The conventional production model based on extensive use of chemical inputs such as pesticides is increasingly challenged. Organic agriculture is considered as one of the most important alternative agricultural systems to produce healthy food without any chemicals. Current models are not suitable for prediction of environmental behaviors. The current study aims to analyze the diffusion of organic agriculture to produce healthy food with the environmental sociology approach among farmers. The study was conducted using the survey research and multi-stage random sampling (...) in Fars province, in the south of Iran. The samples included 215 farmers. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by conducting a pilot study out of the main sample. The results showed that the farmers have strong attitude to the environment and are for the most part, highly intentioned to perform organic activities. Based on the results, the farmers’ intention toward adoption of organic agriculture, environmental identity, and responsibility of pro-environmental behavior, and their moral norms play an important role to accept organic agricultural activities. There are also some effective factors in implementation of organic agriculture including farmers` increasing awareness about the principles of organic farming, controllability of environmental behaviors as well as their accessibility to the resources and facilities for organic farming. The study emphasized that the attitude and enhancing the knowledge do not lead to pro-environmental behaviors and organic activities directly. Using the models and environmental sociology theories is more efficient to explain pro-environmental behaviors. To this aim, some suggestions were presented to increase the adoption of organic activities and persuade the Iranian farmers to select this kind of cultivation. (shrink)

The thesis that Weber was without influence in Weimar Germany is examined. It is shown that in contemporary published assessments and in private statements in interviews contemporary sociologists regarded him as important. The many dissertations on Weber and the enormous secondary literature are noted. This literature, which was contributed by some of the best minds of the day, included both the philosophical and sociological aspects of Weber's work. It is concluded that the thesis that Weber was without influence is (...) false. (shrink)

Max Weber, German economist, historian, sociologist, methodologist, and political thinker, is of philosophical significance for his attempted reconciliation of historical relativism with the possibility of a causal social science; his notion of a verstehende sociology; his formulation, use and epistemic account of the concept of ‘ideal types’; his views on the rational irreconcilability of ultimate value choices, and particularly his formulation of the implications for ethical political action of the conflict between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility; and his (...) sociological account of the causes and uniqueness of the western rationalization of life. These topics are closely related: Weber argued that the explanatory interests of the historian and social scientist vary historically and that the objects of their interest were constituted in terms of cultural points of view, and that consequently their categories are ultimately rooted in evaluations, and hence subjective. But he also argued that social science cannot dispense with causality, and that once the categories were chosen, judgments of causality were objective. The explanatory interests of the sociologist, as he defined sociology, were in understanding intentional action causally, but in terms of categories that were culturally significant, such as ‘rational action’. Much of his influence flowed from his formulation of the cultural situation of the day, especially the idea that the fate of the time was to recognize that evaluations were inescapably subjective and that the world had no inherent ‘meaning’. The existential implications of this novel situation for politics and learning were strikingly formulated by him: science could not tell us how to live; politics was as a choice between warring Gods. Weber’s scholarly work and his politics served as a model for Karl Jaspers, and a subject of criticism and analysis for other philosophers, such as Karl Löwith, Max Scheler, and the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

The sociology of scientific knowledge is one of the profession’s most marginal specialties, yet its objects of inquiry, its modes of inquiry, and certain of its findings have very substantial bearing upon the nature and scope of the sociological enterprise in general. While traditional sociology of knowledge asked how, and to what extent, "social factors" might influence the products of the mind, SSK sought to show that knowledge was constitutively social, and in so doing, it raised fundamental questions (...) about taken-for-granted divisions between "social versus cognitive, or natural, factors." This piece traces the historical development of the sociology of scientific knowledge and its relations with sociology and cultural inquiry as a whole. It identifies dominant "localist" sensibilities in SSK and the consequent problem it now confronts of how scientific knowledge travels. Finally, it describes several strands of criticism of SSK that have emerged from among its own practitioners, noting the ways in which some criticisms can be seen as a revival of old aspirations toward privileged meta-languages. (shrink)

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the various sociologies of New Zealand from the late 19th century to the present day. Opening with previously undocumented insights into the history of proto-sociology in New Zealand, the book then explores the parallel stories of the discipline both as a mainstream subject in Sociology departments and as a more diffuse ‘sociology’ within other university units.The rise and fall of departments, specialties and research networks is plotted and the ways in which external (...) and internal factors have shaped these is explained. Different generations of sociologists, including many immigrants, are each shown to have left their unique mark on New Zealand sociology. The author demonstrates that the rising interest in topics specific to New Zealand has been accompanied by increasing capacities to contribute to world sociology. This book will have inter-disciplinary appeal across the social sciences and provides a valuable study of the development of sociology in a semi-peripheral country. (shrink)

In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the (...) existing research on meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter’s relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I criticize environmental sociology’s conventional diagnosis of its methodological situation and overly narrow definition of its field. I argue for a greater engagement with the natural science base and consideration of anthropological approaches. I start with conceptual analysis, identifying the human-environment relationship as a pro-active two-way interaction. I then present an outline of global environmental dynamics, highlighting the unequal size of human activities on geosphere and biosphere scale, and the role of the biosphere as manager of the (...) geosphere, this as context for the human population problem. Three types of environmental problems are next identified: urban-industrial, rural-agrarian, and high hazard exposure. These are seen as forming a continuum, with anthropogenic and natural factors synergizing at the centre. I comment on their geographic distribution, noting Europe’s limited and specific environmental experience. Lastly I attempt an overview without biological metaphors of the humanenvironment relationship through time, commenting on its inherent imbalances and how these might be diagnosed. I conclude that sociology’s bias to modernity and the West renders it inadequate to the global environmental question. A wider and deeper spacio-temporal consideration is needed, with the whole continuum of environmental problems considered. For this, environmental sociology should seek a synthesis with cultural anthropology centring on the anthropological concept of culture, an approach, I argue, that is accessible through the sociology of Max Weber. (shrink)

