Analytical framework, or paradigm, that is used to study and interpret social phenomena
Social theories
are analytical frameworks, or
paradigms
, that are used to study and interpret
social phenomena
.
[1]
A tool used by
social scientists
, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies (e.g.
positivism
and
antipositivism
), the primacy of either
structure or agency
, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as "
social criticism
" or "
social commentary
", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal
cultural
and
literary
scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing.
[1]
Definitions
[
edit
]
Social theory
by definition is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze
modernity
as it has emerged in the past few centuries.
[2]
: 10
Social theory, as it is recognized today, emerged in the 20th century as a distinct discipline, and was largely equated with an attitude of critical thinking and the desire for knowledge through
a posteriori
methods of discovery, rather than
a priori
methods of tradition.
[
citation needed
]
Social thought
provides general theories to explain actions and behavior of society as a whole, encompassing
sociological
,
political
, and
philosophical
ideas. Classical social theory has generally been presented from a perspective of
Western philosophy
, and often regarded as
Eurocentric
.
[
by whom?
]
Theory construction
, according to The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, is instrumental:
"Their goal is to promote accurate communication, rigorous testing, high accuracy, and broad applicability. They include the following: absence of contradictions, absence of ambivalence, abstractness, generality, precision, parsimony, and conditionality."
[3]
Therefore, a social theory consists of well-defined terms, statements, arguments and scope conditions.
History
[
edit
]
Ancient
[
edit
]
Confucius
(551?479 BCE) envisaged a just society that went beyond his contemporary society of the
Warring States
.
[4]
Later on, also in China,
Mozi
(
circa
470 ?
circa
390 BCE) recommended a more pragmatic sociology, but ethical at base.
In the West,
Saint Augustine
(354?430) was concerned exclusively with the idea of the
just society
. St. Augustine describes late
Ancient Roman
society through a lens of hatred and contempt for what he saw as false
Gods
, and in reaction theorized
City of God
.
[
citation needed
]
Ancient Greek
philosophers, including
Aristotle
(384?322 BC) and
Plato
(428/427 or 424/423 ? 348/347 BC), did not see a distinction between politics and society. The concept of society did not come until the
Enlightenment period
. The term,
societe
, was probably first used as key concept by
Rousseau
in discussion of social relations.
[5]
Prior to the enlightenment, social theory took largely
narrative
and
normative
form. It was expressed as stories and fables, and it may be assumed the
pre-Socratic
philosophers and religious teachers were the precursors to social theory proper.
[
citation needed
]
Medieval
[
edit
]
There is evidence of
early Muslim sociology
from the 14th century: in
Ibn Khaldun
's
Muqaddimah
(later translated as
Prolegomena
in
Latin
), the introduction to a seven volume analysis of
universal history
, was the first to advance
social philosophy
and
social science
in formulating theories of
social cohesion
and
social conflict
.
Ibn Khaldun
is thus considered by many to be the forerunner of sociology.
[6]
[7]
Khaldun's
treatise described in
Muqaddimah
(Introduction to History)
, published in 1377, two types of societies: (1) the city or
town
-dweller and (2) the mobile,
nomadic
societies.
[
citation needed
]
European social thought
[
edit
]
Modernity
arose during the Enlightenment period, with the emergence of the
world economy
and exchange among diverse societies, bringing sweeping changes and new challenges for society. Many
French
and
Scottish
intellectuals and
philosophers
embraced the idea of progress and ideas of modernity.
[8]
The Enlightenment period was marked by the idea that with new
discoveries
challenging the traditional way of thinking, scientists were required to find new normativity. This process allowed
scientific knowledge
and society to
progress
.
[
citation needed
]
French thought during this period focused on
moral
critique and criticisms of the
monarchy
.
[2]
: 15
These ideas did not draw on ideas of the past from classical thinkers, nor involved following
religious
teachings and authority of the
monarch
.
A common factor among the classical theories was the agreement that the
history of humanity
is pursuing a fixed path. They differed on where that path would lead:
social progress
,
technological progress
, decline or even fall. Social cycle theorists were skeptical of the Western achievements and technological progress, but argued that progress is an illusion of the ups and downs of the historical cycles.
