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In this paper, we elucidate the moral psychology and what we might call the moral sociology of Mencius and of Hume, and we argue for three claims. First, we demonstrate that there are strong similarities between Mencius and Hume concerning some of the principal psychological sources of the virtue of humanity. Second, we show that there are strong similarities between the two concerning some of the principal social sources of the virtue of humanity. Third, we argue that there are related, though weaker, similarities between Mencius and Hume concerning some of the principal cognitive sources of the virtue of humanity. We conclude by suggesting that the number and nature of these similarities demonstrate the need for future research on the conceptual connections between Confucian and Humean moral philosophy, especially on the psychological and social sources of benevolent moral development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A structure is temporally gunky just in case all of its temporal parts have proper temporal parts. Joshua Stuchlik [2003] objects to the stage theory of persistence from temporal gunk by arguing that the former requires instantaneous entities while the latter precludes them. It is argued here that stage theory can accommodate temporal gunk by invoking short-lived persisting stages. However, a new and more serious problem for stage theory is not far to seek. The short-lived stages that are needed to accommodate gunk accord with stage theory only if they are appropriately qualitatively static. The problem is that, unless stage theory abandons much of its dialectical force, some of the required stages fail this condition. Thus, Stuchlik is right that gunk shows a large class of worlds not to be stages, but wrong about which worlds these are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis to be defended in this essay is that the meaning, and by implication the use, of philosophy continues to be contested. I will focus primarily on philosophy in South Africa in order to elucidate this thesis. In doing so, I will argue that the future of philosophy in South Africa lies precisely in the willingness to contest its meaning and use. Such a contestation must be in the form of a dialogue predicated on the principle of the equality of all human beings and the openness to learn from one another without precluding the possibility of change in oneself and the existential conditions that prevail. My starting point is that the present is the child of the past and the present in turn is the parent of the future. I will therefore look back with the view to arriving at the present that is the field of contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an enterprise centred in human experiences, philosophy must acknowledge its history and find its way from that history to define the future of humanity. Inter-philosophical dialogue is an attempt to metaphorically dialogue with that history with a view to creating better understanding across cultures. In this essay, I seek to examine the nature and foundations of inter-philosophical dialogue from an African standpoint. Not only is dialogue the defining element of philosophy, but it is also integral to what it means to be human. I am convinced that inter-philosophical dialogue is critical to the future wellbeing of the world and that of humanity in particular. However, in celebrating its promise, we should not be oblivious to the fact that, being a talismanic concept, dialogue can be manipulated to mask and smooth over the hegemony that still defines the world. The world continues to face the dangers of an ethnocentric rationalism which seeks to measure the legitimacy all other traditions of life and thought in terms of standards set by one dominant tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judicial reform in Afghanistan is seriously undermined by systemic corruption that has resulted in low legitimacy of the state and weak rule of law. This article reviews the main shortcomings in the Afghan justice system with reference to 70 interviews conducted in Kabul. Building on legal pluralism and a political economic approach, the shortcomings and causes and consequences of corruption in the Afghan justice sector are highlighted. These range from low pay, resulting in bribery; criminal and political intrusion into the judiciary; non-adherence to meritocracy, with poorly educated judges and prosecutors; and low funding in the judicial sector resulting in weak case tracking and human rights abuses in the countryside. This is followed by sociological approaches: understanding corruption from a non-Western approach and emphasis on religion, morality and ethics in order to curb it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imagery of ‘otherness’ played a significant role in modern Europe's cognisance of the orient, the colonised, the feminine and the homosexual which were viewed as threats to the values of a ‘rational, progressive and civilised’ society. But how was ‘the non-European other’ represented in classical sociology's canons authored by the trinity of Durkheim, Weber and Marx? The paper focuses on Durkheim's examination of the Hindu sati as an altruistic suicide, Weber's theorisation that the European Protestant Christianity could only produce rationality and capitalism, and Marx's non-reflexive neglect of the progressive pre-modern from India's pre-colonial past. A critical post-colonial reading of the selected texts identifies the ahistorical, orientalist, racialised, colonialist and historicist fault lines that crisscross the sociological canons. The time is ripe to rectify the denial of subjecthood to the ‘non-western other’ that we often encounter in the sociological canons. The paper concludes that the ‘non-western other’ is capable of being a subject in her own right. The critical engagement with the sociological canons is a small step towards building the ground for a more reflexive and historically specific global sociology in the post-colonial era. As an intellectual endeavour of the post-colonial era, global sociology should be vigilant about global capitalism's tendency towards obliterating the diverse ways of thinking and acting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on West and Zimmerman's classic theory of “doing gender,” which argues that gender is something we do rather than something we have or are, as well as recent feminist conversations about whether it is possible to ‘undo’ gender, this study analyzes the role of gender in BDSM1 bisexuality. This research analyzes 32 semistructured, in-depth interviews; correspondence and diaries held by the Leather Archives and Museum; and 344 public discussion board threads selected for themes related to gender on a large BDSM community website. The data show that BDSM bisexuality is created in part through a distinction participants create between ‘sex’ and ‘sexual.’ Three main types of BDSM bisexuality are identified: gender-based switching, gender-based styles, and rejection of gender. The author argues that the complex ways participants support and resist gender normativity in these three types of BDSM bisexuality can advance our understanding of the processes involved in doing and undoing gender. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Undergraduate students often struggle with understanding the theories of Bourdieu, but they are essential for understanding how power and privilege are reproduced in society. Revealing students’ complicity in this system is a powerful teaching moment, but it is often difficult to make the lesson and advanced theory accessible without triggering students’ defense mechanisms. Discussions of oppression often generate reactions of resistance, paralysis, and rage. This article describes a simulation designed to thwart student passivity while also being cognizant of pushing students too far emotionally. By having students adopt an identity during play and then analyze the results of their simulation, students were able to identify with structural oppression and learn Bourdieu's principles of cultural capital and reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The field of sociology is an ongoing creative process that always requires new energy and new insights. At the same time, in order to remain a collective project, sociology requires solidarity among its practitioners. This article offers reflections on how the discipline might be renewed and revitalized in the context of the still relatively young twenty-first century. Specifically, it calls for an Integral approach to science, for increased bonds among sociological colleagues, and for the development of an explicitly spiritual dimension in teaching, research and service. The discussion also touches on dangers to the sociological enterprise as here conceived, including excesses in both qualitative and quantitative work, segregationist and separatist tendencies, false and misleading dichotomies and an "enemies" mentality. Its overall vision is that of a field characterized by freshness, intellectual excellence, artistry, social relevance, comaraderie, compassion and joyfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay centers on an encounter with an idea, one that has become central to teaching-and activism-around food and agriculture-explored through an ongoing conversation. Neither of us presunied to have a full understanding of the history and uses of the term "food systems." However, to understand its potential in teaching about food and agriculture, we considered how and when each of us-sociologists by training, but interdisciplinary by necessity-encountered and began using the term. According to Hewitt and Stokes (1975; see also Stokes and Hewitt 1976), a disclaimer is a way of protecting oneself in advance from negative comments or potentially stigmatizing identities. While neither of us disclaims our identity as sociologists whose projects span disciplinary boundaries, neither do we represent ourselves as having definitive knowledge about food systems. We therefore look forward to having others contest and embellish the definitions, theories and categorizations we discussed at conferences, over e-mail, and on a rainy morning in Ithaca. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to the essay "Race and Reflexivity" by Mustafa Emirbayer and Matthew Desmond in the same issue, which claims that the discipline of sociology should be more reflexive and self-critical. Topics include the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the relation of race to group identity, and social implications of racial identity. It is said that racial minorities face oppression despite the ostensibly colour-blind approach taken by democratic governments, oppression which clarifies racial identity.