The sociology of education is concerned not just with the abstract theory but with the day-to-day experiences of pupils and teachers. In this up-to-date account of the main developments in the subject, Karen Chapman shows how education offers a rich and varied field for sociologists, one easily accessible for study. She begins by setting the subject in its historical post-War context. She then goes on to outline comprehensively the subject's theoretical base and anlayses the factors that influence educational change. (...) Specific chapters deal with the topical subjects of educational under-achievement, gender, race and the trend towards a vocational element in curriculum. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis essay attempts to show the decisive importance of the “scientific discipline” for any historical or sociological analysis of modern science. There are two reasons for this:1. A discontinuity can be observed at the beginning of modern science: the “discipline,” which up until that time had been a classificatorily generated unit of the ordering of knowledge for purposes of instruction in schools and universities, develops into a genuine and concrete social system of scientific communication. Scientific disciplines as concrete (...) systems (Realsysteme) arise as a result of (a) the communicative stabilization of “scientific communities” at the end of the eighteenth century and the formation of “appropriate” roles and organizational structures (in universities); (b) the structural differentiation of the new scientific disciplines from the established professions (law, theology, medicine) in Europe; (c) the formation of scientific communication in the standardized form of scientific publication; the distinction of the separate action-type “scientific research” and the differentiation of these two elementary acts of all future scientific endeavor in relation to each other.2. The scientific discipline as primary unit of the internal differentiation of science has, since its genesis, been stabilized by two conditions: (a) The fact of a science differentiated into a plurality of (competing, mutually stimulating) disciplinary perspectives becomes the chief causal factor underlying the developmental dynamism of modern science; (b) Similar to the way in which the discipline functions as a cognitive address within the system of science, science also links the discipline up as a structural unit (utilized in both systems) with curricular structures in the system of education — i.e., it is stabilized by the central system/environment relation of science. (shrink)

In this article I seek to relate the psychology of Carl Jung to sociological theory, specifically Weber. I first present an outline of Jungian psychology. I then seek to relate this as psychology to Weber’s interpretivism. I point to basic methodological compatibilities within a Kantian frame, from which emerge central concerns with the factors limiting rationality. These generate the conceptual frameworks for parallel enquiries into the development and fate of rationality in cultural history. Religion is a major theme (...) here: contrasts of eastern and western religion; the rise of prophetic religion and the disenchantment of modernity. Weber’s categories ‘ascetic’ and ‘mystic’ seem applicable to his own and Jung’s approaches and indeed temperaments, while a shared ironic view of rationality leads to similar visions of the disenchanted modern world. I conclude that Jung is sociologically coherent, but in an entirely different sense from Freud: rather than a constellation of family, socialization, ideology, social continuity, there is an analysis of cultural history against a background of adult normal psychology. I conclude that sociology should acknowledge Jung, but not in terms of over-arching theory. Rather Jungian insights might be used to orient new enquiries, and for reflexive analysis of sociology’s methodological debates. (shrink)

BackgroundEvolving medical technology, advancing biomedical and drug research, and changing laws and legislation impact patients’ healthcare options and influence healthcare practitioners’ (HCPs’) practices. Conscientious objection policy confusion and variability can arise as it may occasionally be unclear what underpins non-participation. Our objective was to identify, analyze, and synthesize the factors that influenced HCPs who did not participate in ethically complex, legally available healthcare.MethodsWe used Arksey and O’Malley’s framework while considering Levac et al.’s enhancements, and qualitatively synthesized the evidence. We (...) searched Medline, CINAHL, JSTOR, EMBASE, PsychINFO, Sociological Abstracts, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global from January 1, 1998, to January 15, 2020, and reviewed the references of the final articles. We included articles written in English that discussed the factors that influenced physicians and registered nurses (RNs) who did not participate in end-of-life (EOL), reproductive technology and health, genetic testing, and organ or tissue donation healthcare areas. Using Covidence, we conducted title and abstract screening, followed by full-text screening against our eligibility criteria. We extracted the article’s data into a spreadsheet, analyzed the articles, and completed a qualitative content analysis using NVivo12.ResultsWe identified 10,664 articles through the search, and after the screening, 16 articles were included. The articles sampled RNs (n = 5) and physicians (n = 11) and encompassed qualitative (n = 7), quantitative (n = 7), and mixed (n = 2) methodologies. The care areas included reproductive technology and health (n = 11), EOL (n = 3), organ procurement (n = 1), and genetic testing (n = 1). One article included two care areas; EOL and reproductive health. The themed factors that influenced HCPs who did not participate in healthcare were: (1) HCPs’ characteristics, (2) personal beliefs, (3) professional ethos, 4) emotional labour considerations, and (5) system and clinical practice considerations.ConclusionThe factors that influenced HCPs’ who did not participate in ethically complex, legally available care are diverse. There is a need to recognize conscientious objection to healthcare as a separate construct from non-participation in healthcare for reasons other than conscience. Understanding these separate constructs will support HCPs’ specific to the underlying factors influencing their practice participation. (shrink)

Advocates of the "strong programme" in the sociology of knowledge have argued that, because scientific theories are "underdetermined" by data, sociological factors must be invoked to explain why scientists believe the theories they do. I examine this argument, and the responses to it by J.R. Brown (1989) and L. Laudan (1996). I distinguish between a number of different versions of the underdetermination thesis, some trivial, some substantive. I show that Brown's and Laudan's attempts to refute the sociologists' argument (...) fail. Nonetheless, the sociologists' argument falls to a different criticism, for the version of the underdetermination thesis that the argument requires, has not been shown to be true. (shrink)

