Studies in Social and Political Theory (RLE Social Theory)

Studies in Social and Political Theory (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650646
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The studies which comprise this book are essentially organized around a critical encounter with European social theory in its 'classical period' – i.e. from the middle years of the nineteenth century until the First World War – and have the aim of working out some of the implications of that encounter for the position and prospects of the social sciences today. The issues involved relate to the following series of problems: method and epistemology; social development and transformation; the origins of 'sociology' in nineteenth-century social theory; and the status of social science as critique. In each of these areas, Giddens develops views that challenge existing orthodoxies, and connects these ideas to a reconstruction of social theory in the contemporary era.

Studies in Social and Political Theory (RLE Social Theory)

Studies in Social and Political Theory (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650646
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Get Book

Book Description
The studies which comprise this book are essentially organized around a critical encounter with European social theory in its 'classical period' – i.e. from the middle years of the nineteenth century until the First World War – and have the aim of working out some of the implications of that encounter for the position and prospects of the social sciences today. The issues involved relate to the following series of problems: method and epistemology; social development and transformation; the origins of 'sociology' in nineteenth-century social theory; and the status of social science as critique. In each of these areas, Giddens develops views that challenge existing orthodoxies, and connects these ideas to a reconstruction of social theory in the contemporary era.

Studies in Social and Political Theory

Studies in Social and Political Theory PDF Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description


Social Theory and Political Practice (RLE Social Theory)

Social Theory and Political Practice (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Brian Fay
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652290
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
This book examines the question of how our knowledge of social life affects, and ought to affect, our way of living it. In so doing, it critically discusses two epistemological models of social science – the positivist and the interpretive – from the viewpoint of the political theories which, it is argued, are implicit in these models; moreover, it proposes a third model – the critical – which is organised around an explicit account of the relation between social theory and practical life. The book has the special merit of being a good overview of the principal current ideas about the relation between social theory and political practice, as well as an attempt at providing a new and more satisfactory account of this relationship. To accomplish this task, it synthesises work from the analytic philosophy of social science with that of the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt school.

Studies in Social and Political Theory

Studies in Social and Political Theory PDF Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780091292010
Category : Social sciences
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description


Studies in Social and Political Theory

Studies in Social and Political Theory PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Sociological Theory in Transition (RLE Social Theory)

Sociological Theory in Transition (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Mark L. Wardell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651006
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
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.

Rationality and the Social Sciences (RLE Social Theory)

Rationality and the Social Sciences (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: S.I. Benn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317651278
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The concepts of rationality that are used by social scientists in the formation of hypotheses, models and explanations are explored in this collection of original papers by a number of distinguished philosophers and social scientists. The aim of the book is to display the variety of the concepts used, to show the different roles they play in theories of very different kinds over a wide range of disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, political science and anthropology, and to assess the explanatory and predictive power that a theory can draw from such concepts.

Sociology and the Demystification of the Modern World (RLE Social Theory)

Sociology and the Demystification of the Modern World (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: John Rex
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131765076X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Professor Rex’s controversial book concerns not only those who are professional sociologists but all thinking people who live in the modern world. One of the objects of sociology is to give ‘power to the people’, to make a contribution to the understanding of political problems. Rex writes from a deep conviction that sociology is a subject whose insights should be made available to the great mass of the people, so that they may liberate themselves from the mystification of social reality that is continually and routinely presented to them through the media, by those who exercise power and by those who have influence. The book is dedicated to St Augustine and Franz Fanon, both of whom, Rex points out, were conscious of living in an age which was embarking on a new barbarism, but had the courage to use their intellects to help understand the possibility of a better future. Rex continues in this tradition, and his main preoccupations are reflected in the present book. It includes a discussion of the problem of social knowledge, an analysis of the basic problems of theory building, and, with the aid of concepts derived from Max Weber, an attempt to understand the major problems of the first, second and third worlds. The author also looks at social structures and moral perspectives, and discusses the vocation of a sociologist in a collapsing civilisation. The book is certain to stimulate debate, both in sociological and political fields and more generally, and is also a serious contribution to the discussion of the methodology and purposes of sociology.

The Normative Structure of Sociology (RLE Social Theory)

The Normative Structure of Sociology (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Hermann Strasser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317652320
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
In this provocative analysis of the central issues and developments in modern social theory, Dr Strasser contends that enquiry into the function, tasks and mission of sociology as a discipline can be understood only in relation to the subject's historical development. He believes that a discussion of the origin and intention of sociology, particularly in relation to the established social order, enables us to grasp fully the nature of sociological theory, both past and present. He maintains that a sociologist's own position in society, and consequently his views on its development and his way of expressing those views, will affect the theoretical position he takes up.

Sociology and Social Research (RLE Social Theory)

Sociology and Social Research (RLE Social Theory) PDF Author: Geoff Payne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317650859
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A social science which has become so remote from the society which pays for its upkeep is ultimately doomed, threatened less by repression than by intellectual contempt and financial neglect. This is the message of the authors of this book in this reassessment of the evolution and present state of British sociology. Their investigation analyses the discipline as a social institution, whose product is inexorably shaped by the everyday circumstances of its producers; it is the concrete outcome of people’s work, rather than a body of abstract ideas. Drawing upon their varied experience as teachers and researchers, they identify three major trends in contemporary sociology. First, that the discipline’s rapid expansion has led to a retreat from rigorous research into Utopian and introspective theorising. Second, that the concept of sociological research is being taught in a totally false way because of this, and encourages ‘research’ within a wholly academic environment. Third, that the current unpopularity of sociology with academics, prospective students and politicians is no coincidence, but a reflection of the conditions under which sociology is now produced and practised. In Sociology and Social Research the authors suggest substantial changes in sociological research, the way in which it is carried out and the conditions under which it is undertaken. Their book is a timely warning to fellow sociologists when the profession is under attack as a result of public expenditure cuts.