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The central thesis of this paper is that human unconscious processes influence the behavior and design of artificial intelligence (AI). This thesis is discussed through the case study of a chatbot called Replika, which intends to provide psychological assistance and friendship but has been accused of inciting murder and suicide. Replika originated from a trauma and a work of mourning lived by its creator. The traces of these unconscious dynamics can be detected in the design of the app and the narratives about it. Therefore, a process of de-psychologization and de-humanization of the unconscious takes place through AI. This psychosocial approach helps criticize and overcome the so-called "standard model of intelligence" shared by most AI researchers. It facilitates a new interpretation of some classic problems in AI, such as control and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has two aims: firstly, it provides a holistic account of Zygmunt Bauman's oeuvre, and secondly, it presents an extensive up-to-date and multilingual bibliography of his published writings. The authors discuss Bauman's prolificacy, as well as the stylistic, formal and substantive heterogeneity of his work. Taking this into account, they reflect on the curious reception of his oeuvre in the wider disciplinary field of sociology. The bibliography attached to the paper provides the most complete account of Bauman's writings. Building on previous bibliographies, and drawing on archival research in the Janina and Zygmunt Bauman Papers at the University of Leeds, the bibliography spans 63 years from his first publication to his most recent. Many of these papers – both in English and Polish – are presented for the first time in the list of his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with a rise of populism seemingly in all corners of the globe, the need to facilitate meaningful communication between different world-views and to resist the closing down of dialogue is pressing. In this paper, I argue that Zygmunt Bauman's sociological method has always been concerned with this problem and that a better appreciation of his writings on hermeneutics provides us with a vital strategy for resisting fundamentalist thinking in today's dark times. To begin, I briefly explore the relationship between hermeneutics and fundamentalism before moving on to elaborate Bauman's method of sociological hermeneutics. In the final section of the paper, I assess the implications that Bauman's method has for the discipline of sociology at a time when the certainty of things is the most avid of dreams dreamed by people harassed and oppressed by the uncertainty of liquid modern life, apparently whatever the human consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a study of the International Space Station (ISS), this paper argues that – as a set of orientations for sociological inquiry – pragmatism and hermeneutics are confluent frameworks to examine valuation as a social process. This confluence is grounded on their common attunement to valuing as a problematic and relational process, their equally common updates with theories of institutions, and a further conceptual development regarding the temporalities of valuation. I advance the argument in four steps. First, looking at how the question about the "scientific value" of the ISS is far from settled, I show how valuation is always about something considered problematic and indeterminate. Second, characterizing the ISS at the intersection of different criteria of assessment, I stress the nature of valuation as a fundamentally perspectival and interpretive process, and show how a hermeneutic approach can complement some of the limitations of pragmatism in this regard. Third, I look at the question of institutions considering how some modes of assessment sediment more successfully than others. Fourth, I argue that, while providing insights towards it, pragmatist and hermeneutic approaches to valuation have not fully grasped its temporal nature as a process, and outline ways to open this line of inquiry. I conclude with some ideas for studies in sociology of science to re-entangle detailed case studies of scientific practice with the study of how institutions make claims of worth about the nature of science, I propose ways to extend these arguments to other studies of what I call iridescent institutions, and I make some considerations about our stance as sociologists in these valuation disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some texts appear more than once across the corpus of Zygmunt Bauman's work. This has led to accusations of self-plagiarism and a lack of scholarly rigour. This paper is an explanation of why texts reappear. It pays attention to a number of frequently overlooked texts from the 1970s which are of fundamental importance for any understanding of Bauman's work. It is contended that if: (a) there is an understanding of the stakes and purpose of sociology as it is framed in Bauman's work; and (b) attention is paid to the argument of Hermeneutics and Social Science; then (c) the repetition of texts across the work becomes explicable and unproblematic. The paper argues that dealings with Bauman's work need to be more aware of the less well-known texts. They also need to be alert to different – and incommensurable – ways of practising sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores key concepts in the writings of Weber in the years preceding the publication of the first edition of Karl Jaspers' Allgemeine Psychopathologie, focusing on the concept of understanding (Verstehen). This is a key hermeneutic concept and is discussed within the larger context of the epistemological and methodological reflections of both authors. They similarly tried to import the understanding within the humanistic disciplines as a rigorous but anti-reductionist scientific method. However, while Weber tried to mix explanation and understanding according to a legal metaphor, Jaspers retained Dilthey's sharper distinction between explanation in natural sciences and understanding in humanistic sciences. Finally, Jaspers' understanding is relatively more empathic, while Weber's understanding is more rationalistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central issue of this paper is the so-called dispute over methods (Methodenstreit), which is based on the essential difference between natural and social phenomena. Methodological problems in sociology are related to the determination of its subject matter, and the history of the science has showed that these problems have represented the main point of disagreement between theoreticians. The debates on the issues of natural and social phenomena and, thus related, manners of their examination, began as early as in the times of ancient philosophy - starting with Aristotle, and continued through the so-called Galilean tradition that would find its peak in the positivist movement and the historistic school as its opposition. The paper draws attention to the theoreticalmethodological positions of both sides in this dispute, the reaffirmation of