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I argue that empirical studies into the phenomenon of religious conversion suffer from conceptual unclarity owing to an absence of philosophical contributions. I examine the relationship between definition and empirical result in the social sciences, and I show that a wide divergence in conceptual approach threatens to undermine the possibility of useful comparative study. I stake out a distinctive role for philosophical treatments of studies into religious conversion. I conclude with the suggestion that use of the terms 'convert' and 'conversion' may not in fact be conducive to clarity in the present context, and that subsequent studies may improve their precision through replacing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this coda, I consider the oncoming and already-present "crises" (see Giardina & Laurendeau, this issue) which threaten to unsettle the Enlightenment (and its hermeneutic legacies) substrata scholars of sport and the active body rest their work upon. In so doing, I aim to take up a number of the questions posited by the guest editors in their call for papers for this edition. I look back on the research and research acts that have come to hold sway in our field to reflect upon what the contents of this special issue might tell us about the politics of evidence, knowledge, and research action within such a state of metaphysical disorientation. I do so with this question in mind: what if these epistemological and ontological bases--the very axioms of intellectual reason and the pursuit of knowledge--no longer carried (much) value? What if the institutions which house our work no longer privileged the very foundational metaphysics-Enlightenment axioms of inquiry and reason--upon which our endeavors are hoisted? In short, what would sociocultural inquiries of the sporting and active body beyond Enlightenment look like? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Casanueva Baptista, Alonso. Paideia and Pedagogy: Reflections on the Educational Imaginary. One of tasks of philosophy and sociology tasks is to think about education as society's core institution. Using Cornelius Castoriadis' work as a basis, this article looks at education's role in the most important social activities, with a view of education as an imaginary characterized by its creative capacity and its tendency toward more democratic forms of common life. This approach serves to reconsider the connection between educational projects and the culture in which they emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay focuses on some of the main challenges that currently face the sociology of sport, the challenge from the natural sciences, the challenge from mainstream sociology and the challenge which we have set ourselves and which, requires new intellectual innovations of the type discussed in the final sections of this essay. It is vital that the sociology of sport be defended against the tyranny of the natural sciences. This project, however, must not be disaggregated from the requirements to fight for greater acceptance from mainstream sociology and to address our own shortcomings by extending the sociology of sport in potentially exciting ways. In this respect, both memory and space present interesting possibilities. They are highlighted in this essay, from among numerous possible alternatives, for largely personal reasons. The general point, however, is that if we are to defend the sociology of sport successfully, we need to be more creative, both methodologically and theoretically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work seeks to investigate, from the use of the methodological instrument of the Ideal Types (Weber, 1969), a characterization of the so-called Social Design. The study is consolidated from a sociological approach, through the comparison of two products, two designers and two ways of conceiving this type of design. With the purpose of being founded as an emerging concept, the work begins by conceptualizing Social Design - what does it mean, what does it imply -, from the variables and sub-categories that develops the understanding of the conceptual differences that each case supports. The conclusion shows that behind the design promoted from this framework, in one of the cases there is a Predatory Design whose aims are merely speculative and whose effects are antagonistic to the postulates that the other one supports, the social approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is bodily awareness a condition on bodily action? I approach this question by weaving an argument based on considerations from action theory, the phenomenology of embodied agency, and from the psychology and neuroscience of action. In this paper, I discuss two accounts on which bodily awareness is a condition on bodily action. The first is an influential philosophical account from O'Shaughnessy, which claims that bodily awareness is necessary for the online control