This comprehensive collection of classical sociological theory is a definitive guide to the roots of sociology from its undisciplined beginnings to its current guideposts and reference points in contemporary sociological debate. A definitive guide to the roots of sociology through a collection of key writings from the founders of the discipline Explores influential works of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Simmel, Freud, Du Bois, Adorno, Marcuse, Parsons, and Merton Editorial introductions lend historical and intellectual perspective to the substantial (...) readings Includes a new section with new readings on the immediate "pre-history" of sociological theory, including the Enlightenment and de Tocqueville Individual reading selections are updated throughout. (shrink)

This article calls for a new theoretical synthesis that overcomes the fragmentation, specialization and professionalization within the social sciences. As an alternative to utilitarianism and the colonization of the social sciences by rational choice models, it proposes a new articulation of social theory, the Studies and moral, social and political philosophy. Based on a positive anthropology that finds its inspiration in Marcel Mauss’s classic essay on the gift, it recommends a return to classical social theory and explores articulations between (...) theories of reciprocity, care and recognition. (shrink)

This chapter explores the background ideas are deeply rooted in the history of philosophy, and interact with it in complex ways. It discusses the elements out of which later sociology of knowledge was constructed. The classical sociology of knowledge is an attempt to construct a neutral account of ideology and related concepts. The prime example of an organic period was the medieval period, in which religion, political ideology, and forms of the division of labor and authority fit (...) together as a whole and in which the intellectual aspects of social life justified and explained the social order, which was a productive order and division of labor. K. Mannheim uses the term ideology in a specific way, unlike its later use, and uses the term “utopia” for what would normally be called ideology. Mannheim distinguishes utopia and ideology by saying that ideologies are concrete: in fact they are a lot like practices, or habitus. (shrink)

The theme of this collection of articles by Jonathan Turner is that sociology can be a true science, and it can develop abstract laws explaining the operative dynamics of the social universe. Rather that blindly worshipping sociology's masters, however, Turner attempts to reinvent sociology as a science that learns the valuable lessons of classical theory and then moves on.

Praise for the First Edition: `Totally reliable... the authors have produced a book urgently needed by all those charged with introducing students to the classics... quite indispensable′ - Times Higher Education Supplement This is a fully updated and expanded new edition of the successful undergraduate text. Providing a lucid examination of the pivotal theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, the authors submit that these figures have decisively shaped the discipline. They show how the classical apparatus is in use, even (...) though it is being directed in new ways in response to the changing character of society. Written with the needs of undergraduates in mind, the text is essential reading for students in sociology and social theory. (shrink)