hermeneutics, as well as the ideological background. Furthermore, certain opinions that formed through the integration of these two methodological approaches are also discussed here. The time of the Methodenstreit is the time when sociology was constituted, thus the concluding remarks emphasize the importance of this dispute for the constitution of sociology as a science, with a particular reflection on the influence of historism on German sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a commentary on Christian Smith's 'The Conceptual Incoherence of 'Culture' in American Cultural Sociology.' This paper accepts Smith's finding of conceptual incoherence at the disciplinary level and argues that it is a symptom of empiricism in American sociology. The paper suggests we employ conceptual analysis as practiced by analytical philosophy and proceeds to show how the use of that methodology can resolve the problem regarding the meaning of culture. In the end, the paper defends a conception of culture along the lines of Archer's (1996) intelligibilia, interpreted as action and its products bearing social reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work which reconstructs Gadamer's hermeneutics for guiding feminist standpoint theory consists of five chapters. Firstly, several possible feminist standpoint theories and their difficulties in addressing how knowledge is situated yet true are clarified. Secondly, it will be examined that Gadamer's proposal for the relevance of the historicity on the reaching to truth. Thirdly, we will discuss Gadamer's notion of fusion of horizons as a way to reach to truth. Fourthly, we will elaborate Wasterling's critique against Gadamer and some arguments that Gadamer's hermeneutics substitutes feminist epistemology for masculine epistemology. Finally, this paper will evaluate Gadamer's proposal for hermeneutics is appropriate for feminist standpoint theory, if so, how it is appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of understanding (Verstehen) in the work of Max Weber. Parts of Weber's writings discussing this issue are here selected and reproduced. It is shown that in his use, the concept of understanding is part of a complex approach that tries to complement the specificities of humanistic disciplines with their exigence of a rigorous scientific approach. Weber conceives understanding as explanatory understanding, i.e the causal interpretation of a third person's action. The model he uses is that of the legal imputation of concrete effects to concrete causes (i.e. motives). According to Weber, understanding is always an hypothetical interpretation that must be confirmed by objective verification. Weber also makes a distinction between direct observational understanding [aktuelles Verstehen] and explanatory understanding [erklarendes Verstehen]. The former directly grasps the subjective meaning of a given act as such, while the latter is understanding of motivations, which consists in placing the act in an intelligible context of meaning. Both can be rational or affectively determined. Moreover, Weber distinguishes between subjective (on the level of meaning) and causal adequacy of the explanation of an action, and both must be present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologist Constantin Schifirneţ is a researcher who constantly draws attention on studies and advanced ideas. Lately, the same thing happened with Tendential Modernity. Reflections about modern evolution of society (Tritonic Publishing House, Bucharest, 2016, 199 p.). Through the proposed perspective, but also by the depth of the research, we consider this paper as a work of reference, especially since the ideas that generated it are the result of long reflections on modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological analysis of Irish sexuality has been notable for its absence. This paper examines the contribution which Foucault's theory, of sexuality as a discourse of truth and apparatus of power makes toward elucidating key issues in the history and contemporary field of Irish sexuality. Although Foucault provides good insights into the constitution of a hermeneutics of the self within different ethical regimes, his analysis of sexuality is inadequate when it comes to explaining how sexuality operates in everyday life and the individual struggle to attain power and position in social life. In this respect, the paper turns to the work of Bourdieu and examines the field of Irish sexuality, in relation to his concepts of habitus, practice and capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the 'trajectory' can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often noted that the health of any system is predicated upon a healthy dose of doubt and intrinsic scepticism. This is a requisite for identifying areas of improvement, blind spots and biases as well as culling out weak and diseased variables that might pose an eventual risk to the overall health of a system. Equally applicable to biological and natural systems as well as humanistic branches of epistemology, cosmology, sociology and other defining features of the human condition, suspicion ensures that the operational integrity and guiding principles of a collective are maintained, optimized and differentiated from other like bodies. This paper endeavours to resuscitate the forgotten historical lineage of doubt that constituted the early genesis of therapeutics in depth psychology and psychotherapy through the following question: 'How can suspicion facilitate self-awareness and existential clarity within the therapeutic alliance?' Answering this question will be done primarily through a case-study that makes the point that suspicion is not something fabricated by psychology after the fact, but rather, that psyche itself is implicitly guided by contrarian ways that draw out the meaning and messages of symptoms, impulses and unconscious imagery leading people to seek therapy in the first place. Doubt, it is argued, is not something to be reductively paved over in counselling, but is the very therapeutic crucible of transcendence and self-awareness necessary for authentic, embodied transformation to unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though some contemporary philosophers have tried to modify the position of pioneer scholars that African Ethics and Religion are inextricably intertwined, the fact still remains that for African Religious ethicists, this position is as true today as it was yesterday. The claim that African Religion derives moral initiatives from nature and its stipulations with the premium idea of a common humanity is a partial truism. The genre of works by anthropologists shows the diversity of various cultures on matters of morality. However, the necessity of maintaining the identity f other cultures no matter the interactions with foreign cultures is not emphasized. In this paper I set out to make a case for the invocation of African ethics/moral values in the evaluation of certain ethically controversial issues. To achieve this, I am employing a qualitative and analytical method of religious study. Insights are drawn from sociology, anthropology, ethics