This book presents a careful blend of conceptual, theoretical and applied research in regards to the relationship between technology and humans, exploring the importance of these interactions, aspects related with trust, communication, data protection, usability concerning organizational change, and e-learning"--Provided by publisher.

Urban spaces, often emerging outside formal, recognized boundaries, underscore the pivotal role women play in shaping these environments. Despite the enduring influence of patriarchal and hierarchical structures that render these spaces overtly gendered, it is within these contexts that women’s actions become particularly transformative. Drawing from feminist urban theories of the global south, this paper investigates informal placemaking, feminist urban activism, revolutionary placemaking, online protest movements, and the networks that support women’s solidarity groups. Employing a mixed-methods approach that includes (...) case studies, interviews with activists, and social media analysis, this research focuses on Iran, with a specific emphasis on the recent ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement. This study not only highlights how women navigate, contest, and reshape urban spaces through feminist urban activism and informal revolutionary placemaking but also anticipates the broader implications of these actions for urban planning and policy. By analyzing and comparing these case studies, we aim to uncover the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between informal/formal, state-led/bottom-up, and revolutionary feminist placemaking practices in Iran. The findings of this paper are expected to contribute valuable insights into the dynamics of feminist urbanism and suggest avenues for future research in enhancing the inclusivity and responsiveness of urban spaces to gendered needs and activism. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between revolution and violence in Marxism and in a series of texts drawing on Marxian theory. Part 1 outlines the basic normative frameworks which determine the outer limits of permissible violence in Marxism. Part 2 presents a critical analysis of a series of later discussions - by Sorel, Fanon and Žižek - which transformed the terms in which violence was discussed by developing one particular aspect of Marxist thought. By teasing (...) out the implications of revolutionary theory for the commission and permission of violence, it is possible to specify those points at which it tends towards excess. This in turn points towards limits that an adequate normative theory of revolutionary violence should establish. (shrink)

The sociology of revolution has produced a prodigious body of scholarship that is nonetheless deficient in one area: attention to gender in the unfolding of revolutions and in the building of new states. Feminist scholars, however, have been attentive to women's participation in revolutions, the effects of revolutions on gender systems and women's positions, and how gender shapes revolutionary processes, including patterns of mobilization, revolutionary programs, and the policies of revolutionary states. This article discusses the literature on (...) revolutions, presents a theoretical framework for the study of revolutions based on gender outcomes, and examines two cases of revolutionary transformation that conform to what I call the patriarchal model of revolution: Iran in 1979 and the 1989 revolutions in East Central Europe. (shrink)

This paper studies the attempts (and failure) of Russian revolutionaries to mobilize the peasantry in the decade leading to the Soviet revolution of 1917. Peasants, who had been emancipated from serfdom only four decades earlier, in 1861, were still largely propertyless and poor. This would, at first glance, make them a ripe target for revolutionary activity. But peasants were largely refractory. We explain this lack of revolutionary spirit through two models. First, despite their lack of education and political (...) awareness, the peasants were rational in their refusal to participate in revolutionary activity; they engaged in a cost–benefit calculus which pushed them away from revolt and political organization. Second, based on the Wildavsky–Thompson cultural types, Russian peasants were largely fatalist: they believed they had no influence on the world, so it was not worth attempting to change it. This paper sheds light on some aspects of the Russian revolution, but also encourages further research in history and economic sociology on the interaction between culture and incentives. (shrink)

Wikipedia is an important instance of “Big Data,” both because it shapes people's frames of reference and because it is a window into the construction—including via crowd-sourcing—of new bodies of knowledge. Based on our own research as well as others' critical and ethnographic work, we take as an instance Wikipedia's evolving representation of the field of sociology and sociologists, including such gendered aspects as male and female scholars and topics associated with masculinity and femininity. Both the gender-specific dynamics surrounding (...) what counts as “notability” on the online encyclopedia and Wikipedia's relative categorical incoherence are discussed. If “Big Data” can be said to construct its own object, it is, in this instance, a curious and lop-sided one, exemplifying pitfalls as well as promise with respect to more accurate and democratic forms of knowledge. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712151; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 253-270.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 269-270.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