of bodily action. I argue that there are empirical counterexamples to O'Shaughnessy's account. Instead I propose an account on which the capacity for bodily awareness is a condition on our capacity for ordinary bodily action. This alternative account does justice to the causal and functional character of ordinary bodily action as well as its phenomenology. It is also consistent with the psychology and neuroscience of action. I provide a two‐stage argument for my view. The first stage shows that a sense of the spatial possibilities of one's body is a condition on intentionally acting with one's body. The second stage demonstrates that bodily awareness is a condition on a normal afferented agent's sense of the actions open to him through examining the role of bodily awareness in motor imagery and the role of motor imagery in preparatory processes for everyday actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene debate is one of the most ambitious scientific programmes of the past 15 or 20 years. Its main argument is that, from a geological point of view, humans are considered a major force of nature, thus implying that our current geological epoch is dominated by human activity. The Anthropocene has slowly become a contemporary meta-narrative that seeks to make sense of the ‘earth-system’ as a whole, and one whose vision of the future is dystopian rather than progressive: as the exploitation of the planet’s natural resources reaches tipping point, the very prospects of the continuity of human life are being questioned. This article aims to explore the implicit notions of the human – indeed of the anthropos – that are being mobilized in the Anthropocene debate. It will proceed in two stages: first, the article will spell out the main arguments of the Anthropocene debate with a particular focus on trying to unpack its implicit ideas of the human. Second, it will use my approach to philosophical sociology to highlight some of the limitations and contradictions of the ideas of agency, reflexivity and responsibility that underpin the Anthropocene debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reply by the author to a review by Antony Puddephatt and Neil McLaughlin of the essay "Discipline, field, nexus" by William K. Carroll. Emphasis is given to topics such as transdisciplinarity in sociological practice, the role of critical realism in sociology, and the advancement of knowledge in the social sciences.

The author discusses a research article by Brandon Vaidyanathan and colleagues regarding the use and type of causal claims in sociology. Topics discussed include relationship between sociology and causation, causal language in contemporary American sociology, and discipline of international relations.

In this paper, I show that there are important but hitherto unnoticed similarities between key figures of the Vienna Circle and early defenders of sociology of knowledge. The similarities regard their stance on potential implications of the study of science for political and societal issues. I argue that notably Otto Neurath and Karl Mannheim are concerned with proposing a genuine political philosophy of science that is remarkably different from today's emerging interest in the relation between science and society in philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account sociology's break with the extensive tradition of political philosophy, recognized by both social science and political theory, this article proposes a reconstruction of the difference between science and art, as well as the ways of situating politics in that classification, according to five classical authors that Durkheim looks at to mark the differences that make his project unique: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. In contrast with some current literature, the aim here is to deepen our understanding of the social not as the field of politics, but as its limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to two recent sociological studies on childbirth in the OT, the (androcentric) OT displays both insensitivity to the parturient and ignorance of the basics of parturition. One of the studies specifies that the biblical authors were unaware of the normally presenting fetal member, the head. The present article, however, comes to decidedly different conclusions: 1) the position that the Israelite male was insensitive to women experiencing childbirth either goes beyond the available evidence or is a distortion thereof; 2) both studies overlook information that undermines their conclusions; and 3) the OT authors were sufficiently aware of the fundamentals of childbirth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses mathematician Archimedean's view of philosophy and inhabits the philosophically neutral perspectives of sociology, history, science or commonsense. Topics discussed include Arguments for Genealogical Scepticism; Internalists and defeatist externalists; and Anti-realism about philosophical truths.