: This study aims to discuss the basic argument that sociology, as a science, emerged as an intellectual response to the lost sense of community during social and cultural changes. This argument carries the assumption that the dominating metaphors and perspectives of classical sociology are informed by conservatism. In sociology, this claim is supported by well-known and ambivalent theoretical structures that are developed to explain the process of social change. This study aims to make a criticism (...) of nostalgic sociology considering the idea that the fundamental assumptions of the ambivalent theoretical structure in sociology are nostalgic. In addition, this study also aims to critically read the historical development of Islamism, one of the modern ideologies, with nostalgia and utopia. The suggestion of the article is that either classical sociology or Islamism –two subject appear differently in terms of their topics- gave similar intellectual reactions about the subject that they are unable to cope with ‘the present’ and produce a ‘golden age’ discourse as a solution to ‘the present’. The argument of the study is that either the effort of idealizing ‘the past’ in classical sociology or the myth of coming back home in Islamism against cultural alienation and sense of loss which are lived in ‘the present’ are actually determined by sovereign modernity paradigm. Summary: Behind the nostalgic paradigm, there is a rebuilt history that is shaped as a transition from feudalism to capitalism. In this history, the decline of feudalism corresponds to the loss of rural community, the loss of personal expressionism and the loss of unregulated society. In classical sociology, the heritage left by the solution of this historical reconstruction of society has become common. The anomaly of the modern world is precisely where the modern society from traditional society has emerged in the pathological state created by the loss of social ties with the passing. This pathological condition was first seen in Swiss mercenaries serving away from home, diagnosing nostalgia as a diagnosis of discomfort. We know that Johannes Hofer, who has a sense of humor, has not written any prescription for this disease, which gives some common signs with his melancholy. Sociology, shaped by three different intellectual movements as intellectual responses to the French and Industrial revolutions that allow the transformation of the European society, has taken its place as its focal point, and in the pioneering names, this change is "a change in everything at a dizzying pace, everything that has happened has evaporated and the glory of the world has deteriorated.” Modernity, which refers to the ideals of enlightenment, is blessed not to progress by nature, fluid, rational, contingent, lacking certainty. In fact, this blessing has brought with it the enemy of tradition to the 'new' with reference to its etymological origin. This sophisticated and complex structure unique to modernity only, has inspired some thinkers to conceive of an idealized past or future that is now determinative. Both of these ideas are moderators. The nostalgia becomes modern because of the longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is coeval with modernity. The article refers to Stauth-Turner's nostalgic paradigm, which provides the meta-phasic and meta-phase dominance of classical sociology detailed in Nietzsche's Dance. This paradigm consists of four main components. The first is that the history that we can summarize as a departure from the golden age when the world was a nest for man is seen as a decline and a loss. History is a history of sorrow and despair, as this decline will continue to exacerbate in the future. The example of such a feeling of grief in society theory is Weber's fate sociology. Because, according to Weber, whatever is waiting for us in the future is the polar night of the icy darkness, not the sunlight of summer. The second component of the nostalgic paradigm is the sense of secularization, together with the loss of integrity and moral certainty. This nostalgic trajectory is a very powerful secularization that emphasizes that such devastating social processes as urbanization, capitalist industrialization and the rationalization of everyday life, such as the diversity and complexity of social structure, the spread of scientific knowledge, urbanization with increasing population ratio, it brings forward its theory. With the announcement of the death of God, the gate of a competing and conflicting world has been opened, from which we have been transformed into a very godlike world. It is possible to observe a similar point of view in classical sociology in Durkheim, which has a theoretical basis for the transformation of social structures through professional distinction in the form of mechanical and organic solidarity. Durkheim analyzes social change in a deliberate way, and pre-change stake favors moral coherence. Moral coherence is now lost when collective consciousness is generally weakened in the post-change phase. The third trajectory we encounter in the nostalgic paradigm is the loss of individual autonomy and the decline of genuine social relations. With the loss of the moral unity, the individual has been caught under the domination of the bureaucratic state, in macro-social processes and institutions. It is inevitable that the individual who lost his autonomy is subject to the denial. The increasing exposure of the individual to social bureaucratic associations has been conceptualized by the iron cage metaphor in Weberian sociology. The enlightenment is the result of the panoptic collection of prison. So there is a nostalgic stance in this compound of the nostalgic paradigm that autonomy-ben lost because of the fall of the bureaucratic world under the domination of the modern state. In the nostalgic paradigm, the ultimate component is the feeling of laxity, spontaneity and loss of naturalness. Here, the individual is subject to not only macro-social processes but also micro-ethics. That is, it is understood that Adorno's "managed society" or Foucault's notion of closure prevents the individual's true emotions and enthusiasm, and that the consumer culture is preoccupied with certain preconceived ways of doing in a world dominated. To sum up, the metaphor of nostalgia that we are living in a world where we have been seized by administrative rules of a central state in a way that has lost the moral certainty and autonomy of the individual. The return to home, which is found in a significant part of the texts and practices put forward in the name of Islamism, has reached a deterministic attitude just as it was in classical sociology. In the nostalgic imagination where those who cannot cope with it are thought of as a safe harbor, there is a certain attitude towards deterministic ideologists that simplify, sanctify, and therefore falsify. Indeed, the imagination of a supra-historical, supra-community model for a time like the Golden Age discourse and for all time is itself history from the very beginning to the end. Therefore, it is a manifestation of a major historical process and the ideological design of sociality. The rhetoric discourse presented as a remedy in the present is possible with an anachronistic point of view which idealizes the past, and therefore the reality is distorted. The authentic one is extremely informal. This kind of discourse of authenticity, which is produced as opposed to the modernity that all that is solid melts into air, eventually has to make iron cages around it. As a result, the nostalgic rhetoric, which aims to be a modern chivalrous remedy that everything changes at a dizzying pace, has been determined by the paradigm of modernity, thanks to its self-reflexive nature which contains the opposite. (shrink)