In his book, The Frankfurt School and the Dialectics of Religion: Translating Critical Faith into Critical Theory, Dustin J. Byrd argues that at the core of the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory is a secularized theology. Unlike their predecessors, especially Feuerbach, Marx, Lenin, Freud, and Nietzsche, who argued for an abstract negation of religion, the first generation of Critical Theorists followed Hegel's logic and attempted to rescue and preserve the revolutionary, emancipatory, and liberational aspects of religion in their secular (...) non-conformist philosophy. They saw in both Judaism and Christianity certain conceptual and semantic elements that could be enlisted into their struggle for a future reconciled society, one beyond the slaughterbench of history. In order to rescue religion, theological concepts had to go through the process of determinate negation, wherein such materials migrate from the depth of the religious mythos into publicly accessible reasoning, thus making the revolutionary impulse of prophetic religion accessible to the secular world. Byrd also argues that this determinate negation of religion remains relevant to today's post-secular societies, especially in regard to religious Muslims attempting to find their place in Western countries, which are often hostile to religion and religiosity. Examining the strengths and weaknesses of Habermas' famous "translation proviso," he argues that both religious and secular citizens of the West can learn from the Frankfurt School's dialectical approach to religion in order to find a space wherein both religious faith and secular reason can not only co-exist, but also join together in the process of creating a more reconciled future society. (shrink)

Different notions of multiple rationalities have recently been applied to describe the phenomena of co-existence of competing rationalities in organizations. These include institutional pluralism, institutional logics, competing rationalities and pluralistic contexts. The French pragmatic sociologists Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot have contributed to this line of research with a sophisticated theoretical framework of orders of worth, which has been applied in an increasing number of empirical studies. This article explores how the order of worth framework has been applied to empirical (...) studies of organizations. First, I summarize the basic ideas of the framework, stressing the aspects of special relevance for studies of organizations. Second, I review the empirical studies focusing on the coexistence of competing orders of worth in organizations showing that the order of worth framework primarily has been related to three main themes in organizational research: non-profit and co-operative organizations, inter-organizational co-operation, and organizational change. Third, I discuss how the pragmatic, process-oriented aspect of the research program, focusing on the intertwining of values and action in various forms of ‘justification work’, has been translated into empirical studies. I argue that even if highly interesting empirical studies have begun to appear on the pragmatic aspects of the order of worth program, empirical studies of ‘justification work’ may be a potentially very promising focus for future empirical studies. (shrink)

Veganism is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. In addition to being viewed as a dietary choice, it is also studied in various disciplines as a cultural movement, lifestyle, or even as a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. Due to its complexity, there is a growing interest in studying veganism through sociological lenses. The aim of this research is to provide a systematic overview of the current sociological literature on veganism. This analysis follows the PRISMA systematic literature review (...) protocol and includes academic articles published in English between 2000 and 2022. The study has been organised around 3 main research questions to reveal the scope and intensity of sociological research on veganism, its methodological aspects, and the conceptualisation of veganism. The results suggest an emerging discourse of veganism as a lifestyle movement and the orientation of studies toward qualitative research. A variety of veganism concepts used in the sociological literature indicate the potential of different strands of research. (shrink)

The control of pattern formation and the significance of gradients is reconsidered on the basis of the concept of cell sociology (which takes into account continuous exchange of information between cells and the possibility of autonomous progression in differentiation). Not all traits of a pattern are imposed by a single prepattern, which would be an organized molecular framework or a gradient. Patterns are unfolded in steps; these are readjustments of a cell population to intrinsic and extrinsic changes in cell activities. (...) Prepatterns are the various components of the programme of every readjustment and are established by information of various origins, which can be dissociated experimentally: determination (elementary social prepattern), pre-existing organization (antecedent pp.), surrounding cell populations (environmental pp.), position among other tissues (positional pp.) and the organization of inducers (imprinting pp.). Every transitory pattern formed during a readjustment serves as antecedent pp. during the next readjustment. Covert graded patterns result from various aspects of the social behaviour of cells (growth, aggregation, induction, cell renewal) and may serve as antecedent or imprinting prepatterns. They appear as water marks in the final patterns, or generate overt graded patterns. They also manifest themselves in temporal patterns, particularly in gradients of relative growth. (shrink)

This article examines the way aspects of recent history were excluded in key studies emerging from psychoanalytic social psychology of the mid-20th century. It draws on work by Erikson, Marcuse and...

