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In this paper, I will investigate the complex relationship between intuition, trustworthiness, and trust. I will first examine some of the more prevalent accounts of trust which either (over)emphasize the cognitive aspect of generating trustworthiness, or indeed acknowledge the importance of affects and emotions, but only as part of a neatly organized dual structure − which is in essence complementary with the cognitive understanding of how we start trusting each other. I will argue that intuitions provide a more detailed insight into trustworthiness because they are simultaneously cognitive and affective in nature. I will also consider how inferential and holistic intuitions might influence our understanding of trustworthiness, especially in times of crisis.

This paper presents three interconnected examinations of Asger Sørensen’s arguments in Capitalism, Alienation and Critique, which thematize Sørensen’s overarching understanding of the relationship between theory and practice: his general methodological perspective on critical theory, its distinctive epistemology and its anchoring in the empirical world. The paper authors each try to push Sørensen on these crucial points by considering how Sørensen’s variant of critical theory actually operates, scrutinizing in more detail the particular relationship between the ‘experience of injustice’, which for Sørensen constitutes the empirical foothold for critical theory, and the theoretical diagnosis of social reality which the critical theorist should formulate against the backdrop of this experience.

In this paper I will explore the relation between engagement and social science. I will try to argue that positivist epistemology found in the early days of social sciences still greatly influences our understanding of social engagement. In the first part of the paper, I will analyze the epistemology of social sciences advocated by Fourier and Saint-Simon and try to show that, for them, scientific method was primarily the means for taming social change, as well as projecting private desires and plans onto the public sphere. In the second part, I will offer an alternative account of social engagement using the epistemic role of the community found in pragmatism.

This paper tries to critically analyse Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology. In the first part of the paper I will examine Alexander’s conception of hermeneutical structuralism which argues that conventional systemic sociology and richness of experience found in everyday praxis can be reconciled. In the next section I will provide a critique of this kind of approach to social theory and maintain that Alexander’s sociology is, in principle, reductionist regarding everyday life. In addition, I will also point out some of the comparative advantages that pragmatically oriented theory has in the attempt of integrating theoretical and practical knowledge. In the final section of the paper, I will try to illustrate some of the major shortcomings of Alexander’s sociology on the concrete example of advances in computer technology. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007: Istrаživаnje uticaja klimаtskih promenа nа životnu sredinu: prаćenje uticаjа, аdаptаcijа i ublаžаvаnje]

In this paper we will try to offer a systematic insight into the relation of everyday practices and public space. By examining the work of two of the most influential authors in this field, Foucault and Lefebvre, we will try to provide a theoretical explanation of intuition that (public) space represents one of the key constitutive elements of free action. In the first part of the paper, we will consider Foucault’s notion of heterotopia in the interest of pointing towards a “spatially intermediated” self-reflection which, to a great degree, resembles the philosophical askesis form his so called letter work. Afterwards, we will consider in which sense Lefebvre’s position that public space represents a Hegelian concrete abstraction - which entails dialectical analysis and tracking of complex historical contradictions - complements and deepens perspective that Foucault puts before us in his heterotopias. In that vein, it will be shown that both authors, despite the difference in their theoretical starting points, defend the idea of such a public space in which all signifiers are removed in the interest of „opening space” for the free agent. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 41004 i br. 43007]

The aim of this paper is to show certain aspects of Rorty’s philosophy that are relevant to social theory, and also to point out the most important divergences of Rorty’s insights from postmodern understanding of social reality. Therefore, in the first part of the paper I will examine both Rorty’s philosophy of edification and all relevant criticisms to his view of philosophy “as a communication of mankind”. Furthermore, I will try to establish to which extent Rorty’s understanding of contingency and its implications really falls close to postmodern thought. I will also argue that the impossibility of philosophical justification of social reality, according to Rorty, does not entail impossibility of moral progress and that the role of social theory is actually in raising the level of inclusion of social interaction and in providing social hope. Moreover, it will be shown that Rorty, unlike Foucault and Derrida, thought that the institutions of Western democracy and liberalism are quite capable to achieve these goals and that accomplishment of this liberal utopia greatly depends on the degree of commitment to moral progress that all actors (writers, social scientists and philosophers) within the cultural field share.

In this paper attempt will be made in explaining some basic notions of Simmel's sociology, especially those regarding his very complex comprehension of money and causality in history. In analysis of his work, I will argue that Simmel stands very close to the contemporary structurational point of view, and that there are three levels of freedom and structural givens (overlapping each other) in society. These are: meta-theoretical level, level of integration into the World, and the historical level. Besides that, less explicit aims of this paper are to show that in Simmlel's thought there are no disciplinary borders between sociology and philosophy, as well as to depict some of the potential benefits that sociology might get from this line of reasoning.