[
citation needed
]
The classical approach has been criticized by many modern sociologists and theorists; among them
Karl Popper
,
Robert Nisbet
,
Charles Tilly
and
Immanuel Wallerstein
.
The 19th century brought questions involving
social order
. The
French Revolution
freed French society of control by the monarchy, with no effective means of maintaining social order until
Napoleon
came to power. Three great classical theories of social and historical change emerged: the
social evolutionism
theory (of which
Social Darwinism
forms a part), the
social cycle theory
, and the
Marxist
historical materialism
theory.
[
citation needed
]
19th-century classical social theory has been expanded upon to create newer, contemporary social theories such as
multilineal theories of evolution
(
neoevolutionism
,
sociobiology
,
theory of modernization
,
theory of post-industrial society
) and various strains of
Neo-Marxism
.
[
citation needed
]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social theory became closely related to academic
sociology
, and other related studies such as
anthropology
,
philosophy
, and
social work
branched out into their own disciplines. Subjects like "
philosophy of history
" and other multi-disciplinary subject matter became part of social theory as taught under sociology.
[
citation needed
]
A revival of discussion free of disciplines began in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The
Frankfurt Institute for Social Research
is a historical example. The
Committee on Social Thought
at the
University of Chicago
followed in the 1940s. In the 1970s, programs in Social and Political Thought were established at
Sussex
and
York
. Others followed, with emphases and structures, such as Social Theory and History (
University of California, Davis
).
Cultural Studies
programs extended the concerns of social theory into the domain of
culture
and thus
anthropology
. A chair and undergraduate program in social theory was established at the
University of Melbourne
. Social theory at present seems to be gaining acceptance as a classical academic discipline.
[
citation needed
]
Classical social theory
[
edit
]
Adam Ferguson
,
Montesquieu
, and
John Millar
, among others, were the first to study society as distinct from political institutions and processes. In the nineteenth century, the
scientific method
was introduced into study of society, which was a significant advance leading to development of
sociology
as a
discipline
.
[9]
In the 18th century, the pre-classical period of social theories developed a new form that provides the basic ideas for social theory, such as
evolution
,
philosophy of history
, social life and
social contract
, public and
general will
, competition in social space, organismic pattern for social description.
Montesquieu
, in
The Spirit of Laws
, which established that social elements influence human nature, was possibly the first to suggest a universal explanation for
history
.
[10]
Montesquieu included changes in
mores
and manners as part of his explanation of political and historic events.
[2]
: 23
Philosophers, including
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
,
Voltaire
, and
Denis Diderot
, developed new social ideas during the
Enlightenment
period that were based on
reason
and methods of scientific inquiry.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
in this time played a significant role in social theory. He revealed the origin of
inequality
, analyzed the social contract (and social compact) that forms
social integration
and defined the social sphere or
civil society
.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
also emphasized that man has the liberty to change his world, an assertion that made it possible to program and change society.
[
citation needed
]
Adam Smith
addressed the question of whether vast inequalities of wealth represented progress. He explained that the wealthy often demand
convenience
, employing numerous others to carry out
labor
to meet their demands.
[
citation needed
]
Smith argued that this allows wealth to be redistributed among inhabitants, and for all to share in progress of society. Smith explained that social forces could regulate the
market economy
with social objectivity and without need for
government
intervention. Smith regarded the
division of labor
as an important factor for economic progress.
John Millar
suggested that improved status of
women
was important for progress of society. Millar also advocated for
abolition
of
slavery
, suggesting that personal
liberty
makes people more industrious, ambitious, and
productive
.
[11]
The first "modern" social theories (known as classical theories) that begin to resemble the analytic social theory of today developed simultaneously with the birth of the science of sociology.
Auguste Comte
(1798?1857), known as the "father of sociology" and regarded by some as the first philosopher of science,
[12]
laid the groundwork for
positivism
? as well as
structural functionalism
and
social evolutionism
.