Although most evaluators are not sociologists, Sociology is represented in the evaluation profession. To what extent does the presence of sociologists affect the content and emphases of evaluation projects? Reflecting on four projects on which I have served as an evaluator, I conclude that a background in Sociology has been important in the sense that it has led to an emphasis on structural arrangements that may provide a basis for a program's lasting impact. However, it is apparent that an evaluator's disciplinary background is only one of several influences on the content of an evaluation project. Stakeholder mandates and standard evaluation practices also have important influences on how an evaluation is conducted. The impact of discipline-based content on the thinking and decisions of program administrators will vary according to the willingness of evaluation researchers to maintain regular communications, to insure that the rationale for discipline-based content is understood, and to present results in terms that can be understood by people outside one's discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a brief account of the author's career beginning with his student days in the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago and the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. The following evaluation projects are summarized: the impact of an interstate highway on the Detroit Orthodox Jewish Community funded by the Michigan Department of Transportation; Healthy University Health Promotion Project funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation; Drug Use and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Demonstration funded by the DHHS Center for Substance Abuse; utilization of the Ryan White Care Act (HIV-AIDS) funded by DHHS Heath Resources and Services Administration; and National Environmental Health Action Plans in Europe funded by the World Health Organization/Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the sociological concept of 'claimsmaking,' as exemplified in the social-problems literature, is reflected in the needs assessment strategies employed by evaluators. Strategies for addressing this link when teaching evaluation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflection offers considerations of a career in policy sociology. The author reflects on the role of the policy sociologist and the research produced for policy. Three examples of sociological practice focus on the sociologist as offering actionable evidence for nongovernmental organizations, as evaluator of prison and substance abuse treatment programs, and as watchdog for government accountability. Thoughts are offered on training for a career in policy sociology, as well as caution to remain reflexive and critically aware of bias sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

This paper tracks Mead's induction into the sociological canon, focusing in particular on American sociologists who made a concerted effort to reconstruct Mead as a systematic social theorist and apply his ideas to empirical research. It distinguishes two interpretive strategies of framing the classic and constructing the canon -- the politics of orthodoxy and politics of the open canon. The politics of orthodoxy aims to ascertain the original meaning and close the textual canon, creating a template relative to which alternative interpretations are judged incomplete, unorthodox, or wrongheaded. The politics of the open canon proceeds on the assumption that the classic text lends itself to conflicting interpretations, that room for the honest difference of opinion must be safeguarded, and that the capacity to further productive inquiry rather than the adherence to an orthodox view recommends a particular construal as viable and canon-worhty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situational Action Theory (SAT) is a recently developed general action theory of crime that integrates and synthesizes existing individual and ecological explanations. SAT explicitly states that the individual's propensity for criminal behaviour (morality and self-control) and exposure to criminogenic settings (rule breaking peers and time spent in unsupervised, unstructured activities) interact to determine whether a crime is committed. In the present article, core assumptions of SAT are tested by estimating cross-sectional and lagged models on two-wave panel data from adolescents in The Hague (The Netherlands). Generally, the findings support SAT, including the situational interaction between morality and self-control. However, the findings also raise questions about SAT. In particular, we did not find lagged effects of morality on later offending, and we found only a few significant interaction effects on offending between the two peer variables and morality and self-control. Generally, there was not much support for the SAT theory that adolescents with low morality or low self-control are more vulnerable to (situational) peer influences. The article concludes with a discussion of how additional situational peer variables may be included in SAT. [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]

A generation ago, Foucault's untimely death meant that his final genealogical investigations were never transformed into published monographs. However, with the publication of his last 3 years of lectures at the College de France, new insights have been revealed about the self in Antiquity (and the present day). Specifically, this paper will argue that Foucault's inal investigations reveal (i) a theorization of the Hellenistic self which "cares for itself" so as to gain "access to the truth" from within an existing "agonistic" field; (ii) an oppositional "standpoint" self which goes beyond those found in the phenomenological, anti-sociology tradition; and (iii) Foucault's apparent acknowledgement that he had tacitly "cared for himself". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The writings of Bruno Latour have invigorated empirical inquiry in the social sciences and in the process helped to redefine their character. In recent years the philosophy of social science that made this inquiry possible has been deployed to a different end, namely that of rethinking the character of politics. Here I suggest that in the pursuit of this goal, inflated claims are made about that philosophy, and some basic theoretical tools are asked to do a job for which they may not be best equipped. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modernity remains the privileged theoretical frame and narrative for long term processes at the global scale, notwithstanding the heterogeneously contested definition of its spatiotemporal coordinates, the irreconcilability of contradictions inherent to its alleged emancipatory power and the accusations of complicity with Eurocentrism. This article explores some logical, epistemological and historical-sociological contradictions inherent in the effort to produce non-euorcentric categories of social and historical analysis, and explains why such an effort is doomed to failure if modernity keeps on being accepted as the epistemic territory within which such an effort is located. Eurocentrism is thus defined as palingenetic, to the extent it constantly shifts its contextual meaning while reformulating European centrality in different and ever-changing modalities; such properties of Eurocentrism as a paradigm are conceptualized in terms of its ability to operate by means of consequential isomorphism. Evidences from recent debates in history of scientific modernity are considered, in order to articulate analytical tensions between connected histories and dialogical civilizational narratives of East and West relation at the global scale. The impossibility to explain the 'why' of modernity according to a coherent 'how' of modernity without falling into Eurocentric structures of thinking is assessed. Finally, theoretical project of 'unthinking modernity' is introduced as a possible way to reframe the problem of Eurocentric limits in historical and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of a uniquely Canadian form of sociology (CS), with a particular focus on the relationship between CS and the sociology of Canada (SOC). It references the essay "Committing Canadian Sociology" by sociologist Ralph Matthews. The author critiques Matthews's arguments for a distinctive CS, claiming that his approach gives disproportionate weight to idiographic explanations, is not indisputably unique, and may have an adverse effect upon audiences. Topics discussed include the relationship between idiographic and nomothetic explanations, environmental sociology, and resource allocation.

The article looks issues of methodology and Canadian uniqueness in Canadian sociology. It references the essay "Committing Canadian Sociology: Developing a Canadian Sociology and Sociology of Canada" by sociologist Ralph Matthews. According to the author, Matthews overstates the importance of Canadian uniqueness while neglecting the significant role of theoretical pluralism in the field of sociology. It is suggested that Canadian sociology should remain globally oriented and should engage with both American and European intellectual traditions.

You are irrational when you are akratic. On this point most agree. Despite this agreement, there is a tremendous amount of disagreement about what the correct explanation of this data is. Narrow-scopers think that the correct explanation is that you are violating a narrow-scope conditional requirement. You lack an intention to x that you are required to have given the fact that you believe you ought to x. Wide-scopers disagree. They think that a conditional you are required to make true is false. You aren't required to have any particular attitudes. You're just required to intend to x or not believe you ought to x. Wide-scope accounts are symmetrical insofar as they predict that you are complying with the relevant requirement just so long as the relevant conditional is true. Some narrow-scopers object to this symmetry. However, there is disagreement about why the symmetry is objectionable. This has led wide-scopers to defend their view against a number of different symmetry objections. I think their defenses in the face of these objections are, on the whole, plausible. Unfortunately for them, they aren't defending their view against the best version of the objection. In this paper I will show that there is a symmetry objection to wide-scope accounts that both hasn't been responded to and is a serious problem for wide-scope accounts. Moreover, my version of the objection will allow us to see that there is at least one narrow-scope view that has been seriously underappreciated in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of culture in economic studies has resulted in systematic investigations of the shared meanings that shape markets, economic decisions, and outcomes. A number of social scientists have a) privileged the heterogeneity of meanings within organizations and groups over monolithic accounts, b) used thick description and single or comparative case studies to investigate the incessant contestations over meanings and the corresponding actions facilitated, and c) have developed empirically testable propositions without insisting on the reduction of meanings to simple principles embedded in structures. This line of work does not deny that relatively stable cultural meanings exist or that parsimony is possible. Instead, it offers a parallel track privileging three modes of analysis: 1) the identification of discursive inflection points as leading indicators of market takeoffs, privileging thick minimalism over parsimony; 2) breached sequence analyses of transactions, highlighting experimental methods; and 3) relational analyses of networks and contested circuits, tying situated negotiations to overarching cultural structures. The article concludes with a plea to keep cultural analyses interpretive, historically grounded, and intuitively attuned to the meanings of social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the idea of philosophical sociology as an enquiry into the relationships between implicit notions of human nature and explicit conceptualizations of social life within sociology. Philosophical sociology is also an invitation to reflect on the role of the normative in social life by looking at it sociologically and philosophically at the same: normative self-reflection is a fundamental