Capitalism and Classical Social Theory, Second Edition offers solid coverage of the classical triumvirate (Marx, Durkheim, and Weber), but also extends the canon strategically to include Simmel, four early female theorists, and the writings of Du Bois.

Most commentators agree that the study of war and collective violence remains the Achilles heel of sociology. However, this apparent neglect is often wrongly attributed to the classics of social thought. This article contests such a view by arguing: (1) that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and (2) most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to (...) the ‘militarist’ understanding of social life. In many respects, classical social thought shared the analytical, epistemological and even moral universe that understood war and violence as the key mechanisms of social change. The structural neglect of this rich and versatile theoretical tradition is linked to the hegemony of the normative ‘pacifist’ re-interpretation of the classics in the aftermath of two total wars of the twentieth century. The author argues that the contemporary sociology of war and violence can gain much by revisiting the key concepts and ideas of the classics. (shrink)

Nowadays, the widespread view is that classical sociology is tainted with ‘methodological nationalism and it would appear that there has been a significant overlap between social and political space. We disagree with this point of view for three reasons: (1) by dealing with the global world, classical sociology has already glimpsed the possibility of going beyond the nation-state as a unit of analysis; (2) having operated above all with the notion of ‘social’ rather than ‘national’, its (...) categories are transnational; and (3) when classical sociology has dealt with national society, studies have not reified it within its political boundaries. Consequently, in our opinion, classical sociology highlights both analytical categories that go beyond the ontology of the nation-state as well as new socio-political forms defined within the trajectory of modernity under the pressure of globalization processes. (shrink)

In order to derive functionalism from Durkheim and Weber, Parsons had to openly break with some twenty of their theoretical assertions. Express rejections of classical themes lie at the foundation of functionalist sociology. This very foundation is what came unglued by Garfinkel's empirical studies of Parsonian social dynamics. In correcting the inadequacies of functionalism, many of the themes rejected by Parsons have been inadvertently resurrected and developed by ethnomethodologists, albeit in altered form. This is not to say that (...) Garfinkel and classical theorists are saying the same things but rather to point out some historical continuities that have gone largely unrecognized. To recognize these thematic continuities is to gather an improved radical vision of society and social practices. Such perspective also provides new understanding of how and why functionalist theory would arise in the first place, namely as an instance of Weberian rationalization and Durkheimian anomieprevention ritual. (shrink)

An overview and analysis of Salla Tuomivaara's comparison of the respective views of Emile Durkheim and Edward Westermarck on sociology, humans, and other animals.

Built upon a series of critical encounters with major figures in classical and present-day social and political thought, this volume offers not only a challenging critique of major traditions of social and political analysis, but unique insights into the ideas which Giddens has developed over the past two decades.

Trained at UCLA and at NYU respectively, Laura Desfor Edles and Scott Appelrouth were frustrated by their inability to find a sociological theory text that could inspire enthusiasm in undergraduate students while providing them with analytical tools for understanding theory and exposing them to original writings from pivotal theorists. They developed this widely used text/reader to fill that need. Sociological Theory in the Classical Era introduces students to original major writings from sociology's key classical theorists. It also (...) provides a thorough framework for understanding these challenging readings. For each theorist, the authors give a biographical sketch, discuss intellectual influences and core ideas, and offer contemporary examples and applications of those ideas. Introductions to every reading provide additional background on their structure and significance. This book also makes frequent use of photos, diagrams, tables, and charts to help illustrate important concepts. (shrink)