Karl Marx
rejected Comtean positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a
science of society
based on
historical materialism
, becoming recognised as a founding figure of sociology posthumously. At the turn of the 20th century, the first of German sociologists, including
Max Weber
and
Georg Simmel
, developed sociological
antipositivism
. The field may be broadly recognized as an amalgam of three modes of social scientific thought in particular; Durkheimian
sociological positivism
and
structural functionalism
, Marxist historical materialism and
conflict theory
, and Weberian
antipositivism
and
verstehen
critique.
[
citation needed
]
Another early modern theorist,
Herbert Spencer
(1820?1903), coined the term "
survival of the fittest
".
Vilfredo Pareto
(1848?1923) and
Pitirim A. Sorokin
argued that "history goes in cycles," and presented the
social cycle theory
to illustrate their point.
Ferdinand Tonnies
(1855?1936) made
community
and
society
(
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
, 1887) the special topics of the new science of "sociology", both of them based on different modes of
will
of
social actors
.
[
citation needed
]
The 19th century pioneers of social theory and sociology, like Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx,
John Stuart Mill
or Spencer, never held university posts and they were broadly regarded as philosophers.
Emile Durkheim
endeavoured to formally established academic sociology, and did so at the
University of Bordeaux
in 1895, he published
Rules of the Sociological Method
. In 1896, he established the journal
L'Annee Sociologique
. Durkheim's seminal monograph,
Suicide
(1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst
Catholic
and
Protestant
populations, distinguished sociological analysis from
psychology
or
philosophy
.
[
citation needed
]
Post-modern social theory
[
edit
]
The term "postmodernism" was brought into social theory in 1971 by the Arab American Theorist
Ihab Hassan
in his book:
The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature
. In 1979
Jean-Francois Lyotard
wrote a short but influential work
The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge
.
Jean Baudrillard
,
Michel Foucault
, and
Roland Barthes
were influential in the 1970s in developing postmodern theory.
Scholars most commonly hold
postmodernism
to be a movement of ideas arising from, but also critical of elements of
modernism
.
[
citation needed
]
The wide range of uses of this term resulted in different elements of modernity are chosen as being continuous. Each of the different uses is rooted in some argument about the nature of knowledge, known in philosophy as
epistemology
.
[13]
Individuals who use the term are arguing that either there is something fundamentally different about the transmission of meaning, or that modernism has fundamental flaws in its system of knowledge.
[
citation needed
]
The argument for the necessity of the term states that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society.
[
citation needed
]
These ideas are
simulacra
, and only inter-referential representations and copies of each other, with no real original, stable or objective source for
communication
and meaning.
Globalization
, brought on by innovations in communication,
manufacturing
and
transportation
,
[14]
is cited as one force which has decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society, lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production. The postmodern view is that inter-subjective knowledge, and not objective knowledge, is the dominant form of
discourse
. The ubiquity of copies and dissemination alters the relationship between reader and what is read, between observer and the observed, between those who consume and those who produce.
[
citation needed
]
Not all people who use the term postmodern or postmodernism see these developments as positive.
[15]
Users of the term argue that their ideals have arisen as the result of particular economic and social conditions, including "
late capitalism
", the growth of
broadcast
media, and that such conditions have pushed society into a new
historical period
.
Today
[
edit
]
In the past few decades, in response to postmodern critiques,
[
citation needed
]
social theory has begun to stress free will, individual choice, subjective reasoning, and the importance of unpredictable events in place of
deterministic necessity
.
Rational choice theory
,
symbolic interactionism
,
false necessity
are examples of more recent developments. A view among contemporary sociologists is that there are no great unifying 'laws of history', but rather smaller, more specific, and more complex laws that govern society.
[
citation needed
]
Philosopher and politician
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
recently attempted to revise classical social theory by exploring how things fit together, rather than to provide an all encompassing single explanation of a universal reality. He begins by recognizing the key insight of classical social theory of society as an artifact, and then by discarding the law-like characteristics forcibly attached to it. Unger argues that classical social theory was born proclaiming that society is made and imagined, and not the expression of an underlying natural order, but at the same time its capacity was checked by the equally prevalent ambition to create law-like explanations of history and social development. The
human sciences
that developed claimed to identify a small number of possible types of social organization that coexisted or succeeded one another through inescapable developmental tendencies or deep-seated economic organization or psychological constraints.