aspect of sociology's scientific tasks because key sociological questions are, in the last instance, also philosophical ones. For the normative to emerge, we need to move away from the reductionism of hedonistic, essentialist or cynical conceptions of human nature and be able to grasp the conceptions of the good life, justice, democracy or freedom whose normative contents depend on more or less articulated conceptions of our shared humanity. The idea of philosophical sociology is then sustained on three main pillars and I use them to structure this article: (1) a revalorization of the relationships between sociology and philosophy; (2) a universalistic principle of humanity that works as a major regulative idea of sociological research, and; (3) an argument on the social (immanent) and pre-social (transcendental) sources of the normative in social life. As invitations to embrace posthuman cyborgs, non-human actants and material cultures proliferate, philosophical sociology offers the reminder that we still have to understand more fully who are the human beings that populate the social world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly debates continue to abound on the theme and the theory of secularization and its counterpart, sacralization. This paper will present a succinct review of relevant sources that address this debate. The focus will be on what Berger terms "subjective secularization," and evidence from a longitudinal study of British subjects surveyed from 1991 to 2007 will provide substantial support for a subjective secularization thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Nisbet's ideas on sociology as an art form are examined in the light of Nisbet's intellectual biography as we as in the tradition of other writers who have approached sociology and history as an art. Nisbet conceived sociology as an art of landscape and portraiture, in which neither theory nor methods should be allowed to become 'idols of the profession.' His thought on sociology as an art is best understood as part of a long-term effort to re-center sociology in a conservative intellectual tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates why Gramsci's theories and concepts have a discrete relevance to the study of race and ethnicity in contemporary contexts. Two theoretical points emerge from the investigation. First, through Gramsci's work, Hall's approach to the structural/cultural theory problem provides an important mediation for theoretical approaches to race. Hall is then able to demonstrate that the racialization of labor and the coercion of workers in colonial and neocolonial contexts, with regard to the 'global south' was the rule and not the exception. Second, through an historical and discursive approach, I demonstrate how Gramsci's analysis of politics and political strategies took race into account. I contend that Gramsci's perspective on race facilitated Hall's ability to deploy Gramsci's theoretical framework and concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A value judgment says what is good or bad, and value-free social science simply means social science free of value judgments. Yet many sociologists regard value-free social science as undesirable or impossible and readily make value judgments in the name of sociology. Often they display confusion about such matters as the meaning of value-free social science, value judgments internal and external to social science, value judgments as a subject of social science, the relevance of objectivity for value-free social science, and the difference between the human significance of social science and value-free social science. But why so many sociologists are so value-involved - and generally so unscientific - is sociologically understandable: The closest and most distant subjects attract the least scientific ideas. And during the past century sociologists have become increasingly close to their human subject. The debate about value-free social science is also part of an epistemological counterrevolution of humanists (including many sociologists) against the more scientific social scientists who invaded and threatened to expropriate the human subject during the past century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several marketing theories have highlighted the role of depersonalization in consumer behavior. Moving from "old" to "new" products, the consumer reduces the depersonalization generated by the excessive market diffusion of the product he has chosen and through which he searches for a social self-categorization. But this theoretical framework cannot justify in a convincing way those stable integrations of a community type around particular styles of consumption (for example, those that are called "neotribalisms"). On the basis of an empirical study, we argue that the depersonalization acts according to a duality neglected by marketing. On the one hand it can mean loss of the distinguishing characteristics, but on the other it can mean de-personalization in the sense of a translation of the "me" into a communal "us". This second form of depersonalization does also exist in consumption and allows us to shed light on the apparent contradiction between the idea of several marketing theories according to which consumers can always achieve satisfaction through differentiation and the thesis of a "final dissatisfaction" of the consumer, advocated by much of contemporary theoretical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space and time are fundamental elements in the articulation of society. However, for several years, space has been forgotten. This article attempts a theoretical problematization of space, starting with a review of diverse precepts that emerge from classical and contemporary sociological thought, as well as human geography. It seeks to underline the inseparable, recurring relationship between space and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo discurre sobre el filosofía de John Rawls, con un enfoque particular en la filosofía política y moral. El autor comenta sobre el concepto de la teoría de justicia según Rawls y considera la relación entre la filosofía y la sociología. También se examinan sus ideas acerca del marxismo y del libertarismo.