This four-volume set presents an unrivalled collection of the key literature in European sociology. The prestigious texts range across the European tradition from enlightenment to contemporary theory. The collection explodes the myth that the European tradition in sociology is a debate with the ghosts of Karl Marx and Max Weber, demonstrating that the tradition is far more deeply rooted and broadly based. Volume 1 is devoted to the emergence of European sociology. The contribution of classical political (...) economy and the Enlightenment is examined. Commentaries on the work of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Taine, Rousseau, de Tocqueville, Comte and St. Simon are included. The volume creates a vivid and compelling picture of the origins of European sociology. Volume 2 covers the rise of the classical period in social theory. It includes commentaries on the contribution of Marx, Spencer, Dilthey, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel. An overview of the main contributions of the founding fathers is also included. Volume 3 moves on to explore the main developments in the first half of the twentieth century. The contributions of the Durkheimian Tradition, Mauss, Mannheim, Lukacs, Gramsci and British sociology are presented. The volume provides a synoptic view of the diversity and emerging complexity of European sociology. Volume 4 identifies the main developments from post-industrial theory to the present day. The volume includes commentaries on the work of Aron, Foucault, Habermas, Giddens, Bourdieu, Boudon and Gellner. Selections on structuralism, polysemy, the positivist dispute and the neo-liberal tradition widen out the picture. The collection is the benchmark work for understanding the history, contribution and dilemmas of the European tradition. Full account is taken of the reference needs of students as well as of academics. Each hardcover volume of 416 pages is bound to the highest standards. The lettering on the cover is gold embossed. The slip case for the four volumes is also embossed. The volumes are not available separately. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical AntiquityWilliam A. JohnsonIn the last century, scholarly debate on ancient reading has largely revolved around the question "Did the ancient Greeks and Romans read aloud or silently?" Given the recent work of Gavrilov and Burn-yeat, which has set the debate on new, seemingly firmer, footing, the question is at first glance easily answered.1 Without hesitation we can now assert that (...) there was no cognitive difficulty when fully literate ancient readers wished to read silently to themselves, and that the cognitive act of silent reading was neither extraordinary nor noticeably unusual in antiquity. This conclusion has been known to careful readers since at least 1968, when Bernard Knox demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the silent reading of ancient documentary texts, including letters, is accepted by ancient witnesses as an ordinary event.2 Gavrilov and Burnyeat have improved the evidential base, by refining interpretation (especially Gavrilov on Augustine), by focusing on neglected but important evidence (Burnyeat on Ptolemy), and by adding observations from cognitive psychology.3 The resulting clarity is salutary.Yet I suspect many will be dissatisfied with the terms in which the debate has been couched. I know that I am. Can we be content with a discussion framed in such a narrow—if not blinkered—fashion? In the fury of battle, the terms of the dispute have crystallized in an unfortunate way. That is, the polemics are such that we are now presumed fools if we suppose that the ancients were not able to read silently. But is it [End Page 593] ignorant or foolish to insist that in certain contexts reading aloud was central? In any case, and much more important, are these in fact the right questions to be asking? The moment has arrived, I think, when we need to reconsider whether the scholarly discourse is furthering what, I take it, is the goal: namely, understanding ancient reading. As a preliminary, and so that we can call to mind clearly the curious juncture to which we have now arrived, it will be useful first to review briefly how we have come to such a pass—in which sociological consideration of ancient reading is typically conceived within the terms of a debate over silent reading.Did the Ancients Read Silently or Aloud? The Strange History of a ControversyThe roots of the debate are set in Eduard Norden's Die antike Kunstprosa, an influential work whose first edition in 1898 brought to scholarly attention a famous passage in Augustine (6.3.3)—wherein, it appears, Augustine finds it "unbegreiflich" that his bishop and teacher Ambrose reads silently to himself.4 At issue for Norden is not the idea that the ancients were unable to read silently, but rather that reading aloud of literary texts was the norm throughout antiquity.5 [End Page 594]The controversy fully engages in 1927,6 when Josef Balogh ("Voces Paginarum") makes now a much broader case: that for all texts (not simply literary texts) silent reading was rare, that silent reading when it did happen occasioned surprise, and that silent reading was possible only under extraordinary circumstances and by extraordinary people (such as Julius Caesar or Saint Ambrose). To support his conclusion, Balogh marshals a large array of evidence: a dozen or so passages to support his claim that silent reading was viewed by the ancients as an aberration (84-95); another dozen passages claimed as direct evidence for the reading aloud of texts (97-109); passages where reading is equated with hearing, or where the acoustic effect of a text is assumed (95-97, 202-14); and others. Anyone who has read Balogh's article with attention will readily discern the tendentious way in which he often presents highly ambiguous evidence; as well as his heavy reliance on late sources. But the very weight of the material—sixty-four pages!—wins the day. With the striking Augustine passage as prime witness (86), Balogh succeeds in convincing a couple of generations of scholars. Along the way Balogh introduces, almost as an aside, a point that will become central. For he links the phenomenon of reading aloud with scriptio continua, that peculiar ancient... (shrink)

