Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory
Talcott Parsons and the Conceptual Dilemma (RLE Social Theory)
1st Edition
By Hans Adriaansens
May 20, 2016
This systematic analysis of the nature and development of Talcott Parson’s theory of action offers first an introduction to the conceptual paradigm upon which this theory is based – an introduction, that is, which will make Parson’s writing more easily accessible. Second, the book gives an ...
The Hermeneutic Imagination: Outline of a Positive Critique of Scientism and Sociology
1st Edition
By Josef Bleicher
May 20, 2016
In his previous book, Contemporary Hermeneutics, Josef Bleicher offered an introduction to the subject, locating it mainly within the philosophy of social science, and looking at the profound impact it is having on a wide range of intellectual pursuits. This book follows on from this and expounds ...
The Person in the Sight of Sociology
1st Edition
By Colin Fletcher
May 20, 2016
Sociology is about society, but what about people? The person in the sight of sociology is all too often a matchstick being. In this original and stimulating book the person is characterized by what is inherent in a social being, and the result is a rich narrative, the story of the person told ...
The Rational and the Social: How to Understand Science in a Social World
1st Edition
By James Robert Brown
May 20, 2016
To paraphrase Marx, sociologists have only interpreted science; the point is to improve it. The Rational and the Social attempts both. It begins by sketching recent sociological approaches to science, notably the strong programme – Bloor’s ‘science of science’ and Barnes’s ‘finitism’ – and that of ...
Theories of Industrial Society (RLE Social Theory)
1st Edition
By Richard Badham
May 20, 2016
The concept of industrial society plays a dominant role in the social sciences. The ‘Great Divide’ between pre-industrial and industrial societies is commonly assumed to be the main bridge separating modern societies from the past, and distinguishing ‘developed’ from ‘undeveloped’ states in the ...
Choice, Rationality and Social Theory (RLE Social Theory)
1st Edition
By Barry Hindess
May 13, 2016
Choice, Rationality and Social Theory is a powerful rebuttal of the remarkably influential theories underlying 'rational choice analysis'. Rational choice analysis maintains that social life is principally to be explained as the outcome of rational choices on the part of individual actors. ...
Concepts and Society
1st Edition
By Ian C. Jarvie
February 29, 2016
The main concern of Dr Jarvie’s book is the relation of belief to action. He argues that people act in society because of beliefs, because of ‘the way they see things’. There is the world of physical and social conditioning – where fixed roles, tropisms, adaptations seem to operate; there is the ...
Knowledge and Politics: The Sociology of Knowledge Dispute
1st Edition
Edited
By Volker Meja, Nico Stehr
February 29, 2016
Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia has been a profoundly provocative book. The debate about politics and social knowledge that was spawned by its original publication in 1929 attracted the most promising younger scholars, some of whom shaped the thought of several generations. The book became a ...
Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism
1st Edition
By Bryan S. Turner, Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill
February 29, 2016
In this sequel to their acclaimed The Dominant Ideology Thesis, the authors develop their analysis of the social and cultural underpinnings of modern capitalism. They confront a central assumption of western culture: namely, that the individual is sovereign, and that capitalism above all other ...
The Study of Society: Methods and Problems
1st Edition
Edited
By F.C. Bartlett, M. Ginsberg, E. J. Lindgren, R. H. Thouless
February 29, 2016
There is today widespread recognition of the fact that the future of human civilization depends to a high degree upon Man’s capacity to understand the forces and factors which control his own behaviour. Such understanding must be achieved, not only as regards individual conduct, but equally as ...
A Sociological Approach to Social Problems
1st Edition
By Professor Noel W Timms
January 20, 2016
The topics covered in this book are directly related to much of the misunderstanding of what sociology is about. It is usual nowadays to label as sociological any discussion concerned, however loosely, with ‘Society’. But a careful reading of Mr Timms’ treatment of the problem areas he has chosen ...
Civil Society
1st Edition
By Keith Tester
January 20, 2016
This major study discusses some of the meanings and preconditions of freedom, responsibility and social order. The author argues that these are problems of modernity. The imagination of civil society created a milieu which was at once the location and defence of social self-sufficiency in the world...