Sociology once debated ‘the social’ and did so with a public readership. Even as late as the Second World War, sociologists commanded a wide public on questions about the nature of society, altruism and the direction of social evolution. As a result of several waves of professionalization, however, these issues have vanished from academic sociology and from the public writings of sociologists. From the 1960s onwards sociologists instead wrote for the public by supporting social movements. Discussion within sociology became constrained both by ‘professional’ expectations and political taboos. Yet the original motivating concerns of sociology and its public, such as the compatibility of socialism and Darwinism, the nature of society, and the process of social evolution, did not cease to be of public interest. With sociologists showing little interest in satisfying the demand, it was met by non-sociologists, with the result that sociology lost both its intellectual public, as distinct from affinity groups, and its claim on these topics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article I trace the fortunes of sociology in the United States, Britain and Australia over the course of some 60 years. I compare the impact of professionalization, migration and institutional location on the character and contents of sociology in these countries. While recognizing the many achievements of professional sociology, I argue that the modern auditing frameworks by which the careers of academic sociologists are measured have had the effect of standardizing teaching and research in sociology to the point of marginalizing the discipline in many institutions. Such marginalization has occasionally encouraged creativity, but it has nonetheless left many sociology offerings in a fragile position. As part of my historical overview I challenge the stereotypical contrast between American empiricism and European theoretical flair. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent collection Sociological Objects: Reconfigurations of Social Theory provides plenty of evidence in support of the proposition that there is not a strong mood within sociology today to conduct an ongoing productive debate about ‘society’ as the core object of the discipline, in the way that, for example, economics conducts such a debate about ‘the economy’. Instead, sociology is much more likely to have disparate debates, each organized around a different object or candidate-object. That is, most debates within the discipline about what is, are, or should be its object or objects are conducted by advocates of some theoretical trend or other which these advocates think more important than other trends, and certainly more important than the object society. This situation is far from conducive to increased public relevance, especially because, in most cases, the target audience of each debate is a cohort of insiders. If the discipline were to more strenuously organize and/or participate in public debates about society it would at very least find itself associated with a notion which has currency beyond the field itself, such that even if sociologists were to debate society using technical language they might still attract wide public attention, in the way that economics attracts such attention when it debates technical aspects of the economy, like monetary policy or ‘irrational exuberance’ or the technicalities of the derivatives behind the global financial crisis. Using Sociological Objects as a launching pad, this paper explores the decline within sociology of the object society and shows how easily the lessons offered by historical insights can be undermined by a particular attitude toward the use of theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented to this special issue which discusses the history of the scholarly field of sociology, focusing especially on its key philosophies as an academic discipline.

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]

Social interaction is generally regarded as elemental to the notion of community. Within the broader discourse on community, the field-interactional perspective is distinctive in its explicit focus on emergent social processes and community change dynamics. Wilkinson (1970) extended Kaufman's (1959) early work on the interactional approach through an application of the social field concept to community action. In doing so, Wilkinson (1991) outlined several key linkages between social-symbolic interaction and community agency. Despite these promising beginnings, only a modicum of research has examined the theoretical or philosophical underpinnings of the interactional conception of community. This article explores the symbolic-interactionist tenets undergirding the field-interactional approach, most notably Mead's (1934, 1938) discussion of generalized social attitudes and Blumer's (1969a, 1969b) work on joint or collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]