This Timely volume represents an attempt by leading practitioners in the field to think reflexively about the present state of social theory and its historical analogues, and to consider new directions opposed to the "classical" social theorists, as well as new uses of the classics. Social Theory and Sociology begins to address a problem that is salient for students as well as academics, namely, why and how does the legacy of social theory matter? What is the value of (...) what we are learning? No attempt is made to dodge these tough questions and some very different answers are provided. Ranging from classic figures such ad Marx top the new theoritical approaches deriving from science and tehnology studies, this book represernts a multivoiced, radically diverse consideration of what "theroy" is all about now, at the end of the century. (shrink)

Excerpt from Society and Nature: A Sociological Inquiry This process shows a relation between social and natural science which is very important from the point of View of intellectual history. This work is intended as a sociological contribution to this problem. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the (...) original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The essay presents its author's understanding of historical sociology, as well as a view on how to practice historical sociology. The preconditions that have been necessary for the emergence of historical sociology from the American intellectual tradition are the following: first, to overcome the ‘historiosophical ahistoricism’ of classical sociology and the ahistoricism of early empirical sociology in the United States. Second, the emergence of ‘social history’ in Europe under the influence of the Great War (...) and the social sciences rejecting the idea of progress in its evolutionary and revolutionary interpretations. The essay provides a detailed investigation of the features of the ‘new historical science’ in comparison with its traditional counterpart, as well as exploring the similarities and differences between social history and historical sociology. Social history is considered as an intermediate link between the classical ‘sociology of history’ and American historical sociology. Following social history, historical sociology turns to comparative studies and quantitative methods, but at the same time does not abandon hermeneutics. Historical sociology presupposes a mutual weakening of the nomothetics of classical ‘grand theories’ and the ideography of traditional history. It also implies a full-fledged sociological investigation of historical phenomena using procedures accepted in empirical sociology, rather than the reinterpretation of historical research in sociological-theoretical terms. This results in the emergence of special (rather than general) processual and medium-level theories of social change based on historical facts. Historical sociology focuses on theoretical generalizations, which clearly distinguishes it from social history. The essay investigates the different approaches and purposes of using the comparative historical method - and the quantitative methods that complement it. In turn, their utilization leads to problems with the acceptance of their results by traditional historians specialized in a single country and on studying primary sources in the original. Instead of concluding, the author discusses his experience and participation in the institutionalization of historical sociology in Russia and points out the problems hindering it. (shrink)

The beginning of the 20th century coincides with the establishment of the modern disciplines of the social sciences, chiefly in the United States but on a smaller scale in Western Europe as well. These disciplinary structures, which varied from country to country, provide the organizing principle of this handbook.The immediate context of the disciplinarization of sociology was the transformation of two fields, statistics and history, which shed large chunks of content as they took their current shape. The principal body (...) of thought that is excluded from the discipline of history, for example, was philosophy of history. Émile Durkheim provided the earliest and most coherent reconciliation of this fundamental tension, and it is striking how similar the lists of intellectual sources and problems actually were between these principal solutions to the common problem of constructing a “science” out of the materials and topics in question. Durkheim's analytic strategy in this chapter relies on the preexisting methodological tradition about cause and statistics that was established in Mill's System of Logic, but rejected Mill's own understanding of the role of probability in favor of the method of concomitant variation, which Mill had thought was inapplicable in social science. (shrink)

