K uplývající přítomnosti: Jedinečnost a opakování v sociálním jednání

The sociological citizen: Pragmatic and relational regulation in law and organizations

Students of sociology first encounter an analysis of relations among social structures in the introductory sociology class where they learn that social realities are the products of social structures. And, throughout their academic journey in the acquisition of knowledge in the discipline, sociology students are expected to develop a deep understanding of the nature of the relationships among social structures and the consequences of such relationships to human realities. In this endeavor, students learn the causal relations of substructures and superstructures proffered by Karl Max (deterministic economic infrastructure) and Max Weber (deterministic ideological infrastructure). In both economic and ideological determinisms, one particular social structure is determinant of all other social structures and human social realities. In this study, the ideas of both Marx and Weber are critiqued for causal reductionism or the fallacy of a single cause which is antithetical to sociological reasoning of multi-factor causality. For a better understanding of causal relations among social structures and social realities, this study offers the Multi-Institutional Substructure-Superstructure Model (MISSMOD) as a more comprehensive causal explanation of society’s infrastructure and superstructure relations, which nullifies the distinction (claimed by Marx and Weber) between the infrastructure and the superstructure.

John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality (1995) offers an account of the nature of social reality that complements and builds on the views of language and mind that Searle has developed in his earlier books (Searle 1969, 1983, 1992). It shares with those books a combination of a high level of both philosophical rigor and accessibility, and takes the reader down a persuasive path from the basic questions “What is social reality?” and “What are institutional facts?” to Searle’s detailed answer to these questions. My twofold aim in this paper will be to provide reasons for questioning Searle’s answer, and to sketch an alternative way of thinking about the relationships between intentionality and “social facts” or “social reality”—both expressions that Searle uses freely, and what I would prefer to call, in parallel with intentionality, sociality. As the title of Searle’s book on social reality suggests, his aim is to provide an account of sociality that shows how sociality can be both a construction and a part of reality, how there can be objective facts that we nonetheless play a role in constructing. Institutional facts, which are a focus of his work here and more recently (e.g., Searle 2003), are paradigms of such facts. I want to suggest that that focus, and perhaps Searle’s broader concern to address social constructivism and attacks on realism in epistemology that frames his discussion in Construction, results in a view of sociality that is misleading in several important ways, including in how we should view certain forms of nonhuman cognition and in how we should think about the relationship between intentionality and sociality. My argument will turn on the innocuous-sounding point that the two questions listed above—about social reality and about institutional facts—require importantly different answers, and that by focusing primarily on the latter question, the one about institutional facts, Searle presents a skewed answer to the former question, the one about social reality. Let me begin with a brief sketch of Searle’s view of institutional facts.

The human body has in recent years become a ‘hot’ topic in sociology, not just in empirical research but also in sociological theorizing. In the latter context, the body has been variously a resource for broadening the parameters of traditional sociological thought deriving from the nineteenth century, and for overturning that paradigm and fundamentally reorienting the assumptions and concepts of sociological thinking. Attempts to abandon the old paradigm and foster a new one through the means of thinking about bodies are many and manifold, and in this paper we trace out the intricate history of moves towards a ‘corporeal sociology'. We identify the dilemmas that have attended these developments, especially as concerns the ways in which new modes of thinking sociologically have tended to founder over the classical sociological dichotomy between social structure and social action. Through tracing out the various moves and counter-moves within this field, we identify a central contradiction that affects all contemporary sociological practice, not just that dealing with the body: an oscillation between judging the utility of conceptual tools in terms of criteria derived from the discipline of Cultural Studies, and evaluating the arguments created by those tools on the basis of the incompatible criteria of classical sociology. The paper challenges sociologists to choose one set of criteria or the other, for sociological practice cannot be based on both such antagonistic paradigms.