Marxism
is the star example.
[16]
: 1
Unger, calling his efforts "super-theory", has thus sought to develop a comprehensive view of history and society. Unger does so without subsuming deep structure analysis under an indivisible and repeatable type of social organization or with recourse to law-like constraints and tendencies.
[16]
: 165
His articulation of such a theory is in
False Necessity: anti-necessitarian social theory in the service of radical democracy,
where he uses deep-logic practice to theorize human social activity through anti-necessitarian analysis.
Unger begins by formulating the theory of false necessity, which claims that social worlds are the artifact of human endeavors. There is no pre-set institutional arrangement that societies must adhere to, and there is no necessary historical mold of development that they will follow. We are free to choose and to create the forms and the paths that our societies will take. However, this does not give license to absolute contingency. Unger finds that there are groups of institutional arrangements that work together to bring about certain institutional forms?liberal democracy, for example. These forms are the basis of a social structure, which Unger calls
formative context
. In order to explain how we move from one formative context to another without the conventional social theory constraints of historical necessity (e.g. feudalism to capitalism), and to do so while remaining true to the key insight of individual human empowerment and
anti-necessitarian social thought
, Unger recognized that there are an infinite number of ways of resisting social and institutional constraints, which can lead to an infinite number of outcomes. This variety of forms of resistance and
empowerment
make change possible. Unger calls this empowerment
negative capability
. However, Unger adds that these outcomes are always reliant on the forms from which they spring. The new world is built upon the existing one.
[17]
Schools of thought
[
edit
]
Chicago school
[
edit
]
The
Chicago school
developed in the 1920s, through the work of
Albion Woodbury Small
,
W. I. Thomas
,
Ernest W. Burgess
,
Robert E. Park
,
Ellsworth Faris
,
George Herbert Mead
, and other sociologists at the
University of Chicago
. The Chicago school focused on patterns and arrangement of social phenomenon across
time
and
place
, and within context of other social variables.
[18]
Critical theory
[
edit
]
Critical theorists
focus on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge
power structures
and their relations and influences on social groups.
Marxism
[
edit
]
Karl Marx
wrote and theorized about the importance of
political economy
on society, and focused on the "material conditions" of life.
[2]
: 4
His theories centered around capitalism and its effect on class-struggle between the
proletariat
and
bourgeoisie
.
[19]
Postmodernism
[
edit
]
Postmodernism was defined by
Jean-Francois Lyotard
as "incredulity towards
metanarratives
" and contrasted that with
modern
which he described as "any science that legitimates itself with reference to a
metadiscourse
... making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth."
[20]
Other perspectives
[
edit
]
Other theories include:
Key thinkers
[
edit
]
French social thought
[
edit
]
Some known
French
social thinkers are
Claude Henri Saint-Simon
, Auguste Comte,
Emile Durkheim
, and
Michel Foucault
.
British social thought
[
edit
]
British
social thought, with thinkers such as
Herbert Spencer
, addressed questions and ideas relating to
political economy
and
social evolution
. The political ideals of
John Ruskin
were a precursor of
social economy
(
Unto This Last
had a very important impact on
Gandhi
's philosophy).
German social thought
[
edit
]
Important
German
philosophers and social thinkers included
Immanuel Kant
,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
,
Karl Marx
,
Max Weber
,
Georg Simmel
,
Theodor W. Adorno
,
Max Horkheimer
,
Herbert Marcuse
and
Niklas Luhmann
.
Chinese social thought
[
edit
]
Important
Chinese
philosophers and social thinkers included
Shang Yang
,
Lao Zi
,
Confucius
,
Mencius
, Wang Chong,
Wang Yangming
,
Li Zhi
,
Zhu Xi
,
Gu Yanwu
,
Gong Zizhen
, Wei Yuan,
Kang Youwei
, Lu Xun,
Mao Zedong
, Zhu Ming.
Italian sociology
[
edit
]
Important Italian social scientists include
Antonio Gramsci
,
Gaetano Mosca
,
Vilfredo Pareto
, Franco Ferrarotti.