Sociology has been often defined as a science of "social relations". The aim of this article is to contribute to the clarification of this concept. I take into account only two classic analytical sociologies — those developed by Max Weber and by Florian Znaniecki. These sociologies seem to me only partly useful for the analysis of macroscale (ethnic, racial, industrial, and international) problems. They refer to human individual interactions within social collectivities, and not between them. If we follow expressis (...) verbis the individualistic aspects of Weber's model and the analytical aspects of Znaniecki's theory, it would be difficult to base empirical investigations of social relations. The situation changes when we depart from the classics' ways of construction of the concepts of social relation and concentrate on the implication of the concept presented by the same authors. Fortunately, the research practices of both scholars encourage us to abandon a literal interpretation of their models. They present a variety of interesting typologies of social relations and social objects between which these relations can exist. (shrink)

Classic and canon -- Description -- Categories -- Metaphors -- Diagrams -- Cynicism and scepticism : two intellectual styles -- Sociological theory and the art of living.

2015 Reprint of Original 1936 American Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Karl Mannheim was a Hungarian-born sociologist, influential in the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of classical sociology as well as a founder of the sociology of knowledge. His essays on the sociology of knowledge have become classics in the field. In "Ideology and Utopia" he argued that the application of the (...) term ideology ought to be broadened. He traced the history of the term from what he called a "particular" view. This view originally saw ideology as the perhaps deliberate obscuring of facts. Over time this view gave way to a "total" conception (most notably in Marx), which argued that a whole social group's thought was formed by its social position (e.g. the proletariat's beliefs were conditioned by their relationship to the means of production). However, he called for a further step, which he called a general total conception of ideology, in which it was recognized that everyone's beliefs-including the social scientist's-were a product of the context they were created in. Mannheim points out social class, location and generation as the greatest determinants of knowledge. He feared this could lead to relativism but proposed the idea of relationism as an antidote. To uphold the distinction, he maintained that the recognition of different perspectives according to differences in time and social location appears arbitrary only to an abstract and disembodied theory of knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, we address an existing lacuna in the sociology of the senses, by employing sociological phenomenology to illuminate the under-researched sense of temperature, as lived by a social group for whom water temperature is particularly salient: competitive pool swimmers. The research contributes to a developing ‘sensory sociology’ that highlights the importance of the socio-cultural framing of the senses and ‘sensory work’, but where there remains a dearth of sociological exploration into senses extending beyond the ‘classic five’ (...) sensorium. Drawing on data from a three-year ethnographic study of competitive swimmers in the UK, our analysis explores the rich sensuousities of swimming, and highlights the role of temperature as fundamentally affecting the affordances offered by the aquatic environment. The article contributes original theoretical perspectives to the sociology of the senses and of sport in addressing the ways in which social actors in the aquatic environment interact, both intersubjectively and intercorporeally, as thermal beings. (shrink)

This book expands the sociological canon by introducing non-Western and female voices, and subjects the existing canon itself to critique. Including chapters on both the 'founding fathers' of sociology and neglected thinkers it highlights the biases of Eurocentrism and androcentrism, while also offering much-needed correctives to them. The authors challenge a dominant account of the development of sociological theory which would have us believe that it was only Western European and later North American white males in the nineteenth and (...) early twentieth century who thought in a creative and systematic manner about the origins and nature of the emerging modernity of their time. This integrated and contextualised account seeks to restructure the ways in which we theorise the emergence of the classical sociological canon. This book's global scope fills a significant lacuna and provides a unique teaching resource to students of classical sociological theory. (shrink)

The significance and development of Mannheim's sociology Ancient data such as the Code of Hammurabi, the Old Testament, the Confucian Classics, ...