Sociology's interest in organizations is customarily traced to three sources: the Harvard-based human relations school, the Weberian tradition descending from Parsons through Merton at Columbia, and the more formal and economic approach associated with March and Simon at Carnegie Tech. Omitted from these lineages is the dominant body of sociological thinking in the inter-war period, the Chicago School. To be sure, organizations play a small role in the canonical image of Chicago sociology. This absence did not involve any lack of interest in social organization more broadly, about which the Chicagoans wrote a great deal. But by ‘social organization’ they meant ‘the organizing of social life’: a gerund rather than a noun, a process rather than a thing. The study of fixed pieces of social structure such as bureaucracies and other formally enacted groups was not for the Chicagoans a separately delineated body of inquiry. This article first sketches the Chicago School and the organizational world it confronted. It then turns to social and formal organization as they actually appear in the Chicagoans' writings. It closes with a discussion of the lessons organization theory today might take from the Chicago sociological tradition.

This chapter will position ethnomethodology in the praxis of sociology and phenomenology to trace Garfinkel’s theoretical heritage and highlight his intellectual innovation. With this historical investigation, I will outline the pathways along which individual social actor’s order-producing and -maintaining work (including but not limited to languaging and communicating efforts) comes to take centre stage in Garfinkel’s thought. Ethnomethodology, even in its heyday, was never recognised as the mainstream of sociological thinking. However, as accounted by Garfinkel (2002), ethnomethodology claims to be the heir to Emile Durkheim—the father of sociology, and its project is to carry on with the study of ‘social facts’ which is famously contained in the aphorism by Durkheim (1895/1982, p. 60): ‘The first and fundamental rule [of sociology] is to consider social facts as things’. There are many different interpretations of Garfinkel’s program and its status in both sociology and philosophy; my view is that, despite that ethnomethodology represents a radical way to do sociology, its concern is still a sociological one though phenomenology fuelled its innovative power. I will explain this in the following.

This study aims to determine the social reality in the novel Pulang Leila Chudori works were assessed on the basis of genetic structuralism approach. Social reality examined in this study extend short story structure, social structure, and the author's view of the world (world view). The method used in this study is a qualitative method that is supported by the study of genetic structuralism.The results showed that there subfokus social reality in a novel structure Pulang Leila Chudori work, especially in the theme of the story. Social reality contained in the theme in the form of the struggle of the political exiles to return to set foot into the ground water. Events experienced by the characters in the story according to the social aspect that occurs in the political exiles in Indonesia. In addition to the social reality theme also appears in the background, viewpoint, and the characterizations. In the next subfokus realtas society in terms of social structure can be seen that there is a social reality in the novel in accordance with the social structure of which is G30SPKI events, events supersmar, Chinese ethnic cleansing, as well as the May Tragedy. While the authors found subfokus world view through a problematic figure in the story that the author in an interview stated that political eksil an Indonesian citizen who is entitled to a decent living as citizens of Indonesia in general. Based on these results until it can be understood thoroughly and deeply concerning novel Leila Chudori when viewed from the study of genetic structuralism. Research results obtained show that the novel Pulang to contain social reality that can be used as reading material for students and the general public to broaden insight into the history.Keywords: social reality, history, genetic structuralism

In contemporary social science, notably in sociological theory, social research methodology and philosophy of social science, the epistemological and methodological questions of sociological analysis are of central importance. Although sociological thinking about social life is usually intertwined with writing about it, sociology's textual dimension has attracted considerably less attention. Adorno's sociological writings, too, are chiefly concerned with the problems and possibilities of a sociological investigation of exchange society. Yet Adorno, convinced that ‘language constitutes thinking just like vice versa’ (MCP 123), is unable to discuss sociological thought without engaging in detail with the question of the sociological text. The process of writing – neither purely thinking nor purely acting – is a prominent theme in his work on the discipline. Adorno repeatedly addresses the problems contemporary social conditions create for sociological writing. He examines sociology's possibilities to respond to those problems and to develop the potential of its texts to articulate something about social life in exchange society. A discussion of Adorno's vision of sociology's textual dimension is indispensable to an account of his views on the discipline and might offer sociologists ideas for more rigorous inquiries into the process of writing about social reality.