Thai social thought
[
edit
]
Important Thai social theorists include
Jit Phumisak
,
Kukrit Pramoj
, and
Prawase Wasi
In academic practices
[
edit
]
Social theory seeks to question why humans inhabit the world the way they do, and how that came to be by looking at power relations, social structures, and social norms,
[21]
while also examining how humans relate to each other and the society they find themselves in, how this has changed over time and in different cultures,
[22]
and the tools used to measure those things. Social theory looks to
interdisciplinarity
, combining knowledge from multiple academic disciplines in order to enlighten these complex issues,
[21]
and can draw on ideas from fields as diverse as
anthropology
and
media studies
.
Social theory guides scientific inquiry by promoting scientists to think about which topics are suitable for investigation and how they should measure them. Selecting or creating appropriate theory for use in examining an issue is an important skill for any researcher. Important distinctions: a
theoretical orientation
(or
paradigm
) is a worldview, the lens through which one organizes experience (i.e. thinking of human interaction in terms of power or exchange). A
theory
is an attempt to explain and predict behavior in particular contexts. A theoretical orientation cannot be proven or disproven; a theory can.
Having a theoretical orientation that sees the world in terms of power and control, one could create a theory about violent human behavior which includes specific causal statements (e.g. being the victim of physical abuse leads to psychological problems). This could lead to a
hypothesis
(prediction) about what one expects to see in a particular sample, e.g. "a battered child will grow up to be shy or violent". One can then test the hypothesis by looking to see if it is consistent with
data
. One might, for instance, review hospital records to find children who were abused, then track them down and administer a personality test to see if they show signs of being violent or shy. The selection of an appropriate (i.e. useful) theoretical orientation within which to develop a potentially helpful theory is the bedrock of social science.
Example of questions posed by social theorists
[
edit
]
Philosophical questions addressed by social thinkers often centered around
modernity
, including:
- Can human reason make sense of the social world and shape it for the better?
- Did the development of modern societies, with vast inequalities in wealth among citizens, constitute progress?
- How do particular government interventions and regulations impact natural social processes?
- Should the economy/market be regulated or not?
Other issues relating to modernity that were addressed by social thinkers include
social atomization
,
alienation
,
loneliness
,
social disorganization
, and
secularization
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Callinicos, A. (1999).
Social Theory: A Historical Introduction
. New York University Press.
- ^
Ritzer, George, ed. 2007.
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology
. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
- ^
Macionis, John J.; Plummer, Ken (2005).
Sociology. A Global Introduction
(3rd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education. p. 12.
ISBN
0-13-128746-X
.
- ^
Heilbron, Johan (1995).
The Rise of Social Theory
. Cambridge University Press.
- ^
H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World",
Cooperation South Journal
1
.
- ^
S. W. Akhtar (1997). "The Islamic Concept of Knowledge",
Al-Tawhid: A Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought & Culture
12
(3).
- ^
"Enlightenment Period: Thinkers & Ideas"
.
HISTORY
. 21 February 2020
. Retrieved
13 November
2023
.
- ^
"The History Behind Sociology"
.
ThoughtCo
. Retrieved
21 November
2023
.
- ^
Althusser, L. (1972).
Politics and History
.
- ^
Meek, Rodney L. (1967).
Economics and Ideology and Other Essays
.
- ^
Bourdeau, Michel (19 October 2017).
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University
. Retrieved
19 October
2017
– via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^
Allan, H Turnner, Kenneth, Jonathan; Turner, Jonathan H. (2000).
"A formalization of postmodern theory"
(PDF)
.
Sociological Perspectives
.
43
(3): 363.
doi
:
10.2307/1389533
.
ISSN
0731-1214
.
JSTOR
1389533
.
S2CID
55576226
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
L Arxer, Steven (2008). "Addressing postmodern concerns on the border: globalization, the nation-state, hybridity, and social change".
Tamara Journal of Critical Organisation Inquiry
.
7
(1/2): 179.
ISSN
1532-5555
.
- ^
Petrov, Igor (2003). "Globalization as a Postmodern Phenomenon".
International Affairs
.
49
(6): 127.
ISSN
0130-9641
.
- ^
a
b
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira (1987).
Social Theory: Its situation and its task
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9780521329750
.