The recent sociobiology debate has raised fundamental and previously unresolved conceptual problems. Evolutionary Instability - Logical and Material Aspects of a Unified Theory of Biosocial Evolution - offers ap- proaches for their solution. The scientific applications comprise the dynamics and evolutionary instability of hierarchically organized systems, especially systems of interacting behavioural phenotypes in animals and man. The technical apparatus is thoroughly explained in intuitive terms within the text, and illustrated by numerous familiar examples and graphical representations, supplemented by an (...) informal summary and discussion. The analyses offer new theoretical perspectives to such diverse fields as philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, general system theory and sociology. (shrink)

At the end of his life György Lukács described his intellectual career as ‘my way to Marx’ [mein Weg zu Marx]. By this he meant that his professional life can be interpreted as an attempt to get to the real Marx. In this paper I use this expression in a narrower and more direct meaning: I attempt to present the road at the end of which the young Lukács arrived at a Marxist standpoint.

This review explores the present fashion for aesthetics in contemporary sociology. It evaluates the claims that society is undergoing a deep-seated process of aestheticization, and that sociology is experiencing an aestheticization of its epistemological concerns. The aestheticization literature is divided as follows: (1) the re-reading of classical sociological theory through the aesthetic dimension of modernity; (2) the claim that postmodern society involves an `aestheticization of everyday life'; and (3) those sociological theories which stress that contemporary society is more (...) and more like a work of art in its form. The argument is made that the discovery of aesthetics as a way of problematizing sociological reasoning is to some extent rediscovery, returning to various Kantian precepts: the disinterestedness characteristic of aesthetic experiences; the antinomy between the individual and the social aspects of taste; and the work of art as an organism predicated on an inner teleology. (shrink)

This important new book provides a philosophical and historical analysis of the subject, looking at a review of sociological and political theories concerning ...

Issues of race, gender, nationality and religion have been the breeding ground of conflict and oppression throughout history. This book provides an engaging assessment of the dangers of defining the self against the other.

Originally written in 1990, this reviews largely late 20th century debates on the study of law as Logic, Discourse, or Experience; the Unity of the Legal System and the Problem of Reference; Semiotic Presuppositions of Traditional Jurisprudence (Austin, Hart, Kelsen, Dworkin, Legal Realisms); then turns to legal philosophies explicitly Employing Forms of Semiotics (Kalinowski, the Italian Analytical School, Rhetorical and Pragmatic Approaches, Sociological and Socio-Linguistic Approaches, Peircian Legal Semiotics, Greimasian Legal Semiotics and Aesthetic/Symbolic Approaches). A major section then offers (...) (from a largely Greimasian point of view) some hypotheses for legal semiotics on the Problem of Reference, Semantic and Pragmatic Levels, Semiotic Groups and “The Legal Culture”, Normativity and Justification, and finally considers the implications for particular legal phenomena: the “Legal System”, Legal Institutions, Legal Codes, Legal Rules, Rights, Courtroom Behaviour: Witness and Counsel, The Judge: Justification of Decisions on Law, and the Criminal Justice Process. A conclusion addresses the status of legal semiotics. (shrink)

Language is the primary fact which concerns contemporary philosophy. Men have been speaking and writing for a long time, but it is only recently that the task of philosophy has been said to be the analysis of language. Ethical perplexities, social anxieties, the nature of scientific knowledge, religious speculations, are held not to be directly the problems of the philosopher. They enter his study by way of a domain of languages and sub-languages. This preoccupation with language is itself an unusual (...) phenomenon in our intellectual history. It challenges the sociologist of philosophic ideas for an explanation, and it leads one to wonder upon what evidence philosophers have accepted the doctrine of linguistic primacy. (shrink)