Background: Informed consent for genetic tests is a well-established practice. It should be based on good quality information and in keeping with the patient’s values. Existing informed consent assessment tools assess knowledge and values. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on what specific elements need to be discussed or considered in the consent process for genetic tests.Methods: We performed a systematic review to identify all factors involved in the decision-making and consent process about genetic testing, from the perspective of patients. (...) Through public databases, we identified studies reporting factors that influence the decision to accept or decline genetic testing. Studies were included if they reported the perspective of patients or at-risk individuals. All articles were thematically coded.Results: 1989 articles were reviewed: 70 met inclusion criteria and 12 additional articles were identified through the references of included studies. Coding of the 82 articles led to the identification of 45 factors involved in decision-making and consent, which were initially divided into three domains: in favor of, against or with an undetermined influence on genetic testing. Each factor was also divided into three subdomains relating to the informed choice concept: knowledge, values or other. The factors in the “other” subdomain were all related to the context of testing (e.g. timing, cost, influence of family members, etc), and were present in all three domains.Conclusions: We describe the network of factors contributing to decision-making and consent process and identify the context of genetic testing as a third component to influence this process. Future studies should consider the evaluation of contextual factors as an important and relevant component of the consent and decision-making process about genetic tests. Based on these results, we plan to develop and test a more comprehensive tool to assess informed consent for genetic testing. (shrink)

Agroecological farming is widely considered to reconcile improved working and living conditions of farmers while promoting social, economic, and ecological sustainability. However, most existing research primarily focuses on relatively narrow trade-offs between workload, economic and ecological outcomes at farm level and overlooks the critical role of contextual factors. This article conducts a critical literature review on the complex nature of agroecological farm work and proposes the holistic concept of sustainable farm work (SFW) in agroecology together with a heuristic evaluation (...) framework. The latter was applied to ten case studies to test its relevance, affirming positive outcomes of agroecology on SFW, such as improved food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation, and social inclusiveness, but also showing trade-offs, including increased workload and potential yield reductions. Further, results show that contextual factors, such as policy support, market regulation, and access to resources, heavily influence the impact of agroecological practices on SFW. This article strongly argues for the importance of a holistic understanding of SFW and its contextualization within multiple socio-ecological system levels. The proposed framework establishes clear relationships between agroecology and SFW. An explicit recognition of these multidimensional relationships is essential for maximizing positive outcomes of agroecology in different contexts and fostering SFW. On a theoretical level, this research concludes that, from a holistic perspective, work is an entry point to studying the potential of agroecology to drive a sustainable agroecological transition in economic, social, and ecological terms. (shrink)

That discrimination exists in courts of law is beyond dispute. In American murder cases, for instance, studies show that blacks who kill a white are much more likely to receive the death penalty than if they kill a black. Indeed, in Georgia, they are 30 times more likely to be condemned, and in Texas a staggering 90 times more likely. Conversely, in Texas, of 143 whites convicted of killing a black, only one was sentenced to die. But how extensive is (...) discrimination in the courtroom? Is it strictly a matter of racial prejudice, or does it respond to a wide range of social factors? In Sociological Justice, eminent legal sociologist Donald Black challenges the conventional notion that law is primarily an affair of rules and that discrimination is an aberration. Law, he contends, is a social process in which bias is inherent. Indeed, Black goes well beyond the documented instances of racial discrimination to show how social status, the degree of intimacy, speech, organization, and numerous other factors all greatly influence whether a complaint will be filed in court, who will win, and what the punishment or other remedy will be. Moreover, he extends his analysis to include not only the litigants, but also the lawyers, the jurors, and the judge, describing how their social characteristics can also influence a case. Sociological Justice introduces a new field of legal scholarship that will have important consequences for the future of law: the sociology of the case. Black discusses how lawyers can use the sociology of the case to improve their practice and, for those interested in reform, he suggests ways to minimize bias in the courtroom. Beyond this, Black demonstrates that modern jurisprudence, with its assumption that like cases will be treated in like fashion, is out of touch with reality. He urges the adoption of a new sociological jurisprudence, with a new morality of law, that explicitly addresses the social relativity of justice. A major contribution to legal scholarship, this thought-provoking volume is essential reading for anyone interested in law and justice in modern society. (shrink)

Specification of an appropriate relationship, or division of labor, between sociology and philosophy, remains a sensitive issue. Anthony Giddens offers a distinctive variant in his concern, in structuration theory, to develop an ontology of the social without participating in epistemological debate and without articulating and justifying a normative theory (whether a philosophical anthropology or a political philosophy). Both omissions impair the wider reception of structuration theory. The second is the more serious, however, insofar as the postempiricist community of inquirers may (...) make a virtue of the ethical and political factors that inform social science, but it does not yet have any settled means of assessing different, and contesting, values; even if it did, it could not invent Giddens's position for him. There are signs that Giddens now recognizes the need to formulate and justify models of the good society and of the actualized self. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to explore factors that affect the decisions single-child parents make when considering whether to have a second child applying the psychological theory of planned behaviour. Quantitative survey data from a sample of parents with a single child selected from a Slovak representative sample was used to perform regression analysis assessing effects of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control on intention to have a second child within the next three years. Results largely confirm the (...) model captured in TPB. All three components of the TPB have a significant effect on intentions to have a second child. A particular set of liberal and conservative attitudes facilitate plans to have a second child. The strongest predictors, however, are the perceived pressure from the social environment and subjective desire to have a child. The study concludes that, along with demographic and sociological variables, psychological factors play a significant role in decision-making processes concerning reproductive planning. (shrink)