The intent of this article is to accentuate the key characteristics and features of the time and space that we live in, with emphasis on weak signals and areas which, based on my experience and thoughts, need to be addressed in order to allow a more balanced and sustainable development for companies, organizations and societies. Consequently, this will lead to a better and more comprehensive understanding of the challenges that we are facing today and make us better equipped to meet the future. The article expresses the model of sustainable development as one possible scenario that could effect change in accordance with the laws of evolution and long-term change. Particularly exposed in this context are the role of humans within the Earth's ecosystem, and the understanding of the interconnected relationship between ourselves, the environment and matters of the past and future. In addition, the article proposes discussion around the challenges and opportunities of an analytical (vertical) approach in comparison with a more comprehensive and holistic approach to the development and growth of our ecosystem. I argue that there is an opportunity for a new paradigm to place co-creation and coexistence at the core of the philosophy of societal and corporate development, which is currently based primarily on cooperation. The argument is extended to the need for a new type of leadership, one that will elevate the role of managers and leaders to new dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the social problems of families which are involved in the areas of sociology. It says that family is an object of study in various areas of science including philosophy, sociology and political science in which V. A. Borisov and V. M. Medkov have noted that family is the science of sociology that deals with the general character of family. It states that the social and demographic types of families determine the social conditions of vulnerable families which are below the poverty line. Moreover, a marginal family is described by extreme poverty, disease and alcoholism which make the family ineffective in performing basic functions. It cites that family problems affect individuals because the stability of a family is directly connected to the society and the state.