- ^
Unger, Roberto (2004).
False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy, Revised Edition
. London: Verso. pp. 35?36, 164, 169, 278?80, 299?301.
ISBN
978-1-85984-331-4
.
- ^
Abbott, Andrew (1997). "Of Time and Space: The Contemporary Relevance of the Chicago School".
Social Forces
.
75
(4). University of North Carolina Press: 1149?82.
doi
:
10.2307/2580667
.
JSTOR
2580667
.
- ^
Marx, Karl.
"The German Ideology. Karl Marx 1845"
.
marxists.org
. Retrieved
2016-09-29
.
- ^
Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1979).
The Postmodern Condition
.
- ^
a
b
Modern social theory : an introduction
. Harrington, Austin, 1970-. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005.
ISBN
9780199255702
.
OCLC
56608295
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: others (
link
)
- ^
Elliott, Anthony (2009).
Contemporary social theory : an introduction
. London: Routledge.
ISBN
9780415386333
.
OCLC
232358185
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Baert, Patrick; Silva, Filipe Carreira da (2010).
Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
ISBN
978-0-7456-3981-9
.
- Bell, David (2008).
Constructing Social Theory
. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN
978-0-7425-6428-2
.
- Berberoglu, Berch (2005).
An Introduction to Classical and Contemporary Social Theory: A Critical Perspective, Third Edition
. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN
978-0-7425-2493-4
.
- Berger, Peter; Luckmann, Thomas (1966).
The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
. Garden City NY: Anchor Books.
ISBN
0-385-05898-5
.
- Harrington, Austin (2005).
Modern Social Theory: An Introduction
. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-925570-2
.
- Berger, J., M. Zelditch, Jr., and B. Anderson (1989).
Sociological Theories in Progress: New Formulations
. Sage Publications.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Callinicos, A.
(1999).
Social Theory: A Historical Introduction
.
- Cohen, B. (1989).
Developing Sociological Knowledge: Theory and Method
. Nelson Hall.
- Craib, I.
(1992).
Modern Social Theory
. Palgrave Macmillan.
ISBN
0-312-08674-1
.
- Giddens, A. (1987).
Social Theory and Modern Sociology
. Broadview.
- Habermas, Jurgen (1987).
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
. MIT Press.
ISBN
9780262081634
.
- Hall, S., B. Gieben (1992).
The Formations of Modernity
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Hughes, J., P. Martin, W. Sharrock (1995).
Understanding Classical Sociology
. Sage.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- James, Paul
(2006).
Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In?Volume 2 of Towards a Theory of Abstract Community
. London: Sage Publications.
- Kincaid, Harold (1996).
Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences: Analyzing Controversies in Social Research
. Cambridge University Press.
- Larson, C.J. (1993).
Pure and Applied Sociological Theory: Problems and Issues
. Harcourt.
- Morrison, K. L. (1995).
Marx, Durkheim, Weber: formations of modern social thought
. Sage.
ISBN
0-8039-7562-7
.
- O'Donnell, M. (2000).
Classical & Contemporary Sociology
. Hodder & Stoughton.
- Parsons, Talcott (1937).
The Structure of Social Action
.
- Phillips, D.C. (1992).
The Social Scientist's Bestiary
. Pergamon Press.
- Ray, L. (1999).
Theorizing Classical Sociology
. Open University Press.
- Ritzer, George, Barry Smart (2003).
Handbook of Social Theory
. Sage Publications.
ISBN
0-7619-4187-8
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Ritzer, George, Douglas J. Goodman (2003).
Modern Sociological Theory
. McGraw-Hill.
ISBN
0-07-282578-2
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Swingewood, A. (2000).
A Short History of Sociological Thought
. Macmillan.
- Swirski, Peter. (2011).
American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History
. New York, Routledge.
- Unger, R.
(1987).
Social Theory: Its Situation and its Task
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9780521329750
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Concepts
| |
---|
Schools
| |
---|
Philosophers
| Ancient
| |
---|
Medieval
| |
---|
Early modern
| |
---|
18th and 19th
centuries
| |
---|
20th and 21st
centuries
| |
---|
|
---|
Works
| |
---|
See also
| |
---|
|