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address (...) the significant disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists. (shrink)

The emergence of processes of globalization has gone hand in hand with a theoretical ?crisis? in sociology. According to an increasing number of scholars, ?global society? has transformed the ?social? to such an extent that classical sociological theory and that of the nineteenth century no longer seem adequate for conceptualizing not only the ?new society,? but (human) society as such. The very distinction between human and non-human society has gone lost. In this context, is it still possible to (...) formulate a ?theory of society? and what form should such a theory take? (shrink)

Quest for a good society has a long pedigree in sociological thought and critical reflections. It vibrates with many themes of liberation, morality and justice in classical sociology as pioneered by thinkers such as Marx and Durkheim and themes of decent society and creative society in recent theoretical discourses. The present essay discusses this quest for a good society in contemporary social sciences with a detailed discussion of the work of Robert N. Bellah, the pre-eminent sociologist of our (...) times. It discusses Bellah’s quest for a good society in Japan and the US and in the process it discusses related themes such as dynamic harmony and dynamic sunyata. (shrink)

Sociology emerged in the course of Western modernization; its major classical-era statements are preoccupied with modernity and its impact on national societies. After decolonization, ‘Third World’ modernization paved the way for the notion of globalization. The sociology of globalization is a current specialty within US and European sociological associations. The promise of global sociology has been on the agenda of the International Sociological Association since at least 1990. At a deeper level, global sociology requires un-thinking (...) the role of core concepts such as modernity or religion or society vis-à-vis their Western origins. Global Studies and post-colonial sociology, two of the most widely known research fields claiming global intent, are examined with respect to whether they provide adequate conceptual resources for global sociology. While the research agendas of both offer promising insights, inquiry suggests that both suffer from important drawbacks. The sociological tradition is now facing an impasse; fragmentation may persist, but other possibilities also exist. No grand solution is perhaps possible. A truly global sociology may eventually emerge from the original interpretations that develop from non-Western historical paths. (shrink)

Gregory Bateson developed his transdisciplinary thinking in the shadow of sociology, but his ideas are not generally viewed as part of the field of classical sociology. This article will explain this exclusion by arguing that Bateson’s way of theorising – while attempting to make progress in the understanding of reality – returns to ideas that were already rejected within the field in which he first worked. Furthermore, as a reading of Bateson through the lens of Durkheim will (...) show, Bateson’s theories fail to provide a better understanding of social reality than those of his predecessors. This type of critical analysis demonstrates the weakness of some of Bateson’s central claims and contributes to a more in-depth understanding and reassessment of his ideas from a sociological perspective. Pointing out that Bateson’s critique of the modern worldview is based on a pre-critical and pre-modern philosophy of wholeness is not to invalidate Bateson’s foundational intuition that our current mode of thinking challenges our chances of surviving as a species. However, in order to make a theoretically convincing argument concerning how our thinking challenges our survival, a more critical understanding of the relation between mind and society than the one Bateson offers is required. (shrink)

Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method has never enjoyed the same reputation as his major books, in part because the book is uncongenial to standard interpretations of Durkheim. In particular, its attacks on teleology do not fit his reputation as a functionalist The papers in this special issue address the work historically. Both Porter and Stedman Jones deal with aspects of the context in which Durkheim worked and transformed. Schmaus and Nemedi deal with problems of interpreting Durkheim's development, and Platt (...) discusses the reception of The Rules. The papers shed light on such important questions as the meaning of Durkheim's slogan “society is made of representations.” Durkheim, it appears, was not only what would now be called a constructionist, he went on to ask whether the fact that constructions are real in their consequences did not imply the reality causal reality of constructions and, therefore, a specific kind of “social realism.” The problem The Rules poses, of what is the fundamental stuff of society, is “classic” in significance, and Durkheim's answer is classically radical. (shrink)