The rapid change in the world after the Enlightenment not only brought about revolutionary scientific and technological innovations, but also opened the door to important transformations in the context of thought. Especially with the wind created by the French Revolution, some concepts such as equality, fraternity, and justice, which were already in circulation before, came to the fore even more. One of the concepts that was magnified in this process was freedom. The concept manifested itself in philosophy as an (...) understanding of free will against the idea of determinism, and in politics as independence against oppressive governments. Since the day it was addressed as an independent topic, it has attracted attention with its different types and aspects, including freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and conscience. We see that the intellectual adventure of the Western world in the last two centuries has been shaped around these concepts. The libertarian attitude, which at first manifested itself as a rebellion against religious and secular authorities, was later driven to extremes that saw itself as independent from all moral and social norms. These debates were inevitably reflected in the field of theology, and topics such as the position of the will of man against God’s will, fate and the problem of evil were reconsidered according to contemporary claims and objections. The atheistic tendencies that emerged in the Western world claimed that all religions deprive man of the possibility of being an active subject on earth and that a person who believes that all his/her actions are known and determined cannot be truly free. This point is actually one of several important issues that contemporary atheism raises against theism. These debates have also reached the Islamic world and the issue continued to be addressed with similar arguments. At its core, each of these claims rests on the assumption that Islam's conception of the human being leaves no room for individual freedom. Although the problem has different aspects such as fate and theodicy, one of the most striking aspects of the problem is the question of whether man has the right to reject Islam as well as the right to enter Islam by one’s own free will. It is important to answer this question. Because some practices from the early period of Islamic history and the assumptions that apostates should be killed according to certain conditions, which are accepted as an established jurisprudence in Islamic law, have provided important opportunities for anti-Islamic ideas and ideologies. This article shows how the issue has been dealt with in the classical literature, while at the same time suggesting solutions on how to approach the phenomenon of conversion today. In addition, the study will show that the issue is dealt with in the context of public security in the fiqh literature, and therefore, the current cases of conversion or apostasy do not fully correspond to the discussions in the classical period. (shrink)

Heidegger's phenomenological approach, as exhibited in Being and Time, provides a conceptual background to discussions in role?theory. His work was not meant as an empirical contribution to sociology, nor does he assimilate sociology to conceptual inquiry. Heidegger's contention is, rather, that if we understand the way in which human beings exist (the nature of Dasein) we shall understand why empirical role?theoretical inquiries are possible. Without experience, without paying attention to the facts of human life, there could be no phenomenological enterprise. (...) But by eliciting the fundamental structure of Dasein Heidegger has pointed to what makes the empirical data ultimately intelligible. The enterprise is a transcendental one, in the Kantian sense. (shrink)

I compare recent work in the sociology of scientific knowledge with other types of sociological research. On this basis I urge a revival of the sociology of science, offer a tentative agenda, and attempt to show how the questions I raise might be addressed.

Most readings of Tayib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North have focused on Mustafa Saeed and the nameless narrator, both male characters, and they have largely avoided a politically radical reading of the novel. This article attempts to present the female character, Hosna, as the revolutionary par excellence, following Lacan and Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Antigone. Th rough Žižek’s distinction between the act and action, this article argues that Hosna’s deed at the end of the novel, murder and (...) suicide, is not just an action out of hopelessness but rather an act that aims to make a new social order possible. We will try to connect Žižek’s distinction between act and action to Benjamin’s distinction between divine violence and mythic violence and Lacan’s idea of “Th ing-directed desire” (Marc De Kesel 245). By doing so, this article aims to put the extreme violence of Hosna in a new light and argues against the readings that simply ignore her act as an extreme form of violence and fail to see it in a broader framework of philosophical and sociological understanding. (shrink)