The article presents a sociological interpretation of social problems as "social diseases," afflictions of the social body analogous to diseases of the human body. Problems with quantifying the normal or abnormal functioning of a social system are discussed, as are the importance of social norms as guidelines of a healthy society, and the declining strength of social norms in Russia. Social disease as a byproduct of Russia's transition from the Soviet to the post-Communist era, with reference to institutions such as banks, courts, schools, and others.

The article discusses the influence of 19th century German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies on Western European positivism. The articles describes how Tönnies reinterpreted the sociological tradition of philosophers such as August Comte, Herbert Spencer, and John Stuart Mill, consequentially producing an original creative synthesis in the field of positivism and sociology. Subjects under discussion include the concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, the economic aspects of Tönnies' philosophy, and the disciplines of rationalism and historicism.

The article discusses the methodological and philosophical developments in the field of sociology that resulted from the discipline's study of suicide or self-destruction. The article describes the rise of Rationalism, empiricism, and positivism in relation to the sociological study of the rise of suicide in the modern world, exploring how the irrationality of suicide affected sociologists who believed in the progressive and positivist power of the social sciences. Subjects under discussion include the sociologist Emile Durkheim, the physician Henry Morselli and his book "Suicide: An Essay on Comparative Moral Statistics," and the concept of anomie.

