Search

Utilization-focused evaluation is widely recognized as one of the most influential approaches in the evaluation profession. What is not widely recognized is that the approach is fundamentally applied sociology. Six particular sociological specializations have influenced my evaluation perspective and practice: applied sociology, sociology of knowledge, diffusion of innovations, sociological perspectives on power and conflict, organizational sociology, and qualitative methods. International and comparative sociology has also been important in my evaluation career and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I focus on the Hungarian intellectual and politician Paul Szende's sociologically oriented epistemology. I trace the influences of physiology, psychology, economy, evolutionary theory of his day on his sociological theory of abstractive knowledge, and discuss the close connection between physiological, social, and economic aspects in the early sociology of knowledge. My discussion continues with an examination of Szende's differentiation between two economic effects within social epistemology: on the one hand the 'economy of thought' in the tradition of Ernst Mach, with its physiological, organic, and integrative functioning of knowledge; on the other hand, the socio-economic effects of social selection, exclusion, and societal antagonism. Besides the Marxist and more specifically the Austro-Marxist environment of Szende's writings, I trace the influence of the economic theory of Italian economist Achille Loria on Szende's understanding of the antagonistic nature of the transformation of knowledge. The paper is set at the intersection of philosophy of science and history of science. It relates epistemological issues to historical, social, and scientific developments in Szende's day and thus combines a philosophical analysis of Szende's sociological theory of knowledge with historical research into the natural, social, and economic sciences of his time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an irreversible fact that the Eurocentric logos has imploded on its own sources of political and economic development. The danger of this crisis is total because it includes its hegemony as well as humanity and nature. What alternatives do we haveto overcome this end of a millennium and its catastrophe? It is evident that we are experiencing the "latter days" or the "turn of a century philosophy" of modernity that appears, on the other hand, able to be surpassed by the viewpoint of another historical-cultural episteme that recognizes the eco-systemic relationship of man together with the existential diversity of the living beings that populate this planet. This other epistemology has its genesis in Critical Theory and it is recreated in Latin America from the South, one assumes from the praxis of an emancipating logos that fractures the hegemonic limits of "endless capitalism" and "endless colonialism," since it makes it possible, from the "sociology of emergences," to recover the presence of thousand-year-old peoples that have achieved recreation of their habitat through a direct symbiotic relationshipwith the cycles or generating processes of Mother Earth (Pachamama). The ancestral wisdom carried in the thought of these original peoples, expressed by their traditions, rites, magic, even their anthropomorphic representations of reality, are symptoms that the twilight of civilization does not extinguish itselfin the West, but is reborn from the South with the "SumakKawsay." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's reflections on the research proposal of American sociologist Michael Burawoy to develop what he referred to as public sociology. The author discusses the scientific discipline of sociology, considers the construction of its objects of study and reflects on the discipline's social uses. She cites the opinion of sociologists including Robert Castel, Pierre Bourdieu and Phillipe Corcuff concerning the nature of sociological knowledge and its methodological possibilities.

Emile Durkheim first outlined the problem of the categories for sociologists after Kant: how do we acknowledge the socially constituted nature of all knowledge and yet still make claims about social reality? In Durkheim’s late work he identifies two opposite responses to this problem: empiricism, which denies the problem; and idealism (or constructionism), which finds it difficult to talk about anything beyond our conceptions of social conceptions. In this article we argue that the sociological work of Dorothy E. Smith provides a better solution to this problem than Durkheim does. Her work provides a useful map for studying social ‘actuality’ without succumbing either to relativism or to naïve realism, all the while maintaining the possibility of telling the truth about the actual social world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A translation is presented of the article "Les savoirs ajourd'hui: défis et enjeux" by Gerard Berthoud, published in the book "Des sociologues et la philosophie" edited by Michel Bassand and Lalive D'Epinay. The author discusses and critiques the epistemological and cognitive assumptions behind the concepts of information society and learning society. He discusses the tension between analytical (scientific) and reflexive views of knowledge and considers the influence of cognitive sciences on the conceptualization of the social sciences.

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 article discusses researches on Africa and the conflict of different ideologies in this connection. The observations of Africans and their destinies are analyzed. African societies as ethnographic ones stand to be understood as fragile and vulnerable to disappearance. The races or the concept of savages needs to be considered altogether again. Ethnography is seen as a science but the scholars are looked at with ambiguity. A sociologist's work becomes as important in the cultural concept for objectivism.