This paper offers a systematic analysis of Hobbes’s practical political thought. Hobbes’s abstract philosophy is rightly celebrated, but he also gave much practical advice on how to avoid disorder. Yet he is typically interpreted too narrowly in this respect, especially by those who only read him economistically. Other scholars supplement this economistic focus with sociological or political interpretations, but to my knowledge, no one stresses all three aspects of his thought. This paper thus examines each of Hobbes’s practical (...) proposals for avoiding corruption and a state of nature. Hobbes clearly uses economistic, sociological and political approaches, which involve shaping incentives, desires/preferences, and opportunities, respectively. This intentionally anachronistic framework helps us see further, highlighting Hobbes’s rich and wide-ranging practical proposals for avoiding disorder – a crucial part of his theory. (shrink)

My assigned task in today’s colloquium is to review philosophers’ perspectives on the broad question of whether health care rationing ought to target the elderly. This is a revolutionary question, particularly in a society that is so sensitive to apparent discrimination, and the question must be approached carefully if it is to be successfully dealt with. Three subordinate questions attend this one and must be addressed in the course of answering it. The first such question has to do with (...) the issue of justice: how is it fair to target the elderly in achieving reductions in health care costs? Isn’t the proposal, or for that matter, isn’t targeting any age group, morally objectionable as a species of ageism, just as targeting members of a particular race or sex would be racist or sexist? The second subordinate question has to do with the issue of fittingness. Given that we can show in some way that targeting the elderly is not inherently unjust, why would limiting health care to them be a fitting thing for medicine to do? How would it fit, for example, with the traditional commitments of medicine, to sustain life, to relieve suffering, to heal and cure and restore function? And in particular, if medicine has the ability to save and relieve and restore the elderly, why should it replace that set of commitments with a different set for this particular population? The third subordinate question seems political, an arena reserved for one of my speaker colleagues today. There are, I believe, some underlying philosophical dimensions to its answer, and so I will say something about it. The philosophical/political questions is, Given that rationing health care to the elderly is not patently unjust, and given that a case can be made out that the ends of medicine are not violated by such limitation, shy should the elderly, as a group, assent to such a limitation? I want to address these subordinate questions, for I believe them to be the chief stumbling blocks for the possibility of an affirmative answer to our... (shrink)

In, Love and Politics Jeffery L. Nicholas argues that Eros is the final rejection of an alienated life, in which humans are prevented from developing their human powers; Eros, in contrast, is an overflowing of acting into new realities and new beauties, a world in which human beings extend their powers and senses. Nicholas uniquely interprets Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism as a response to alienation defined as the divorce of fact from value. However, this account cannot address alienation in (...) the form of the oppression of women or people of color. Importantly, it fails to acknowledge the domination of nature that blackens the heart of alienated life. Alienation must be seen as a separation of the human from nature. Nicholas turns to Aristotle, first, to uncover the way his philosophy embodies a divorce of human from nature, then to reconstruct the essential elements of Aristotle's metaphysics to defend a philosophical anthropology based on Eros. Love and Politics: Persistent Human Desires as a Foundation for Liberation presents a critical theory that synthesizes MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and Social Reproduction Theory. It will be of great interest to political theorists and philosophers. (shrink)