This is an excursion into the sociology of American sociology. It is an attempt to present a typology of the relationship between sociological empiricism as an ideology, and the pre?eminence and power of empiricist sociologists. Toward this end, such concrete factors as recruitment practices, educational orientations, status strivings of the social scientists, forms of financial subsidization, and the profes?sionalization of the field are taken into account. The article concludes by noting the limited field of investigations open to (...) class='Hi'>sociological empiricism, and its general impoverishment as the leading ideology of the science of sociology. (shrink)

This work aims to foster interest in the links between a particular theoretical and conceptual development of sociological science in Italy and the debate surrounding the history of scientific subjects, here called the epistemological history of various disciplines. The author sets out to trace the points of view emerging from Italian epistemological sociology between the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries and related to the debate on the historical and philosophical sciences. The intention resides in revealing the distinctive characteristics of (...) the latter, their internal (logical and methodological) rather than external (historical and social) factors, while investigating the task of the new historians of science confronted with the changes caused by various knowledge and forms of technological know-how. The text provides the contemporary scientific community with a new route to follow when seeking to rationally establish and write the history of sociology. The addressees are, more than anything else, the new generation of scholars of the history of science. (shrink)

The sociology of art has experienced a significant revival during the last three decades. However, in the first instance, this renewed interest was dominated by the ‘production of culture’ perspective and was heavily focused on contextual factors such as the social organization of artistic markets and careers, and displays of ‘cultural capital’ through consumption of the arts. In this article, I outline a new mode of approaching art sociologically that begins with Alfred Gell’s (1998) Art and Agency, but comes (...) to full fruition in what I am calling the ‘new sociology of art’. A major theoretical statement that captures many of the aspirations of the new approach is Jeffrey Alexander’s essay: ‘Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning’. It is suggested that the new sociology of art has much in common with material culture studies, and that a more robust concept of the artwork’s agency is needed now that art has well and truly taken on a social and cultural life well beyond those institutions traditionally understood as the ‘art world’. (shrink)

In summer 1960, Adorno gave the first of a series of lectures devoted to the relation between sociology and philosophy. One of his central concerns was to dispel the notion, erroneous in his view, that these were two incompatible disciplines, radically opposed in their methods and aims, a notion that was shared by many. While some sociologists were inclined to dismiss philosophy as obsolete and incapable of dealing with the pressing social problems of our time, many philosophers, influenced by Kant, (...) believed that philosophical reflection must remain 'pure', investigating the constitution of knowledge and experience without reference to any real or material factors. By focusing on the problem of truth, Adorno seeks to show that philosophy and sociology share much more in common than many of their practitioners are inclined to assume. Drawing on intellectual history, Adorno demonstrates the connection between truth and social context, arguing that there is no truth that cannot be manipulated by ideology and no theorem that can be wholly detached from social and historical considerations.his systematic account on the interconnectedness of philosophy and sociology makes these lectures a timeless reflection on the nature of these disciplines and an excellent introduction to critical theory, the sociological content of which is here outlined in detail by Adorno for the first time. (shrink)

The article deals with theoretical, practical, partly - historical aspects of scientific research of modern Ukrainian and foreign sociologists and social workers. The aim of the research is to analyze and summarize the following three key aspects: a) historical destructive moments in the development of Ukrainian/Soviet sociology; b) the orientation of the vector of postmodernist research of foreign scholars who had no censorship restrictions on their works; c) the main problematics of current Ukrainian sociological research. The latter, despite their (...) deep materialistic tradition, find opportunities for new non-empirical approaches. In the article with the help of analysis of methodical sources, generalization of their content and presentation and interpretation of individual statistical data the authors substantiate: socio-economic, managerial and pedagogical reasons can systematically present the problematics of the current research of social workers. However, the postmodern aspect, still not "reworked" by the Ukrainian society, has not yet left its final mark on the social research. The international significance of the article lies in the interest of countries of transitional democracies and economies, previously under totalitarian influence, to acquire full emancipation and neo-liberalization concerning social problems and humane ways of solving them. (shrink)

El artículo desarrolla el estado de la cuestión respecto a los elementos de la práctica deportiva que influyen en la producción de emociones. Se focaliza la selección bibliográfica desde la perspectiva teórica y metodológica procedente de la sociología y la psicología social. En las conclusiones se muestra que la frecuencia de la práctica deportiva, el grado de interacción y la presencia de competición son los principales factores que influyen en la producción emocional.

Approaching the settlement of our Moon from a practical perspective, this book is well suited for space program planners. It addresses a variety of human factor topics involved in colonizing Earth's Moon, including: history, philosophy, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, politics & policy, sociology, and anthropology. Each chapter identifies the complex, interdisciplinary issues of the human factor that arise in the early phases of settlement on the Moon. Besides practical issues, there is some emphasis placed on preserving, protecting, and experiencing the (...) lunar environment across a broad range of occupations, from scientists to soldiers and engineers to construction workers. The book identifies utilitarian and visionary factors that shape human lives on the Moon. It offers recommendations for program planners in the government and commercial sectors and serves as a helpful resource for academic researchers. Together, the coauthors ask and attempt to answer: “How will lunar society be different?”. (shrink)