Mental health in the workplace introduces a basic viewpoint to better understand the actual dynamic relationship between the individual and work in highly productive organisations. It is particularly visible in a hypermodern society, that is, a society where performance and productivity count on the workers' free involvement and creativity. Concepts of mental health, social norms, normality and pathology, work and organisation are first defined. The main argument is then developed around the different dimensions describing the neoproductivist trend in many societies, in the occidental world but also in many others countries, like Japan, to name one. This neoproductivist ideology, based on neoliberal economy and the neo-Taylorist social approach of work organisation, produces for many workers a syndrome called 'hyperactivity' at work. There is a specific combination of great demands on the workers' performance and involvement in the organisation on one end, and a great appeal to excellence and self-development on the other end. Studies in different organisations, unions, highly-technological enterprises, a television station and universities indicate that this syndrome of hyperactivity comes to be the norm, the reference, for the majority. Performance union leaders, leading scientists, television performers, highly-skilled technicians are some examples of people who become models of working behaviour in the workplace. This new ideology has consequences in all spheres of society and calls for a critical appraisal and research: clinical sociology can be a proper tool to address this challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can clinical sociology be considered from an epistemological point of view, since it deals with social problems not in their overall dimension, but seen as specific situations where concrete people are suffering? This paper is concerned with a two-fold epistemological difficulty: from the one side, studying such problems could involve a therapeutic intervention that exceeds a purely scientific approach; then, has a clinical sociologist to deal with a social therapy? And how far does that (not) involve any political involvement? From the other side, under which conditions could he (she) generalize information coming from his (her) experience as to contribute to social theory (according to Merton's suggestions about theory and research)? An effective contribution to answer such questions can come from the concept of 'cultural pattern', as pointed out in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to discuss some of the leading features of Erving Goffman's action theory as an alternative to the 'orthodox' paradigms of sociology, viewed as a structuralist and functionalist science that defines social constructs by their shared rules and values, and as a drifting of action, in the sense of intention, toward an individualistic version. The author examines Goffman's shift of the focus of attention from the boundaries of a social sense of action to the social dialectic of 'defining a situation' (W. Thomas) as conducted by the social actors in a renewal of Simmel's 'empowering covenants' (wechselwirkung) in the multiple casual social connections that make up the 'social buzz' in a society. The author moreover discusses Goffman's action as a kind of playacting regulating cognitive and expressive face-to-face 'traffic' between the social actors. This relational dynamic creates an interactive play based on encounters - in which one's opening to another is fraught with risks of deception - regulated by trust as a central resource for social interactions. Trust, in its interpersonal and systemic variants, constitutes a universal social datum and an elementary precondition for social exchanges and the cooperation between individuals. Trust, thus, functions as comparer between reciprocal expectations and a regulator of freedom tending to the stability of the social system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates Ulrich Beck's cosmopolitan global politics. I argue that areas where Beck sees bases for communal and cosmopolitan politics are structured by power, inequality and conflict. Beck has a conflict perspective on local responses to globalization but this is not carried through to his global politics. There are issues that need to be tackled at a global level but I argue that this will have to be done on the basis of conflicting interests, power and nation-states as much as through global cosmopolitanism and co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Boudon’s distinction between primary and secondary effects, and its associated rational action models of inequality of educational opportunity, have been more influential in the field of social stratification and mobility than in the sociology of education, there is good reason to reconsider the theoretical and practical implications of this approach. The investigation brings conceptual analysis and empirical research to bear on Boudon’s arguments in a manner that may be somewhat unorthodox. The theoretical arguments are developed in the context of a detailed empirical investigation of three transitions—age 10 to O‐level, O‐level to A‐level, and A‐level to degree—using the extensive 1970 British Cohort Study. It is concluded that primary and secondary effects should be recognised as methodological rather than theoretical concepts, that the techniques used to identify them are independent of rational action theory and that, contrary to an influential position, the evidence suggests that primary effects are more important than secondary effects in the generation of social disparities in access to education [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body has been neglected and devalued in Western philosophy. This neglect and devaluation of the body is rooted in dualistic reasoning that has its origin in Greek philosophical thought, and reinforced by philosophers of science during the scientific revolution of 17th century Europe. Dualistic reasoning is in pan the cause of current global environmental crises. Moreover, it underpins different approaches to environmental education. In this article I explore the nexus of embodiment and social praxis generally and more specifically in relation to the construct of race. Difference (including race difference) has been given scant attention in environmental education literature in South Africa and I attempt in this article to give it some attention so as to move it into the spaces of our dialogues and conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Janice Haaken's ambitious and wide-ranging interdisciplinary work synthesizes a large and diverse array of profoundly complex subjects. By focusing primarily on her psychotherapy work, I demonstrate close kinship between her therapeutic attitudes, beliefs, and values and my own. My beliefs and values are psychoanalytic, and I find that similar or compatible ones motivate Haaken's feminist, social activist, and radical academic sensibilities. Thus, underlying common attitudes, beliefS, and values between these seemingly diverse areas and psychoanalysis contribute significantly to the authority, unity, and integrative power in Haaken's interdisciplinary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a theoretical reconceptualization of escalation behavior as an instance of persistence, or the basic tendency to bring goal-directed behaviors to completion. Most past efforts to explain escalation (e.g., self-justification theory and prospect theory) have tended to underscore the sequela of sunk costs and emphasize issues of emotional or cognitive bias. Lewinian and Atkinsonian theories of motivation, as well as contemporary theories, are employed as the basis for an alternative, persistence paradigm, emphasizing the continuity of inertial elements central to all forms of human motivation. This paradigm is used to derive key theoretical constructs such as proximal closure, clarity of completion, goal valence, or intrinsic interests active in escalation. Particular attention is drawn to the empirical viability of the paradigm, its utility in integrating past research and theory, and its potential contribution in framing new research and generating practical means of intervention or control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores one component of Basil Bernstein's complex theoretical framework dealing with the conversion or translation of knowledge into pedagogic communication. The pedagogic device is described by Bernstein as the ensemble of rules or procedures via which knowledge is converted into classroom talk, curricula and online communication. It is argued that Bernstein's theory of the pedagogic device provides researchers with explicit criteria/rules to describe the macro and micro structuring of knowledge, and in particular the generative relations of power and control constituting knowledge. The paper elaborates on the components of the pedagogic device and provides examples of empirical studies utilising this theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument of the essay has two main parts. First, it reflects on the presumed conflict between action theories and systems theories in sociology. Looking at authors such as James Coleman, Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, the essay tries to show that there is a natural complementarity of action and systems theories, and therefore the presumed disjunction of 'action' and 'system' is not based on the empirical reality of theory-building ventures. But then another line of conflict becomes visible. Since the information theories of the late 1940s, 'communication theory' has become a viable and universalistic option in social theory, one that indeed conflicts with action theory. In its second part, the essay first gives a brief sketch of the conceptual career of communication theory since Shannon and Weaver. It then presents the sociological theory of Niklas Luhmann as the first major sociological theory that opts for communication as the constitutive element of society and other social systems. Causes and reasons for this theoretical decision are reconstructed, first in terms of problems internal to Niklas Luhmann's social theory (the distinction of psychic and social systems; the distinction of action and experience; formal properties of the concept of communication; the implications of autopoiesis) and secondly in terms of processes of societal change (the rise of the information society; the genesis of world society), which favour the switch towards a communication-based (instead of action-based) systems theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article it is argued that the search for 'social mechanisms' is of crucial importance for the development of sociological theory. With this concept -- which is occasionally used in the sociological literature but has received little systematic attention -- attention is called to an intermediary level of analysis in-between pure description and storytelling, on the one hand, and universal social laws, on the other. While the search for universal laws and grand theory has a great deal of appeal, we do not believe that this type of theorizing is likely to foster the development of a useful body of explanatory theory. Drawing on the heritage of Robert Morton and James Coleman, it is argued that the essential aim of sociological theorizing should be to develop fine-grained middle-range theories that clearly explicate the social mechanisms that produce observed relationships between explanans and explanandum. We provide a tentative typology of social mechanisms, and we illustrate our argument by showing that three well-known theories in sociology -- the self-fulfilling prophecy (Robert Merton), network diffusion (James Coleman), and threshold-based behavior (Mark Granovetter) -- all are founded upon the same social mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the meaning of sociology. The meaning of sociology is dissatisfaction with the status quo, with the hope of its radical transformation. The destiny of reason is thus central to sociological research, it is its basic concern. Once tradition goes into crisis as a source of formal, basic legitimacy, sociologists start to look for the bases of the new morality. The primal misunderstanding of sociology is to be found in the postulate that rationality coincides with preciseness, the mathematizing raison of the Enlightenment. The whole methodological, basic effort of postsystemic sociology, was to try to get away from that misunderstanding. It is true in the first place for Max Weber. He was linked to the great tradition of German historicism, and central to the Methodenstreit, which painfully seeks a mediation between nature and history, an existential, biographical experience, unique and unrepeatable, and a scientific law, an explanatory causal or conditional scheme, capable of explaining phenomena and predicting their development by means of their relatively uniform aspects.