The article discusses various rationalities within the framework of modernism and post-modernism. Rationality stands for being good, this could be the reason for it being called western-rationality by the post-modernists. Modern is a term for traditional, ancient or classical but in a revolutionary manner. All human activities and their characteristics can be considered in the light of modern philosophy. Different cultures, knowledge, human rights all constitute a part of "rationalities" and "rationality."

The article discusses sociologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Anglo-American Sociology and social theory. It discusses the phenomenological and interactionist camps as well. Phenomenology is also seen as a part of the school of subjectivism. The significance of the point of reflective thought, ordinarily prioritized in philosophy, is displaced by practical competence. Various views are discussed where it is seen that social relationships are often relations mediated by things, that is, property. His views on Karl Marx philosophy and Marxist critique are mentioned in the article.

In 1998 Ann Oakley published an article in Sociology entitled 'Gender, Methodology and People's Ways of Knowing. Some Problems with Feminism and the Paradigm Debate in Social Science'. Within this piece she suggests that the main methodological concern of feminist sociologists is whether qualitative or quantitative methods are the best way to find out about people's lives. My reading of the feminist literature leads me to disagree and to suggest that the relationship between the process and product, between doing and knowing i.e. how what we do affects what we get, while using both qualitative and quantitative methods, is the main concern of contemporary feminists. In this piece I present my own review of the feminist literature in order to demonstrate the centrality of the process and product/doing and knowing debate. I draw on a range of work, including other work of Oakley, and I also refer to my own experiences of research and show how issues of process and product/doing and knowing are relevant for me. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on social constructionism as a conception of knowledge. Errors in treating social constructionism as preached in the academy as a philosophy; Institutional nature of social constructionism; Rhetorical patterns of constructionist statements; Key to social constructionist arguments; Advantages of social constructionism.

The feasibility, relevance and value of modem sociology is in question in a number of analyses which have identified possible limits to the project of modernity. Through a discussion of the works of a number of theorists, consideration is given to (i) the effect of transformations of modernity upon sociology and (ii) the question of postmodernity and sociology. Although a preoccupation with the state of the discipline is longstanding, the current debate over modernity and postmodernity raises a number of fundamental issues for sociological investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the series of reflections "Against Epistemology: A Metacritique," written by Theodore W. Adorno, in which he employs sociologist E. Husserl's work as a model in his anticipation of the movement announcing the end of epistemology. Adorno is correct in pointing to the paradoxical character of Husserl's conception of philosophy. The reification of logic and philosophy takes place because it is an abstraction from the very facticity whose essential structures it is meant to clarify and thereby effectively separates the content of science from its essential structures. Moreover, Adorno has, as a result of his reflections, raised a serious question, about the doctrine of essences. According to the author, the givenness and acceptance of the world as social and thus shareable does not make the world public and meaningful because one believes or accepts it as so, rather the belief and acceptance of the "We" allows one to find the world already meaningful and social.

This article focuses on the sociological philosophy. The author suggests that sociological theories provide some powerful arguments within the core of philosophy itself. There are possibilities not only for sociological philosophy and for philosophy of sociology, but also for sociology of philosophy. The last is not a form of philosophy at all, but is simply another area of empirical sociology. Sociology has much to say on a number of issues, such as the mind/body relation, and on the ontological questions of realism and anti-realism, materialism and idealism. Having been invoked at first in epistemology, sociology now seems to point even deeper into philosophy's core, into metaphysics. To conclude, sociology should prove to be relevant to a host of issues within the traditional purview of philosophy. Sociology has implications right across the board in philosophy, even in its stronghold of metaphysics: space and time, existence and non-existence, the ideal and the immediacy of lived experience are all parts of our current sociological controversies.

This article discusses on the issue of departing from the usual beliefs or established doctrines in the field of social science. Social science must break with the preconstructions of common sense. One of the major obstacles to progress in the social sciences no doubt resides in the formidable gap between strict compliance with the rules of proper scientific conduct, as they are defined by the methodological ways taught in universities, and true scientific virtues. Studies that simply confirm the constructions of common sense and ordinary discourse by franscribing everyday assumptions into scientific definitions have every chance of being approved by the scholarly community, and its audiences, especially if they comply strictly with the more superficial rules of scientific discipline. Whereas research that breaks with the false obviousness and the apparent neutrality of the constructions of common sense, including scholarly common sense, is always in danger of appearing to be the result of an act of arbitrary imposition, if not of ideological bias, and of being denounced as deliberately producing the data fit to validate them.