As frequently pointed out in this discussion, one of the most characteristic features of Mayr's approach to the history of biology stems from the fact that he is dealing to a considerable degree with his own professional history. Furthermore, his main criterion for the selection of historical episodes is their relevance for modern biological theory. As W. F. Bynum and others have noted, the general impression of his reviewers is that “one of the towering figures of evolutionary biology has now (...) written a towering history of his discipline.”138 Bynum is here referring to The Growth of Biological Thought, but this observation holds equally true for Mayr's other historical writings: One must surely read this book [One Long Argument] not only for its content in itself, but for what it tells of its author. And certainly as one does so, one comes away full-handed. Many, if not all, of the disputes and controversies that have driven Mayr through his long intellectual life reappear, stated as forcefully and elegantly as ever.139Up to this point, most reviewers agree; the bone of contention is, rather, how to evaluate Mayr's historical work, considering this observation. The two related characteristics of his work-I will call them subjectivity and presentism-stand in opposition to a widespread approach in the history of science exemplified by Kuhn's suggestion that “insofar as possible..., the historian should set aside the science that he knows. His science should be learned from the textbooks and journals of the period he studies.”140 There are, however, historians who consider the close connection between Mayr and the subject matter of his historical studies to be an advantage.141On the other hand, it is assumed that the connection between past and present must result in a distortion of the historical truth and lead to a historiographical fallacy, commonly referred to as “Whig history”. Herbert Butterfield, who in 1931 gave the term its now generally accepted meaning, believed that “real historical understanding is not achieved by the subordination of the past to the present, but rather by our making the past our present and attempting to see life with the eyes of another century than our own”142. Unfortunately, Butterfield's definition of what he considers Whig history remains somewhat vague, and modern authors have emphasized what they consider most important. Butterfield's “subordination of the past to the present” is referred to in respect to the selection of subjects (there are more biographies of Charles Darwin than of, let's say, Louis Agassiz),143 to the evaluation of historical authors,144 or, more generally, to all kinds of histories “with one eye, so to speak, upon the present.”145 The underlying tendency of Whig historians is to produce a “historical account told from the viewpoint of those in power,”146 leading to a “glorification of the present.”147 It is obvious that Mayr's strongly presentist approach to the history of biology can be called Whiggish, if we apply the criteria of “selection” or “reference.” However, it might be worth mentioning that the program of writing a strictly historicist account of the history of science is challenged by various authors.148 For Mayr, it is not only legitimate but necessary to compare the present situation with the past. “Whiggish” is only the evaluation of an author in terms of our time.149I cannot discuss the Whit/anti-Whig controversy in any detail here, apart from saying that Mayr has defended himself rather extensively against the charges of being Whiggish.150 Nevertheless, it may be useful to touch on some of the criticisms that are predominant in reviews of his writings. First, we encounter the notion that historians can write a true and convincing historical account only if they have no personal interest or interpretation of their own; Mayr, on the other hand, because he “has such strong interpretations of his own, ... cannot possibly convince everyone that he is right about everything.”151 It makes one wonder, what historian has ever been able to convince everyone that he or she is right about everything? But apart from this peculiar idea, it unquestionably poses certain dangers if the subject matter of historical scrutiny and the author are identical. At the same time, this identity brings certain advantages with it, especially firsthand experiences of the period in discussion. Whether these personal memories ultimately result in a distorted picture of the past has to be decided in every particular instance. The notion that a scientific study can be conducted by a completely detached observer from a neutral standpoint has been shown to be impossible in physics, and it is also an illusion in historiography. The question is not whether, but which kind of interest are the underlying motivation for a historian. At this point, Mayr is ahead of his critics when he suggests that our understanding of the past always has a subjective component: The main reason, however, why histories are in constant need of revision is that at any given time they merely reflect the present state of understanding; they depend on how the author interpreted the current zeitgeist of biology and on his own conceptual framework and background. Thus, by necessity the writing of history is subjective and ephemeral.152Second, the temporal proximity between the event and the historical analysis makes difficulties inevitable and will finally result in certain false assessments. But this applies to all historians when they discuss recent problems, regardless of whether they are personally involved or not: As long as the battle between Darwinism and Lamarckism was raging, it was quite impossible to undertake an unbiased evaluation of Lamarck. ...[The] definite refutation of Lamarck's theory of evolutionary causation clears the air. We can now study him without bias and emotion and give him the attention that this major figure in the history of biology clearly deserves.153Third, Mayr is primarily interested in biological problems and not, for instance, historiographical, sociological, or psychological questions. Several authors have remarked that since the beginning of the professionalization of the history of science in the 1960s, a rift between two groups has developed, resulting from the heterogeneous professional backgrounds and interests of the people involved: the authors who were originally biologists and became interested in the history of their discipline only later on, and the authors who were trained as historians.154 Whereas the first group, the “biologists,” tend to be laymen in history proper, the “historians” are in most cases laymen in biology. Different professional backgrounds obviously shape the historical perspective in both groups, but neither approach is necessarily superior. The great number of important books in the history of biology written by “biologist” documents how valuable this point of view can be. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the writings of biologists in the history of science tend to have a strong “internalist” tendency and often neglect the professional, cultural, and political context of science. Mayr's approach is that of a “biologist”; it is “internalist,” and typical for scientists who turn to the history of their discipline.I want to conclude my analysis with a quotation from a review by Douglas J. Futuyma, which gives a perceptive glimpse of Mayr's personality and style: One cannot help standing in awe of the germanic capacity for vast, allembracing synthesis: consider the lifelong devotion of Goethe to Faust, or Wagner's integration of the arts into a Gesamtkunstwerk in which all of human history and experience is wrought into epic myth. It is perhaps in this tradition that Ernst Mayr's The Growth of Biological Thought stands: a history of all of biology, a Ring des Nibelungen complete with leitmotivs such as the failures of reductionism, the struggle of biology for independence from physics, and the liberation of population thinking from the bounds of essentialism.155 Within this style of thinking Mayr has “to offer...nothing less than a vision of biology that places neodarwinian evolutionary theory firmly at the centre.”156 There may be other visions of biology, but few of them have as indefatigable and able representatives as Darwinism has in Ernst Mayr. (shrink)