and cultural hermeneutics. I went further to stress the need for cultural sensitivity as against the bane of ethical imperialism. I recommend a respect for individual cultures and by extension their ethical inclinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Bruner’s contributions in the field of narrative. I offer a review of the main ideas developed by Bruner in the second half of the 1980, stressing the innovation of narrative approach in order to reconsider the epistemological and methodological foundations of psychology and other social sciences. Finally I conclude with some reflections on autobiographical narratives in relation to agency and the role of narratives regarding social and academic spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a confluence of unique values and activities, the collective practice of community psychology is difficult to characterize in a simple way. Increasingly, however, professional contexts are laden with pressure to define any practice-from library work to medical interventions-in the orderly, compact language of traditional science. This trend has historically been resisted in the field by those sensing a fundamental lack of fit between the fluid, emergent aspects of community psychological practice and the fixed, precise language of classic science. In response to this “language-practice gap,” some have attempted to adapt the traditional language of science to better fit the field’s practice, while others have explored alternative languages of practice seemingly more indigenous to the messy “swamp” of actual communities. While the former effort leaves some theoretical contradictions intact, the latter tends to discount scientific identity entirely. This paper proposes a potential step forward by resituating questions of disciplinary language and identity within a current philosophical discourse where the nature of social science itself remains sharply contested. This suggests shifting attention away from “should webe a science?” to “what kindof science might we be after all?”; in turn, alternative languages may be re-cast as legitimate contributors to a kind of science more authentic to human communities-even a viable “science in the swamp.” One such language-philosophical hermeneutics-is presented as a particularly valuable supplement to traditional science. Illustrations highlight ways that hermeneutics may advance the formal language of the field towards a closer fit of what actually happens in practice, while preserving and even bolstering the empirical rigor and scientific identity of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines recent work in the sociology of culture devoted to providing endogenous explanations of cultural phenomena. The focus is on works that provide cultural explanations of cultural processes, as opposed to the social structural and "production of culture" explanations otherwise predominant in the literature. I examine three distinct approaches: a "post-hermeneutic" approach devoted not to the question of cultural interpretation but to the issue of subjects' manipulation of culture in the quest for meaning; a semiotic approach focused on the mechanics of symbol systems; and an ecological approach that emphasizes the role of competition and niche density in explaining both cultural stasis and change. The three approaches have in common a general lack of interest in traditional conceptions of meaning (verstehen), choosing in-stead to focus on issues related to the internal structure and dynamics of cultural expression. This marks a new opportunity for synthesis and exploration in a field traditionally devoted to extra-cultural explanation of cultural phenomena. Both endogenous and exogenous explanations are offered for the rise of this newtrend in the sociology of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a historical and biographical perspective, this paper examines the structural elements and cultural signs of contemporary social events and problems in Turkey in order to understand their basic features. Hermeneutics is used in order to understand contemporary Turkey by way of its historical background and prominent biographies. Two basic epic texts were interpreted using Gadamarian hermeneutics with the help of key concepts such as gaza1 and gaza cult. Semiotics is used to examine key concepts as binary opposites. Dialectics is used to understand these concepts as the unity of binary opposites coexisting at the same time and place. It is concluded that the contemporary cultural values and biographies explored are linked to their historical past and Islam seems to be more influential on hybrid identities than on ethnic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes criteria for distinguishing those types of social forms that are susceptible to lawlike explanation from those that are susceptible to interpretive accounts. The main criterion concerns the rankability of choice alternatives. The choice process is modeled as having two subprocesses. The first subprocess is a rational one in which unacceptable decision alternatives are eliminated, reducing the universe of alternatives to the set of interchangeably acceptable options, termed the admissible set. In the second subprocess, an arbitrary choice is made from the admissible set. In rational-choice settings, the admissible set consists of just one element, the optimum. However, this is clearly not the only possibility, as the example of language, with its plurality of interchangeable phonemic options, bears witness. The fundamental concept: At one extreme—the extreme of language—the admissible set is large and the arbitrary-choice subprocess dominates the rational-choice subprocess. At the other extreme—the extreme of rational-choice theory—the admissible set consists of a single element and the rational-choice subprocess dominates the arbitrary-choice subprocess. Social law has its proper home in those territories of human activity where the admissible set is small; social interpretation has its proper home in those regions where the admissible set is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the common sense and common convictions which are meant to put phenomenological sociology into perspective as a critique of scientific sociology. The author argues that a hermeneutical point of view is needed in order to achieve this critique. In the first section of the article, the author establishes the difference between the observer's and scientific theorist's account of what is required for the study of society and the participant's view of what he or she needs to know about society in order to be a responsible member. In the second section of the paper, the author examines commonsense knowledge as the topic of phenomenological sociology. The author also argues that phenomenological sociology doesn't follow through on the claim that members' commonsense knowledge of society is organized with reference to practical interests. In the third section of this article, the author argues that hermeneutics permits a better grasp of the practical point-of-view available to both societal members and to itself as enquiry.