The main goal of this paper is to examine the intellectual and biographical reasons why the theorists of the Frankfurt school did not embrace pragmatism, This goal is pursued in four areas: (1) the epistemological area of the debate about subjective and objective "reason"--here the misleading, character of Horkheimer's and Marcuse's writings on pragmatism is demonstrated; (2) the area of political theory--here the tension between the American democratic tradition and a quasi-Marxist functionalism is exposed; (3) the area of social psychology-here the inability of the Frankfurt school to incorporate symbolic interactionism becomes evident; (4) the elitist relationship to American mass culture. The paper ends with brief remarks on Habermas ambivalent position between pragmatism and "Critical Theory" and with a perspective of transcending this ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical discussions have served to bridge the gap separating systems- and action-theoretical approaches; however, the question of their basic compatibility has rarely been raised. This paper takes up two efforts at linking systems and action theory: those of neofunctionalists and those of Jürgen Habermas. Neofunctionalists start from the inadequacies of systems functionalism and seek to open it to the theory of action. Habermas, on the other hand, seeks to overcome the limits of the theory of action by widening its scope in systems-theoretical terms. Successful synthesis eludes both efforts: either the status of voluntaristic aspect is so enhanced that the systemic whole and its functional imperatives practically vanish, or too much emphasis is placed on the systemic aspect, reducing actors to the mere executing agents of systemic needs. The combination of theories of structure and action provides a way out of this dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on an essay which argued that the project of scientific sociology has failed and that people should consider the nonscientific theory as an alternative. In the scientific views of science, which would include positivism as well as specialism, questions of central human reality are not considered scientific. Such a view is shared by Hans-Georg Gadamer, for whom science is purely a technical activity, and for whom a nonscientific doctrine of interpretation or hermeneutic is therefore necessary to get at the inner central human reality. If one accepts these general outlooks on science, then the call for nonscientific theory is consistent. The broadening of sociology to return to questions of central human import also needs to reconceive science while rejecting scientism. Calling for nonscientific theory informed by questions of central human import can open the door to dogmatic fanatics, bigots, and charlatans. If science is reconceived as a living and fallible human activity involving the acritical projection of hypotheses, which become the subject of critical interpretation in the forum of public inquiry or debate, then it seems possible to avoid the potential pitfalls of reified scientism and nonscientific arbitrariness.

This article focuses on the marginalization of social theory. Theory's constituency is theory specialists themselves. Because the wider discipline ignores the classics by ignoring modern theory specialists, it runs the great risk of losing its own wider audience, who are those beyond the discipline of sociology. By marginalizing social theory, sociology marginalizes itself. The nonscientific theory is a theory that works resiliently at cross-purposes with the central thrust of the discipline. The problem that theorists face is quite different, and yet, ironically, it is the same problem the classic theorists faced in their own day, before they were cast into the role of classics by postwar theory specialists. The classics were once central to all of the social sciences because they indeed offered concepts-for-use. They claimed to capture and characterize the very direction of social change. The problem theorists face is that the classics' characterizations of directionality are no longer particularly helpful to researchers. Contemporary theory specialists, in devoting themselves to exegeses of the classics, have failed to provide credible, alternative characterizations of directionality.

This article presents a comment on the criticism by Alan Sica of the sociological enterprise. The reputation of Sica as a perceptive and acerbic critic of the enterprise is not only predicted on his solid grounding in the history of the discipline and on his theoretical acumen, it is also because of his wit, at times sarcastic, at times ironic, which he tends to use like a rapier. Sica lacks appreciation of the ambiguities and the complexities that characterize not only the relationship between theory and research but the central questions related to the appropriate uses of sociological inquiry. His critique might have been more compelling if it had infused with a degree of intellectual civility. The valid concerns that Sica raises are undermined by another stylistic problem. Sica's main concern is not difficult to distill. He wants to explore the shifting character of the theory/research/practice nexus. Similarly, his main contention is rather explicitly posed. Sica uses a troubling fragmentation in the discipline, resulting to it being no longer clear with regard to its constituency for social theory. One could argue that part of the problem rests with theorists who are content to speak only to other theorists.

A literary criticism of the book ''El Mensaje de Belmez'' by Manuel Martín Serrano is presented. An overview of the book is given. It examines the definition of the modern miracle from a sociological perspective. It questions the implications of Serrano's work, asking if it is a confrontation between the earth and an extraterrestrial element, as well as between physical-chemical and metaphysical elements. The authors conclude that its message is related to the social function of the miracle.

There are reason to endorse Krueger & Funder's (K&F's) critique, but also to disagree with their diagnosis. A "problem-seeking approach" is hardly the cause of imbalance and lack of theoretical integration. Precommitted, ideological theories afford a more appropriate explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]