Social Theory and Social Action

1936 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Stuart Chapin
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action

scholarly journals Microarchaeology, Materiality and Social Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Per Cornell ◽  
Fredrik Fahlander
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Social Totality ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Material Evidence

In this paper we propose an operative social theory that eliminates the need for a pre-defined regional context or spatio-temporal social entities like social system, culture, society or ethnic group. The archaeological object in a microarchaeological approach is not a closed and homogeneous social totality, but rather the structurating practices, the regulative actions operating in a field ofhumans and things. In order to address these issues more systematically, we discuss social action, materialities and the constitution of archaeological evidence. Sartre's concept of serial action implies that materialities and social agency are integrated elements in the structuration process. We suggest that such patterns of action can be partially retrieved from the fragmented material evidence studied by the archaeologist.

Phantasying, How to Get Out of Oneself and Yet to Remain Within

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Marek Chojnacki ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Phenomenological Reduction ◽  
Double Structure ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Point Of Departure

Assuming the importance of Alfred Schutz’s “protosociology” in social theory as a given, the paper tries to explore its philosophical core, treating Schutz’s sociophenomenology as an answer to the most fundamental questions of phenomenology, such as evidence and phenomenological reduction. It analyses Schutz’s point of departure – the problematization of Max Weber’s concept of the meaning of social action and its deepening by means of Henri Bergson’s and Edmund Husserl’s notion of time – and tries to unravel the double structure of consciousness (first in Brentano and Husserl, then in Schutz), revealing increasingly its complex temporal character. Brentano’s and Husserl’s double intentionality, seeming to offer a kind of “decent realism” in modern philosophical context, in Schutz turns out to be marked by the profound pastness of reflexive consciousness, reaching the primary stream experience only by means of primary and secondary acts of remembrance, re-effectuated intersubjectively in acts of phantasying about future (modo futuri exacti), thus constituting the very core of meaning, with its reference to external objects. It appears that only analysing this mode of phantasying in reference to its motives that we can solve the conundrum of realism in its modern shape.

The development of Garfinkel’s ‘Trust’ argument from 1947 to 1967: Demonstrating how inequality disrupts sense and self-making

2020 ◽  
pp. 1468795X1989442
Author(s):  
Jason Turowetz ◽  
Anne Warfield Rawls
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Double Consciousness ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Transgender Identity ◽  
Du Bois

Garfinkel began developing his famous Trust argument, that a minimum of equality and reciprocity he called ‘Trust Conditions’ is a prerequisite for sense-making in interaction, while working with Parsons from 1946 to 1952. The argument grounds a social justice approach to social order and meaning with affinities to Durkheim’s ‘implicit conditions of contract’ and Du Bois’ ‘double consciousness’. Tracing the development of the Trust argument, we examine 14 unpublished PhD proposals from 1948 in which Garfinkel formulated his approach through studies of Jewish identity that, with his earlier research on Race and subsequent studies of the ‘pre-medical candidate’ and transgender identity, demonstrate how inequality disrupts normal ordinary practices of sense and self-making. As a social theory, Garfinkel’s position builds on approaches to social action, interaction and language by Parsons, Schutz and Wittgenstein. As a systematic research programme, however, Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology charted new territory. Inspired by his own experiences as a Jewish man, he was the first to focus on how interactional troubles reveal the ‘hidden’ taken-for-granted details of how social objects and identities are cooperatively achieved in interaction and document how inequality interferes with that achievement.

scholarly journals Alfredas Schützas ir atviri fenomenologinės sociologijos horizontai: intersubjektyvumo konstitucija ir orientacija Tavęsp

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-74
Author(s):  
Algimantas Valantiejus
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Natural Attitude ◽  
Phenomenological Sociology ◽  
Sociological Inquiry ◽  
Alfred Schütz ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Subjective View