The article focuses on the views of sociologist Max Weber on conceptual system. For Weber, a conceptual system is simply an attempt to bring order into the chaos of those facts which sociologist have drawn into the field circumscribed by their interest. Its objectivity, and hence its operative autonomy, are linked with its acknowledged subjectivity. The progress of the social sciences, or sciences of culture, is dependent on the conscious taking on of particular points of view on the part of the social investigator, and his specific requests, his concrete concerns determined in relation to a reality which left to itself is amorphous and chaotic. The basic assumption of sociological analysis and the sciences of culture is not that we possess a particular culture endowed with value but rather that we are cultural beings, capable of assuming a position opposite the world, and giving sense to it. Independent of the content of this position taking, the scientific interest of phenomena rests on the cultural meaning they hold for us. Weber says that a specific practical rule, an objective established a priori, may certainly be the presupposition of discussion and enquiry, and thus only discussion of the means for carrying it out would be required.

The article focuses on the conceptual instrument used by sociologist Max Weber to permit sociology to grasp the unique, characterizing element of social action in the framework of the structures that condition it institutionally and historically. The instrument is the "ideal types." The theory of ideal types is the supreme moment in Weber's methodological thought, the instrument used in his famous studies. For Weber, the conceptual apparatus of sociology must be capable of grasping the typical or homogeneous element in historical phenomena in order to deal with them scientifically that is, to provide an explanation or causal imputation. It is necessary to specify the sense in which the ideal-typical concept, by way of which one obtains a synthesis of objective and subjective, general and individual, passing through the plane of the typical, is really ideal. "Ideal types," however, aim at showing only what is on the empirical level, not what should be. The "ideal type" is a heuristic means for the purpose of investigating a certain type of phenomenon and is oriented in a particular direction, it is valid until the need arises to elaborate a better one, that is, one that better corresponds to the needs of the researcher.

The article compare the philosophy of sociology in relation to nature, biography and history. Sociologist Max Weber was the first to grasp that social facts are not things, that they are unitary realities, both very real and ambiguous. They are mixed realities in flux, more actions in progress than congealed and completed facts, in which contradictory, standardized and unique, quantitative and qualitative aspects are manifested as mixed together and confused. Weber states that sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences. The object of understanding sociology is an action endowed with a subjectively referred meaning. This action is none other than the action of individual persons. Social science is distinguished from natural science in that its subject matter is not nature but society, not the objective but the subjective, not the mechanically standnrdizable but the nonrepeatable, not an immobile, fixed structure but the behavioral variable, action, not the unrelated but the related and the relationship.

The article focuses on the philosophy of sociologist Max Weber. For Weber, a methodology was like a pair of shoes, if it Isn't good for walking, it should be thrown out. The object and the method of investigation are inseparable. His focus is always on social essence. There is no dichotomy between analytical concepts and basic theory. Weber's methodology, that is, his reflections on his own work and his efforts to clarify conceptually precise, individual problems, has been built up into a system via a process of abstraction and formalization that severed its direct link with Weber's concrete, specific research. Weber's work appeared for the most part in the form of essays and articles collected later, generally after his death, in volumes whose content is arranged according to a logical order it could not originally have had. The enormous range of his scientific interests, and his remarkable erudition, make him a forerunner of the interdisciplinary approach. Weber is not a man of politics, or if regarded as a man of politics he must be recognized as a man of politics manque, and necessarily so.

The article focuses on the works of sociologist Max Weber. It evaluates Weber as an emblematic figure, even as a personalized, polemical intention, but within a group of problems that go beyond the facts of his biography and axe in fact more alive for us than for him. Only on the basis of these general methodological assumptions is it possible to understand how useless it is to pose the problem of human consciousness, and the possibility of transforming it. Explicitly beginning with the interpretation of Weber, professor Carlo Thllio Altan has put before students of the social sciences a number of intelligent observations. They concern the problem of otherness, and what he calls the universals of the human condition. The connection between the macrosociological level of analysis and microsociological, empirical elaboration is not the only basic methodological problem of sociology today. It involves, also, a group of operative possibilities, which, logically, may tend toward the total liberation of man by way of projects directed through social initiative, which can involve him at the level of his immediate experience and connect him with his neighbor with the tension of middle-range utopias in which news and history merge and the impulse to a new relational dialectic is born.