Combining perspectives on the interplay of two areas of primary importance to our lives--business and society--this anthology brings together a wide range of readings on the subject. Topics covered include the historical evolution of the business enterprise, the emergence and development of the labor force, and the impact of the international marketplace. Barry Castro concentrates on the moral and social aspects of business, the way it affects national economy, the environment, careers, the disadvantaged, government, and public opinion. Considering the (...) abundance of socioeconomic issues in everyday life, he shows that business ethics is particularly relevant to the business student of today, and that the historical, social and ethical dimensions of business are an inseparable and necessary component of business education. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the issue of standpoint in sociological discourse as well as in the dynamics of social life. It begins with a discussion of the work of André Béteille, creative social theorist from India, about the plurality of standpoints in the sociological discourse of society as well as in social dynamics. Béteille has consistently been a champion of a plural approach in the study of society, but his discussion of plural standpoints raises further questions which call for (...) further collaborative search and reflections. For example, what is the nature of standpoint in these plurality of standpoints—is it partial or absolute? Do these different standpoints communicate among each other? Is it a responsibility for sociology to understand and contribute to communication among plural standpoints? The present author thinks the same as Béteille on these questions and discusses further the challenge of pluralization that emanates from Béteille’s reference to plurality of standpoints. The issue of the relationship between sociology and theology as between sociology and ideology is discussed. This is followed by a discussion of the issue of empirical and normative aspects of social reality, and the author argues that sociology needs to go beyond the dualism of the empirical and normative in order to understand the normative strivings and struggles at work in the very heart of social reality itself. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to give a coherent account of the different perspectives on science and technology that are normally studied under various disciplinary heads such as philosophy of science, sociology of science and science policy. It is intended for students embarking on courses in these subjects and assumes no special knowledge of any science. It is written in a direct and simple style, and technical language is introduced very sparingly. As various perspectives are sketched out in this (...) book, the reader moves towards a consistent conception of contemporary science as a rapidly changing social institution that has already grown out of its traditional forms and plays a central role in society at large. It will appeal to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines and complement well Professor Ziman's earlier books. (shrink)

This book examines business education from the perspective of the social sciences and humanities, specifically sociology and ethics. In particular, it offers the rare combination of liberal arts and business management education which is used to investigate how aspects of business education might be responsible for and connected to the distribution of wealth that currently dominates the global economy. Through interviews with business ethics faculty members, students, and graduates around the world, as well as attendance in business ethics classes (...) and examination of classroom materials, the author presents patterns of theory, perspectives, and outcomes from culturally and geographically diverse business schools. This research provides insights into how business ethics educators are responding to the growing diversity in student populations, and the dual crises of environmental destruction and lack of ethical stewardship. The book also discusses alternative discourses within business schools and makes recommendations for future improvements. (shrink)

As sociologists deepen their examinations of human rights in their teaching, research, and thinking, it is essential that such work is conducted in a manner that is both mindful and critical of the knowledge we are building upon in sociology and human rights. As the authors of this volume reveal, creating sociological knowledge that examines human rights for the expansion of human rights is something that sociologists are well equipped to undertake, whether through the use of mathematics, comparative-historical analysis, (...) the study of emotions, conversations, or social psychology. In these chapters you will find the roots of the study of human rights deep within sociological research and thinking as well as emerging techniques that will push the discipline as it seeks to expand understanding of human rights together with so many other aspects of the social condition. (shrink)

This book offers a unique analysis of how ideas about science and technology in the public and scientific imaginations (in particular about maths, logic, the gene, the brain, god, and robots) perpetuate the false reality that values and politics are separate from scientific knowledge and its applications. These ideas are reinforced by cultural myths about free will and individualism. Restivo makes a compelling case for a synchronistic approach in the study of these notoriously 'hard' cases, arguing that their significance reaches (...) far beyond the realms of science and technology, and that their sociological and political ramifications are of paramount importance in our global society. This innovative work deals with perennial problems in the social sciences, philosophy, and the history of science and religion, and will be of special interest to professionals in these fields, as well as scholars of science and technology studies. (shrink)

Objectivity revisited and revised -- The social theory of objectivity and its problems -- Sociology : a Copernican revolution changes how we think about science and mathematics -- Science studies : sociological theory and social criticism -- Math studies and the anarchist agenda -- Anarchism and modern science -- What's mind got to do with it? -- Science, religion, and anarchism : the end of God and the beginning of inquiry -- A manifesto in anarcho-sociology -- Appendix. A dialogue (...) on the syllogism with philosopher Jean Paul van Bendegem (JP), Free University of Brussels. (shrink)