The paper begins by engaging Mircea Eliade’s undervaluation of the importance of classical sociology of religion, namely, Durkheim and Weber, and goes on to show how much they share with him, particularly with regard to a critique of modern European civilization, and of the foundational importance of religion in society. This “other”, non-positivist, non-reductionist face of Durkheim and Weber is elaborated by showing their religious, even “primordial” approaches to the religious bases of society and culture. Eliade’s criticism of (...) sociology is further misplaced, given the decline of the sociological regime of knowledge, and the accuracy of Eliade’s prescient expectation of a cosmic rather than historical orientation, and the current importance of religion and “spirituality” for socio-cultural life, generally. The displacement of secular social theory by social and psychological understanding explicitly based in religious thought is explored in several domains and religious traditions. The paper emphasizes, however, a sociology created from within the streams of Jewish mysticism, and examples are offered. The line of Romanian scholars of religion, including Eliade, Idel and Culiano, is seen as less than apparently dissonant with both the sociology of religious experience, and the post-sociological turn to creating social theory from within religious, and particularly, mystical traditions. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Fields and Methods of Sociology His volume is intended to serve as a textbook for advanced T courses in sociology in which the purpose is to survey the various divisions of sociology as this science has developed in the United States in particular, and in all other countries where the subject is taught or studied. It emphasizes especially the sources of materials for investigation, the methods of research, and the processes of generalization in the (...) various fields of sociological science. Present day sociologists are more interested in research than in classification. It is recognized, however, that intelligent research cannot be undertaken to the best advantage without an adequate understanding of the various divisions into which the general science of sociology falls. Consequently, the first part of the volume is devoted to an analysis of the fields and problems of sociology and the second part to sources and methods. While the volume is organized in textbook form, it is expected that it will appeal very largely to the general reader who is searching for a well organized and clear presentation of the subject of sociology in all its aspects. It is believed that the present volume offers the most complete and thoroughgoing analysis and synthesis of sociological content and methodology now available. I wish to emphasize especially the inductive approach of the present treatise. Every chapter is the result of a careful study of the data it treats. Speculative and a priori approaches have been avoided. Consequently each field of sociology has been analyzed realistically as to subject matter, sources and methods and the results are set forth as clearly and as simply and directly as pos sible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

A Sociology of Sex and Sexuality offers an historical sociological analysis of ideas about expressions of sexual desire, combining both primary and secondary historical and theoretical material with original research and popular imagery in the contemporary context. While some reference is made to the sexual ideology of Classical Antiquity and of early Christianity, the major focus of the book is on the development of ideas about sex and sexuality in the context of modernity. It questions the widespread assumption (...) that the anxieties and fears associated with old sexual mores have been overcome in the late twentieth century context, and asks whether the discourses of Queer sexual politics have successfully fractured the binary categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality. A Sociology of Sex and Sexuality will be of interest to students in the fields of sociology, sexual history, gender studies and cultural studies. (shrink)

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Shanyang Zhao provides a unique examination of this evolving topic with a framework to address the common questions: What is self? How is self formed? and Why does self matter? Drawing a fascinating (...) distinction between self and self-concept, Zhao regards both as part of a larger constellation named the 'self-phenomenon.' He separates social determinants of self from neurocognitive prerequisites of self. Focusing on the social determinants, he reviews how social schemas shape self-concept through three intertwined mechanisms and how social resources affect self-conscious action through social position and social capital. Key Features: A clear distinction between self and self-concept A study of the self as both a social product and a social force A new framework for the sociology of the self, built on the foundation of classic works A close examination of three mechanisms of self-concept formation with specifications of the scope conditions under which each mechanism operates An analysis of the distinctiveness of human normative selves through cross-species comparison This Advanced Introduction will provide essential reading for scholars and researchers in sociology, social psychology, and social policy. (shrink)

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)

The acclaimed American sociologist and cultural philosopher Philip Rieff gained great academic prestige with his thesis on the emergence of 'Psychological Man' in western culture and with his classic book, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, published in 1959. In this work and the later The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) he not only offered a highly original interpretation of the work of Sigmund Freud, but critically evaluated the enormous influence of psychotherapeutic thinking on Western culture. However, Rieff's later work (...) on the theory of culture did not garner the same attention, and his most recent writings have received very little critical engagement. In Sociology and the Sacred, Antonius A.W. Zondervan sets out to remedy this neglect, arguing that Rieff's work is ripe for intellectual reconsideration. (shrink)