Santrauka. Šio straipsnio tikslas – eksplikuoti fenomenologinės sociologijos ir socialinių mokslų metodologijos tarpusavio ryšius, detalizuoti fenomenologo Alfredo Schutzo įnašą į sociologijos teoriją ir bendrąją socialinių mokslų metodologiją, identifikuoti konstitucinės natūraliosios nuostatos fenomenologijos skiriamuosius bruožus ir teminius analizės lygmenis, o kartu panagrinėti potencialias fenomenologinės sociologijos radimosi Lietuvos socialinių mokslų kultūroje sąlygas ir aplinkybes. Teigiama, kad svarstant šiuos klausimus svarbu atsižvelgti į trinarę analitinę perskyrą tarp filosofijos, sociologijos ir kultūros. Trinarė analitinė perskyra padeda suprasti Schutzo pastangas artikuliuoti gyvenimo-pasaulio tipizacijų, relevantiškumo ir prasmės adekvatumo kriterijus, leidžia griežčiau apibrėžti fenomenologinės socialinės teorijos radimosi, tiksliau, at-minimo sąlygas ir principus.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: konstitucinė natūraliosios nuostatos fenomenologija, Alfredas Schutzas, socialinė teorija, fenomenologija Lietuvoje, trys relevantiški socialinio veiksmo horizontai – filosofijos, sociologijos ir kultūros.Key words: a constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude, Alfred Schutz, social theory, phenomenology in Lithuania, the three relevant horizons of social action: philosophy, sociology and culture. ABSTRACTALFRED SCHÜTZ AND THE OPEN HORIZONS OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGY: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE INTERSUBJECTIVE STRUCTURE, AND THE THOU-ORIENTATIONThe aim of this essay is to articulate and explicate the relations between sociological theory and the phenomenological approach. This is done in two parts: the first looks at Schutz’s attempts to articulate a constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude; the second explicates the methodological postulates formulated by Schutz for the construction of social scientific constructs. It is suggested that the nature of the conventional sociological inquiry in Lithuania must be reconsidered if the subjective view of actor is to be retained as relevant to both philosophical and sociological inquiry.

The Spatial and Temporal Constitution of Social Action: A Critical Reading of Giddens

1985 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Storper
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Inconsistent Theories

A number of social theorists have attempted to elaborate poststructuralist analytics that capture the dialectics of social structure and human agency. Giddens proposes a ‘general theory’, centered on the notion of ‘structuration’. He is particularly important to geography because he suggests that the spatiality of social practices belongs at the center of social theory and historical analysis. Systems of social practices are defined by their time–space characteristics. There are problems in the corpus of Giddens's work that require attention, however, before such a theory can be fully viable. These include: Giddens's derogation of intentional action in favor of practical knowledge; his notion that structure is ‘instantiated’; his concept of power; his treatment of material resources; and his lack of attention to discursive strategies. From an examination of these areas of Giddens's work, it can be seen that he advances several, inconsistent, theories of social change. In a reinvigorated theoretical human geography, based on the analysis of interaction in time and space, these problem areas must be tackled.

Arendt, role theory and the ethical evaluation of action

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran Bonner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Role Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reflexive Sociology

In what way can social action be simultaneously inquired into and ethically evaluated by social theory? This paper explores the responsibility sociology has with regard to the political and ethical implications of its knowledge production and does so through a case study examination of the sociological concept of role. It compares and evaluates the different orientations that ground the concept of role and Arendt’s concept of action, which is then expanded to address the critique of the social sciences by theorists like Arendt and Foucault. The paper engages a particular tradition of reflexive sociology in the context of the danger of banal evil (Eichmann) and in the context of modern structures of domination that makes that danger more prevalent. Arguing that a theoretical non-empirical reflexivity is called for, and drawing on the phenomenological reflexivity of Berger and the constitutive reflexivity of Blum and McHugh, the paper seeks to demonstrate the need for a reflexive awareness of the actor’s responsibility for action and the theorist’s responsibility for formulating action that can make conceptual space for reasoned evaluation oriented by and to principle.

Leopold von Wiese and the ambivalence of functionalist sociology

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Liebersohn
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Structural Functionalism

‘Spencer is dead’, wrote Talcott Parsons at the beginning of The Structureof Social Action, ‘but who killed him and how ? This is the problem’. In this study, which was both the foundation of Parsons’ structural-functionalism and a major reinterpretation of the history of modern social science, Spencer stood for a vanquished schoolof social thought. He represented positivism at the suicidal extreme where its naive individualism fell apart, paradoxically passing over into its antithesis, a biological determinism precluding individual initiative. His thought had died at the intersection of individual and society.Beyond this point, Parsons discovered the rise of a new social theory in Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber. From these four thinkers, working independently of one another, Parsons tried to put together the pieces of a system, succeeding where Spencer had decisively failed, reconciling personal agency and social order.

Introduction: the puzzling scope of rationality

1991 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clauss Offe
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Core ◽  
To Come

The question of how social norms and the rational pursuit of interests combine into social action continues to be one of the core puzzles of social theory. The essays by Jon Elster and Ralph Turner and the comments by Margaret Levi and Steven Lukes published in the following pages of the Archives are fine and, we believe, representative contemporary examples of how social scientists try to come to terms with this puzzle.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document