This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.

Society is a dialectical process: men produce society, which in turn produces them. Certain Marxist categories are especially useful for the sociology of knowledge, dealing with the relation between consciousness and society. Social structure is nothing but the result of human enterprise. Alienation-rupture between producer and product-leads to a false consciousness in neglecting the productive process. Reification, historically recurrent though not anthropologically necessary, while bestowing ontological status on social roles and institutions only sees society as producing men. Certain social conditions (...) encourage de-reification. Philosophy and sociology, superstructures rooted in intersubjectivity, must co-operate in pursuing the sociology of knowledge. (shrink)

The many gods of modernity -- The dynamics of relativization -- Relativism -- Fundamentalism -- Certainty and doubt -- The limits of doubt -- The politics of moderation.

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these "ultimate ambiguities," assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective and (...) present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Social Autopoiesis?” by Hugo Urrestarazu. Upshot: Hugo Urrestarazu’s social theoretical concept is reduced to the material reality. These suggestions exclude the essential constructivist character of the social and thereby important social phenomena by definition. The systems theoretical approach by Niklas Luhmann offers an adequate alternative.

The article's intent is to demonstrate the following two points: first, essential aspects of Reckwitz' singularization hypothesis are to find in the work of Georg Simmel. Second, the article highlights the timeliness of Simmel as an important impulse for the science of collectivities. Finally, the three parts - Reckwitz' theory of singularization, the science of collectivities, and Georg Simmel's thinking - find common ground in relating collectivity and individuality.

In 2017, a variety of events are planned on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the event, which is usually regarded as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Planning and carrying out of them have already begun. I just received an invitation to take part in the Assembly of the Protestant Church of Germany in 2017. This is a great Biennale Kirchentag, which will take place in Berlin.

Open peer commentary on the article “Communication Emerging? On Simulating Structural Coupling in Multiple Contingency” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: Our criticism aims at the premises of Füllsack’s simulation model, i.e., we claim that his interpretation of the Luhmannian concept of double contingency contradicts the systems theoretical approach in fundamental ways. Neither the view of communication as an emergent system, nor the theory of double contingency is addressed in an adequate manner. Thus Füllsack in fact does not simulate a systems theoretical (...) approach to double contingency but simulates a mere reduction of the social to the individual psyches. (shrink)

We describe the design and evaluation of a sub-clinical digital assessment tool that integrates digital biomarkers of depression. Based on three standard cognitive tasks on which people with depression have been known to perform differently than a control group, we iteratively designed a digital assessment tool that could be deployed outside of laboratory contexts, in uncontrolled home environments on computer systems with widely varying system characteristics. We conducted two online studies, in which participants used the assessment tool in their own (...) homes, and completed subjective questionnaires including the Patient Health Questionnaire —a standard self-report tool for assessing depression in clinical contexts. In a first study, we demonstrate that each task can be used in isolation to significantly predict PHQ-9 scores. In a second study, we replicate these results and further demonstrate that when used in combination, behavioral metrics from the three tasks significantly predicted PHQ-9 scores, even when taking into account demographic factors known to influence depression such as age and gender. A multiple regression model explained 34.4% of variance in PHQ-9 scores with behavioral metrics from each task providing unique and significant contributions to the prediction. (shrink)