Almost traditionally, it seems, accounts of the development of the concepts of work and energy have tended to describe them within the classical framework of Newtonian mechanics. They are seen as the end products of the celebratedvis-vivadispute in the eighteenth century: the outcome of a debate within the confines of the science of rational mechanics. I would like to suggest that this may be to take too narrow a view of the case. It is to project backwards our present specialist (...) arrangement of scientific knowledge, our present divisions between the sciences, and to assume that past development was strictly guided by these divisions. And this is to make questionable historical and sociological assumptions. (shrink)

The problem advanced societies have tried to answer since the last part of the twentieth century can be ascribed to a fundamental question: how to go beyond the constitutive (and unsustainable) limit of nation-state capitalism, constrained by an excessively circumscribed and univocal idea of social organization, without losing the ability to govern? Or, expressed in other terms, how can you dismantle the center (the state) without losing the power to control? The answer to this (difficult) question has been sought for (...) along two main axes. The first has concerned the seizing of new opportunities distributed over a space larger than the national space. As historians have shown (Arrighi 1996), if global projection is a constant of capitalism only the disastrous politico-military vicissitudes of the first half of the twentieth century created the conditions according to which the nation-state capitalism model could be born, in the form that dominated the fifty years following the Second World War. But first the exhaustion of colonialism, then the urgency of the energy question, the signs of a possible demise of Anglo-Saxon hegemony and, subsequently, the collapse of the Soviet empire, have changed the rules of the game. Within a rapidly transforming international framework, the recovery of a global outlook promised the exploitation of important opportunities with the opening of new markets, the valorization of investment possibilities, the displacement and utilization of low-wage labor, financial speculation, the acquisition and control of energy resources and raw materials. It is a promise that Anglo-Saxon elites have contemplated since the early 1980s, the moment in which?to counter the increasingly worrying signs of decline of their hegemony?they abandoned the Keynesian doctrine to embrace the neoliberal doctrine. The second axis along which a new growth cycle has been developed has to do with the increased manipulation of meanings available individually and collectively. Such a process is formed from the combination of two rationales, the subjectivist imperative, which inscribes into social life some of the philosophical developments of the twentieth century, and the formation of De-territorialized Aesthetic Space, which makes technically possible, a degree of cultural mobility hitherto unthinkable. Both these factors facilitate the insertion of the immaterial dimension into the cycle of capitalist valorization, making it more readily available for exploitation by economic forces on a global scale. (shrink)

This article blends psychological and social factors in the explanation of science, and defends the compatibility of a psychosocial picture with an epistemic picture. It examines three variants of the 'political' approach to interpersonal persuasion advocated by Latour and others. In each case an 'epistemic' or mixed account is more promising and empirically better supported. Psychological research on motivated reasoning shows the epistemic limits of interest-driven belief. Against social constructivism, the paper defends the viability of a truth-based standard, and (...) reports how truth-possession can be promoted even when scientific work is motivated by political/professional considerations. (shrink)

This study investigated various manifestations of gravestone inscriptions to find different types of moves in the formation of such inscriptions in two Iranian social classes. The sample of the study included forty epitaphs in two shrines in the north and west of Tehran. Each epitaph was then photographed for analysis. Swales’ genre move model was used to analyze the data. The moves involved word choice, content, graphics, socio-cultural values, and written communicative practices. Considering socio-cultural factors characterizing the social classes, (...) the results revealed four moves in the epitaphs in the Shrine located in north of Tehran, and eight moves in the Shrine located in west of Tehran. Out of the total of eight moves observed, three were different in the two classes. Comparing these patterns of moves and their frequencies, various emotional, structural, lexical, gender-specific, and age-specific differences were observed. (shrink)

This book offers an original account of the good life in late modernity through a uniquely sociological lens. It considers the various ways that social and cultural factors can encourage or impede genuine efforts to live a good life by deconstructing the concepts of happiness and contentment within cultural narratives of the good life. Although empirical studies have dominated the discourse on happiness in recent decades, the emphasis on finding causal and correlational relationships has led to a field (...) of research that arguably lacks a reliable theoretical foundation. 'Deconstructing Happiness' offers a step toward developing that foundation by offering characteristically sociological perspectives on the contemporary fascination with happiness and well-being. In doing so, it seeks to understand the good life as a socially mediated experience rather than a purely personal or individually defined way of living. The outcome is a book on happiness, contentment and the good life that considers the influence of democracy, capitalism and progress while also focusing on the more theoretical challenges of self-knowledge, reason and interaction. (shrink)

Spectacular but very rare violent events such as mass killings by habituai non-criminals cannot be explained by factors which are very widespread, such as possession of firearms, being a victim of bullying, an introvert, or a career failure. A stronger clue is clandestine preparation of attack by one or two individuals, against randomly chosen representatives of a hated collective identity. Mass killers develop a deep back-stage, obsessed with planning their attack, overcoming social inferiority and isolation by an emotion of (...) clandestine excitement. (shrink)

A survey was carried out on 108 Chilean children and a selection of their families. The factors studied were: (1) social, (2) demographic and dietaryto assess the incidence and degree of malnutrition and (4) haematology—to determine the incidence of anaemia.