This essay in social and intellectual history advances the thesis that Western social philosophy arose during the disintegration of the ancient Greek and Roman communities and has been preoccupied ever since with the problem of community lost and community to be gained. As the author shows, Western ideas of moral authority, freedom, consensus, and personality take on their distinctive character as aspects of Western man's search tor community. Six major types of community in Western life and thought are distinguished (...) by Professor Nisbet: military, political, religious, revolutionary, ecological, and plural. Each of these is presented as a continuing current in Western history and as a vital context to the central ideas of social philosophy. From Plato and Aristotle down to such moderns as Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Kropotkin, and Fanon we see the dominant ideas and perspectives of Western thought as responses to conflicts and crises--above all, to those affecting man's perennial quest for community.--From publisher description. (shrink)

There are few books in any language which attempt to survey the whole range of Lukács' work. English readers may, therefore, consider themselves fortunate to have available the present volume and, doubly fortunate, to have forthcoming in late 1970 or early 1971 yet another book by one of the present contributors, István Mészáros, titled the Life and Work of Georg Lukács. The work under review is based on a series of lectures in 1968 at the Graduate School of Contemporary European (...) Studies at the University of Reading. The Introduction by Parkinson is largely expository and concentrates on Lukacs' celebrated Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein. The individual essays which follow are critical examinations of Lukács' views in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism. The essays are generally of a high caliber and the differences which the authors express in relation to various aspects of Lukács are themselves testimony to the complexity and depth of his thought. The most comprehensive, and, in many ways, the most interesting approach to Lukács is in the lead-off essay by Mészáros which, in the context of dealing with his concept of the dialectic, seeks to disclose the basic structure of Lukács' thought and to establish its continuity from the young Lukács to the mature Lukács. Mészáros finds from the very beginning not only a revolutionary turn in Lukács' structure of thought, but along with it--or within it--or perhaps even conditioning it--a complex and far-ranging "ought". The "ought-ridden" character of Lukács' thought, Mészáros claims, is both the source of some of his great intellectual achievements and of some of his great failures, particularly when he substitutes ideology and moral postulates for mediated, concrete reality. Those interested in the development of the concept of the dialectic from Hegel to Marx and from Marx to the present will find Mészáros' discussion of Lukács' categories of "totality" and "mediation" informative and thought-provoking. H. A. Hodges examines Lukács' critique of philosophical irrationalism and singles out for special study his comments on the degree to which Dilthey and Mannheim contributed toward this trend. Parkinson, in addition to writing the introduction, has an essay on the nature of Besonderheit, the central category of Lukács' aesthetics. He translates Besonderheit as "speciality" or "the special." Roy Pascal digs into Lukács' concept of totality as developed in the Ästhetik and as applied in his critique of Walter Scott and of Kafka. In addition, there is an essay by David Craig on how, in Lukács' view, history molds literature, and another essay by Stanley Mitchell on Lukács' concept of the "beautiful." All in all, while the book does not represent a definitive or inclusive introduction to the work of Lukács, it does constitute an important landmark in presenting many important dimensions of his thought, as well as some highly critical appraisals of its validity and importance.--H. B. (shrink)

Concept formation has recently become a widely discussed topic in philosophy under the headings of “conceptual engineering”, “conceptual ethics”, and “ameliorative analysis”. Much of this work has been inspired either by the method of explication or by ameliorative projects. In the former case, concept formation is usually seen as a tool of the sciences, of formal disciplines, and of philosophy. In the latter case, concept formation is seen as a tool in the service of social progress. While recent philosophical discussions (...) on concept formation have addressed natural sciences such as physics as well as various life sciences, so far there is only little direct engagement with the social sciences. To address this shortcoming is important because many debates about socially relevant concepts such as power, gender, democracy, risk, justice, or rationality, may best be understood as engaging in conceptual engineering. This topical collection addresses the nature and structure of concept formation in the natural, the life, and the social sciences alike, both as a process taking place within science and as an activity that aims at a broader impact in society. This helps to understand how concept formation proceeds not only in the natural sciences but also in disciplines such as psychology, cognitive science, political science, sociology and economics. (shrink)