The article focuses on the attitude of sociologist Max Weber towards social philosopher Karl Marx. Understanding this attitude is important in assessing the meaning of Weber's work. Weber sees Marxism as a practical example of ideal-type construction and of confusion between the spheres of being and should be. Weber's position is intended to be more comprehensive than, and not symmetrical with, the Marxist one. Weber takes a position opposite the historical materialism when he rejects the Marxist assumption of a determined direction of conditioning, one that runs from structure to superstructure and has the character of a general interpretation of history. Weber is not opposed to seeking an explanation of history in economic terms. What he rejects is the absolutizing petrifaction of this explicative criterion, its solidification into a dogma. Weber's criticism is not purely negative. Historical materialism is rejected as a general conception of history, but it is valued as indicating a specific direction for research. Marxist orthodoxy is no longer defined in a systematic theory, but rather by the rigorous acceptance of, and faithfulness to, the dialectical method. Historical facts are not to be studied and explained in their empirical, specific form, as isolated entities.

Social work has long sought a conceptual framework to describe its most basic approach to service delivery: generalist social work practice. A milestone in that process was the series of Milford conferences in the 1920s during which the elements of "generic casework" were first identified. This article presents a model that advances and clarifies the concepts of generalist social work as viewed at the beginning of the 1990s. Generalist social work at both the initial and advanced levels involves a way of viewing practice. It is a perspective that focuses on the interface between systems, on a client- centered and problem-focused philosophy, and on an openness to multiple theories and approaches for improving people's well-being. Practice at the initial level requires a set of competencies necessary to provide services consistent with the understanding derived from the perspective Advanced generalist social work represents increased complexity in the learning process and greater breadth and depth of exploration in a generalist perspective rather than a uniquely different perspective from the generalist approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the concept of the neolithic hegemony by presenting six sociocultural elements. `Mythos' and `logos' orientations; Metaphysical underpinnings; Conceptions of spirituality; Ecological relationships; Social organizations; Sociocultural self-images.

Comments on responses to the author's article `Control as Sociology's Central Notion.' Central notion required in maximum coherence; View of control as sociology's central notion; Alternatives to control as central notion in sociology.

Since the 1970s there has been considerable debate among sociologists of education about the macro--micro gap in educational analyses. However, educational research remains divided largely into the study of large-scale phenomena such as social systems and national policies on the one hand, and case-studies of individual schools and social interaction on the other This split has had a number of unfortunate consequences for the development of the field Most importantly, the dominant conceptions of structure and agency employed in the sociology of education are characterised by a dualism which makes it difficult to conceptualise adequately the processes revolved in social change. In this paper, I briefly describe this structure-agency dualism before critically examining three attempts which have been made to address this problem The ability of structuration theory to overcome this dualism is then examined, and I conclude by arguing that this approach offers an important new direction for the sociology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses theories that bring the methods of linguistics to micro-sociological studies of speech behavior. It is a curious fact that both the right and the left tend to perceive differences between middle class and lower class speech in terms of the linguistic inadequacy of the latter. Basil Bernstein's concern is not language as such, but social structure and social interaction in its symbolic realizations through forms of speech. By relating different speech variants to different forms of social orders, Bernstein creates a framework for analyzing the speech of persons acting in different forms of social relations. The theory of linguistic deprivation is also criticized in studies by William Labov. Despite differences in the phonological, grammatical and lexical aspects of lower class language, argues Labov, there is no indication of a logical or semantic difference between it and standard English or in Berstein's terms between a restricted and an elaborated code. In short, restricted language limits interest in general relationships that transcend the immediate situation, thereby making discursive thinking difficult. The abstract property of social relations is a basic principle of the construction of social reality, a daily accomplishment by all members out of their intersubjective existence.

The concept of action is combined with a preference-outcome model of 'power' in order to elucidate the conception of one actor getting another to do (or forbear to do) something the second would not otherwise do. The paper thus builds upon the Weberian concept of Power and attempts to elucidate this concept within the framework of the modern analytical philosophy of action (Danto). The practical syllogism (Von Wright) is invoked as a basic way of explaining actions and forbearances. The concept of 'power' is distinguished from the concept of 'influence' (Parsons) and the distinction is used to point to some basic problems in social control [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]