Migration is a process that brings about numerous problems regardless if it is forced and mass or voluntarily and individual. It is not simply a move from one place to another, but it starts in the mind of immigrant and continues with the move to a new place. It alters the social and cultural sets and relocates the immigrant into a peculiar web of connection. It is a process that requires adaptation, change and transformation about the issues from health to (...) education, from housing to employment and from economy to organization In recent years, the forced and mass migration from Syria to Turkey has compelled both the immigrant Syrians and the hosting Turks to face the unprecedented conditions of migration. However, this largest migration of the recent past has been handled with minimum problems in contrast to its vast size. The factors that have realized such outcomes are the common values in historical, cultural and social matters, close kinship and ethnic relations between two nations and most importantly the support provided by the Turkish government and the contribution made by indigenous NGOs. During the first five years of this mass and sudden immigration, almost all sides in Turkey from the government officials to the local authorities as well as the bureaucracy and all non-governmental organizations have been undertook a donation campaign. It has been constituted a basic dynamics for the discourse of the fraternity between ansar/the helper and mukhajir/the immigrant that help and solidarity. So to speak, Turkey proved that the fraternity of the helper and the immigrant could be re-constructed in modern times. As to the later years, this immigration has started to shape more rationally in accordance with economical and social facts.This study deals with the forced-mass migration from Syria to Turkey from the points of problems, solutions, adaptation and integration. (shrink)

Several, seemingly unrelated problems of empirical research in the 'sociology of scientific knowledge' can be analyzed as following from initial assumptions with respect to the status of the knowledge content of science. These problems involve: (1) the relation between the level of the scientific field and the group level; (2) the boundaries and the status of 'contexts', and (3) the emergence of so-called 'asymmetry' in discourse analysis. It is suggested that these problems can be clarified by allowing for cognitive (...) class='Hi'>factors as independent ('heterogeneous') variables, in addition to and in interaction with (i.e., not only as attributes of) social factors. In the 'sociology of translation', 'heterogeneity' among scientists, cognitions and textual elements has been made a basic assumption. This heterogeneity is bound together in an 'actor network'. However, since the 'actor network' is an empirical category, the methodological problems remain unresolved. This has consequences for the relation between empirical data and theoretical inferences. (shrink)

The article examines Randall Collins's magnum opus, The Sociology of Philosphies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change in relation to a number of discourses bearing on the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of philosophies, from Hegel and 19th-century historicism to Mannheim, Foucault, Bourdieu and Gillian Rose's Hegel Contra Sociology. The article explicates Collins's dual theory of intellectual networks and institutional conflict as factors in the explanation of intellectual change. The article interprets Collins's work as a classic application of (...) Durkheimian sociological principles to the analysis of knowledge. However, the article argues that Collins is less successful in accounting for the internal normative motives of inquiry and the problem of what Hegel saw as the claims of reason in history based on the orientation to truth. (shrink)

There are two main ways in which an interest in the sociology of literature can be justified. The first form of justification is realist: literature is in fact deeply conditioned by its social context, and any critical account of it which omits this fact is therefore automatically deficient. The second way is pragmatist: literature is in fact shaped by all kinds of factors and readable in all sorts of contexts, but highlighting its social determinants is useful and desirable from (...) a particular political standpoint.Both of these cases would seem to have something going for them. Hardly anybody would want to deny that literature is in an important sense a social product; but this claim is so general that a specifically “sociological” treatment of literary works does not necessarily follow from it. Metaphors and line endings, after all, are also in some sense social products, so that to attend to these elements of a literary text is not necessarily to deny the work’s sociality. “Social product” would seem too comfortably broad a category, just as “economic product” would seem too crippingly narrow. A problem with the realist case about the sociology of literature, then, is that it is not very clear what exactly is being claimed. The pragmatist case would seem a persuasive rationale for, say, a feminist reading of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism, since few people would want to claim that the poem was in some central way about patriarchal relations in the sense that The Rape of the Lock is. A Marxist critic who attended to questions of social class in Treasure Island, perhaps placing Long John Silver in the context of the British shop stewards’ movement and celebrating his antagonism to the gentry, would not necessarily be committed to holding that these issues were “in fact” crucial to the text; he or she would insist instead that they should be brought to light because they were crucial to history and society in general. Terry Eagleton’s recent works include collected essays—Against the Grain and William Shakespeare—as well as a novel, Saints and Scholars. His work in progress is on the ideology of the aesthetic. (shrink)

Land dispossession is a major source of protest in many countries. This article asks, How common are cases of mobilization against land dispossession relative to cases of nonmobilization? Why do we see protests against land dispossession for some projects and not others? These questions are taken up in the context of India, a major global hotspot for land dispossession protest. Using a database of all major capital projects in the country, the article looks at the effects of project characteristics and (...) context on incidence of delays or cancellations due to land acquisition problems. The findings demonstrate that a project’s sector and subnational location affect the emergence of opposition to land dispossession. Further, differences in political competitiveness and agrarian social structure are significant factors driving subnational variation. By identifying important factors shaping opposition to land dispossession, the article aims to stimulate comparative research that can advance a political sociology of dispossession. (shrink)

Relevance drives our actions and channels our attention; it shapes how we make sense of the world and communicate with each other. Irrelevance spreads a twilight which blurs the line between information we do not want to access and information we cannot access. In disciplines as diverse as philosophy, sociology, the information sciences and linguistics, “relevance” has been proposed as a key concept. This book is the first to bring together the often unrelated traditions. Researchers from different fields discuss relevance (...) and relate it to the challenges of “irrelevance”, which have so far been neglected despite their significance for our chances of making well-informed decisions and understanding others. The contributions focus on theoretical and conceptual questions, on specific factors and fields, and on practical and political implications of relevance and irrelevance as forces which are even stronger when they remain in the background. (shrink)

American sociology has largely neglected enslavement as a topic of study, despite slavery’s being one of the most foundational, pervasive, and far-reaching social institutions in the West. In this paper I explain this scholarly neglect as stemming from three factors. First, disciplinary parochialism has blinded US sociologists to the complex interweaving of enslavement with the systems of oppression that sociology has decided to care about. Second, presentism, an ahistorical “account” of the past that culminates in a preference for present-day (...) events and institutions, has relegated slavery to history. Finally, theoretical frameworks that revise enslavement as “ennobling” erase the long-term effects of psychological and physical violence on the descendants of enslaved peoples. (shrink)