What kinds of contributions can sociologists make to debates about ethics? What makes sociological investigation of morality and ethical issues distinct from philosophical concerns? Is there a place for a separate subfield within the discipline of sociology that deals specifically with questions of ethics and morality? This book places these questions on the sociological agenda. The first part of the book addresses the 'ethical turn' in sociology, and includes chapters on defining ethics and morality, lay understandings of ethics, (...) sociological accounts of moral life, and the relation of sociology to bioethics. These chapters examine alternative conceptions to mainstream discussions regarding embodiment and ethics. The book provides insight into both recent debates in the humanities and social sciences about the circulation and transfer of bodily fluids, tissues, and organs, and the gift-exchange, reciprocity practices, and institutions that make these body economies possible. (shrink)

Boldly focusing on sexuality as a crucial definer of social order, Being and Symptom argues that there is an "M theory" -- a master theory of theories -- not only in Quantum Physics, but also in Continental Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Sociology, disclosing how the ontological structure of the "fantastic four" ingredients of metaphysics (potentiality, impotentiality, actuality, completion) has recurred through time. Öğüt also seeks to turn Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy into a social theory within the fields of sexuality and sovereignty (...) and to locate parallels among Aristotle, Ibn Khaldun, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan, Agamben, Nash, Derrida, Girard, Kristeva, and Žižek, with a special emphasis on how Žižek has adapted Lacanian psychoanalysis into social theory. Öğüt conveys a highly original analysis of the unconscious of our social (sexual) relations, subjectivities, and politics. (shrink)

This book explores Pierre Bourdieu's philosophy and sociology of science, which, though central to his thought, have been largely neglected in critical examinations of his work. Addressing the resultant confusion that surrounds Bourdieu's sociologized philosophy of science, it expounds his epistemology and sociology of science, situating it within the context of Anglo-American post positivist philosophy of science and shedding light on the critique of relativist sociology of science that emerges from his field theory. From a detailed critique of Bourdieu's reflexive (...) sociology and his attempt to enhance the uneasy epistemic status of the social sciences, the author draws on the thought of Jürgen Habermas to suggest critical ethnography as a way of going beyond Bourdieu's critical theory. As such, Bourdieu's Philosophy and Sociology of Science will appeal to sociologists, philosophers and scholars across the social sciences with interests in the work of Bourdieu and the sociology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

This volume explores the concept of the honest merchant, taking a broad perspective and covering a wide range of aspects. It looks at the different types of “honest merchant” conceptions originating from different cultures and literary traditions. The book covers Japanese, Islamic, Scandinavian, Russian, German, Spanish, as well as other aspects, and studies different disciplinary backgrounds of the honest merchant, such as philosophical, economic, neuroethical, sociological and literary ones. The concept of the honest merchant has a long (...) tradition in business ethics. In the Hanseatic League and in medieval Italy, the ideal of the honest businessman was taught since the late Middle Ages. It originated during a time when travelling merchants were often regarded with a sceptical eye. The honest merchants of their time however held clear principles in their business and took responsibility for their community. In later times, the religious notions of the concept lost their pivotal place to reason and morality. This book goes beyond the tradition of discussing business ethics in association with concepts from the Hanseatic League and medieval Italy, and puts the central concept of business ethics in a much greater perspective. (shrink)

Three of the classic "founding fathers" of sociology (Comte, Marx and Tocqueville) were contemporary observers of the French Revolution of 1848. In addition, another important theoretical tradition was represented in contemporary observations of 1848 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The present paper summarizes aspects of the views of these theoretically minded observers, notes some points at which more recent historical research suggests revisions to these classical views, and poses three arguments: (1) The revolution of 1848 exerted a direct shaping influence on (...) classical social theory through lessons (some now subject to revision) learned from observation of the revolutionary struggles. (2) The 1848 revolution influenced classical social theory indirectly by contributing to the submergence of the radical French revolutionary tradition (along with utopian socialism) after the defeat of the June insurrectionaires and Bonaparte's coup. (3) Both writers in the classical tradition and current researchers have failed to thematize adequately a basic transformation in effectiveness of national integration, communication and administration which made 1848 in crucial ways much more akin to 1789 than it was direct evidence for the growth of class struggle and the likelihood of further revolution in advanced capitalist countries. (shrink)