reasoning invoked in science and in everyday life. In recent years leading cognitive psychologists have painted a detailed, controversial, and highly critical portrait of common sense reasoning. Stephen Stich begins with a spirited defense of this work and a critique of those writers who argue that widespread irrationality is a biological or conceptual impossibility.Stich then explores the nature of rationality and irrationality: What is it that distinguishes (...) good reasoning from bad? He rejects the most widely accepted approaches to this question approaches which unpack rationality by appeal to truth, to reflective equilibrium or conceptual analysis. The alternative he defends grows out of the pragmatic tradition in which reasoning is viewed as a cognitive tool. Stich's version of pragmatism leads to a radical epistemic relativism and he argues that the widespread abhorrence of relativism is ill founded. (shrink)

La historia de las religiones no es un simple catálogo de formas sucesivas de religión, sino la ingente experiencia de la humanidad tanto individual como social e histórica, acerca de la verdad última del poder de lo real. Los supuestos filosóficos de esta tesis han sido expuestos por Xavier Zubiri en su trilogía sobre la Inteligencia sentiente y en su estudio sobre El hombre y Dios. Allí ha cuestionado radicalmente el conceptismo y el idealismo que pesan sobre la Teoría del (...) conocimiento y sobre la Teodicea clásicas, proponiendo al mismo tiempo una importante y novedosa alternativa. A la tradicional primacía del sujeto, del logos y del ser, Zubiri ha opuesto la «aprehensión primordial de realidad». Esta es la que, en el problema de Dios, abre la posibilidad de trazar una vía nueva, que no es ni antropológica ni metafísica: la vía de la religación. Ahora bien, la religación adopta forzosamente una forma concreta, plasmándose en religión. Zubiri pone ahora en juego las categorías centrales de su pensamiento para esbozar, en los textos que aquí se recogen, un original y penetrante análisis del hecho religioso y de su historia. Por ello, el presente volumen de inéditos constituye no sólo la continuación natural de El hombre y Dios sino también una contribución de primer orden al estudio de un tema que ninguna gran filosofía ha eludido ni puede eludir. A ellos seguirá, en un tercer volumen, un estudio sistemático del Cristianismo, que vendrá a completar el análisis de lo que Zubiri denominaba «El problema teologal del hombre». (shrink)

Integrating personality, behavioral, and cognitive theories of change, the author examines the operations, measurement, and evolution of behavioral and ethical standards that distinguish capitalism from other ideologies.

This is an interesting study with a great deal of information on Eliade's main themes and a detailed account of his understanding of myth.

The problem of the definition of religion is studied in this volume from many angles and by different disciplines. Apart from papers on the history of the concept of religion, methodological reflections on its definition are presented, as well as explicit definition proposals and their relation to research programs. In addition, the volume contains analyses of the pragmatics and polemics of defining religion. The focus of this collection is on the pragmatic instrumentality and strategic intent of whatever concept of 'religion' (...) is being proposed. We argue in favor of an anti-essentialist, anti-hegemonic and multi-dimensional approach and the legitimacy of developing and proposing a broad variety of definitions of religions. (shrink)