In Portugal, research productivity is nowadays essential for the positive assessment of academics, research units and study programmes. Academic inbreeding has been highlighted in the literature as one of the factors influencing research productivity. This paper tests the hypothesis that inbreeding is detrimental for research productivity, measured through the number of publications listed in Scopus. The study resorts to a database provided by the national Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education, which comprises all academics teaching in all (...) Portuguese institutions in the academic year 2015/2016. The sample selected for the analysis contains all academics with a PhD in Sociology. The study uses a special regression model for the analysis: the negative binomial logit hurdle. This was necessary given the large amount of academics with no publications or citations in Scopus, which were the dependent variables to assess research performance. The analysis provides separate results for the probability of inbred academics of having no papers/citations, and for the probability of producing more papers/citations than the non-inbred. Findings suggest that academic inbreeding, defined at the institutional level, has no negative effect on research productivity, contrary to what was expected. However, when defined at the national level, academic inbreeding is detrimental for the recognition and the impact of research: academics with a foreign PhD are more likely to have citations compared to academics who obtained their PhD in Portugal. A tendency was also noted that inbreeding might be more detrimental to research productivity in faculties of Economics than in Social Sciences and Humanities. (shrink)

The paper addresses the ‘rational choice only’ reconstruction, characterization, and interpretation of classical and neoclassical economics. It argues that such a reconstruction is inaccurate failing to do justice to the dual theoretical character of classical/neoclassical economics. The paper instead proposes and shows that the latter involves not only elements of ‘rational choice theory’ but also those of an alternative conception. It identifies various and important ideas, observations, and implications of irrational choice and action within classical/neoclassical economics. One class of such (...) ingredients involves forms, expressions, and cases—i.e. specification and classification—of irrational choices in the economy. Another class comprises the social and other factors—i.e. economic sociology or social economics—of irrational choices in the economy. The paper’s intended contribution is to help identify and clarify the extant sources and alternatives of rational choice theory in conventional economics.... (shrink)

Recent field studies have broadened our view on cultural performances in animals. This has consequences for the concept of cumulative culture. Here, we deconstruct the common individualist and differential approaches to culture. Individualistic approaches to the study of cultural evolution are shown to be problematic, because culture cannot be reduced to factors on the micro level of individual behavior but possesses a dynamic that only occurs on the group level and profoundly affects the individuals. Naive individuals, as a prerequisite (...) of an atomistic perspective, do not exist. We address the construction of a social approach to culture by introducing an inevitable social embedding of the individual development of social beings. The sociological notion of “habitus” as embodied cultural capital permits us to understand social transmission of behavioral components on a very basic level, resulting in a cumulative effect. Bits of information, movement, handling of material, attitudes, and preferences below distinct functional units are acquired through transfer mechanisms simpler than emulation and imitation such as peering, participation, co-performance, or engagement with a material environment altered by group members. The search for a zero point of cumulative culture becomes as useless as the search for a zero point of culture. Culture is cumulative. (shrink)

Recently, the religious factor in a number of circumstances plays an increasingly important role in the socio-political life of our state. Religious organizations have become an integral part of the political and cultural spheres of life and greatly influence the socio-political processes in the Ukrainian state. This is evidenced, in particular, by the aggregated data of sociological surveys conducted by various centers and institutions, according to which the church community is most trusted by the population of our country. Therefore, (...) the analysis of social processes in the context of confessional measurement is now of particular importance. (shrink)

The Mediterranean region is facing major challenges for soil conservation and sustainable agriculture. Conservation agriculture (CA), including reduced soil disturbance, can help conserve soils and improve soil fertility, but its adoption in the Mediterranean region is limited. Examining farmers’ perceptions of soil and underlying sociocultural factors can help shed light on adoption of soil management practices. In this paper, we conducted a survey with 590 farmers across Morocco, Spain and Tunisia to explore concepts that are cognitively associated with soil (...) and perceptions of tillage. We also evaluated differences in perceptions of innovation, community, adaptive capacity, and responsibility for soil. We found that farmers’ cognitive associations with soil show awareness of soil as a living resource, go beyond agriculture and livelihoods to reveal cultural ties, and link to multiple levels of human needs. Beliefs about the benefits of tillage for water availability and yield persist among the surveyed farmers. We found that openness towards innovation, perceived adaptive capacity and responsibility for soil were associated with minimum tillage, whereas community integration was not. Education, age and farm lifestyle were also associated with differences in these perceptions. CA promotion in the Mediterranean should emphasize the multiple values of soil, should demonstrate how sufficient yields may be achieved alongside resilience to drought, and be tailored to differing levels of environmental awareness and economic needs across north and south. (shrink)

This paper examines the contribution of sociology to the Islamic proselytization. In the context of epistemology, it has the opportunity to develop based on five aspects: factors, systems, interpretative, developmentalism and participatory. The five principles can be developed based on sociological theories. Among these theories, for example are the phenomenology of Islamic proselytization, the social construction of Islamic proselytization, dramaturgy of Islamic proselytization, hermeneutics of Islamic proselytization, communicative acts of Islamic proselytization, and ethnomethodology of Islamic proselytization. Through a (...) sociological approach, the Islamic proselytization will be able to develop more quickly. In further, it can be said that the inclusion of social science is a form of pattern of science development based on the integration of science, namely the phenomenon of Islamic proselytization as an object of study and utilizing other sciences as an approach. (shrink)