SubStance 29.3 (2000) 68-83 [Access article in PDF] Habitus, Intentionality, and Social Rules: A Controversy between Searle and Bourdieu Gunter Gebauer Bourdieu's sociology contains many concepts and terms that could play a significant role for philosophy. University philosophers are hardly inclined, of course, to accept suggestions from other disciplines, in particular when they carry the scent of empirical research in the everyday world. Their interest lies--apart from a few exceptions, such as Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Charles Taylor--beyond the sensory world, directed instead toward the world of pure thought. The mind has no smell; it avoids contact with the corporeal. When philosophers describe society, it is transformed into a product of thought. The absence of sensuality lends intellectual rigor and consistency to their attempts, inasmuch as they trace social structures back to logical ones. In this way philosophy can achieve, at best, clarifications of concepts from which sociology can also benefit. However, this advantage is always obtained at a high price: intellectual construction ignores everything that constitutes society--social practice, power, actions of social agents, their habitus, their position, strategies, and the internal complexities of society itself. The weaknesses and advantages inherent in a logical reconstruction of social processes can be studied in John R. Searle's The Construction of the Social World (1995). Through a critical confrontation of these strengths and weaknesses with Pierre Bourdieu's theory, it becomes clear how this theory actually contributes to a philosophy of society. Searle's publication is the logical continuation of his work on construction, which spans several decades. It leads from his theory of the speech act, via the concept of intentionality, to the "rediscovery of the mind," finally arriving at an "ontology of social facts." 1 Bourdieu's starting points are his cultural-anthropological field research, and empirical sociological studies of traditional and modern societies. In these works, he develops a theory of social action and of a society characterized by power structures. 2 Searle transfers an entire field out of the empiricism of sociology into the philosophy of mind, and submits it to an ontological model of hierarchical levels of reality. Bourdieu's aim has long been to dissociate the concept of the social agent from the philosophy of mind. Both Bourdieu and Searle invest a wealth of ideas in their attempt to reorder the respectively opposing discipline [End Page 68] through approaches, theories, and instruments they have developed. First I will briefly outline Searle's assumptions on the construction of social reality, which I will then confront with Bourdieu's model for the construction of the social agent and society from social practice. Searle's Model for a Unified Material and Social Ontology The basis of Searle's argument is his assumption of an external reality: there is a world of objects which, as "brute facts," are independent of humans. As a second category, Searle introduces "social facts," which are dependent on humans. In contrast to brute facts, social facts exist solely because we believe that they exist. Alternatively, he also characterizes them as "institutional" facts, which exist "only by virtue of collective agreement or acceptance" (Searle 1995, 39). Social reality is constructed on the foundation of pre-social facts, with the aid of belief. Searle assumes a continuous transition from "an ontology of biology to an ontology that includes cultural and institutional forms" (ibid., 227). The conscious acts of believing, from which society originates, are known as "intentional acts" in Searle's terminology. Their intentional structure is produced with the aid of language and its ability to symbolize and represent social facts. Language is "the condition of possibility of the creation of all human institutions" (ibid., 75). It generates social facts through speech acts, in particular through declarations. In his earlier works, Searle had considered individual intentionality exclusively; for the creation of social facts, however, this is not sufficient. The linguistic act of creating institutions from brute facts is achieved through "collective intentionality," a "social self-consciousness." Searle understands this as a particular category that has no social origin itself; he considers...

This article explores the relation between Durkheim and Tönnies’ sociological thinking. Instead of focusing on their divergences, it shows how the content of their mutual criticisms, before being naturalized in national sociological traditions, reveals a shared epistemological aim: to rethink modern moral and political obligation via sociological theory. From this perspective, the opposition between Durkheim’s social fact and Tönnies’ social will reveals how classical sociological theory has been engaged in a general critisicm of modern natural law in order to furnish a different understanding of modern poltical concepts, in particular of the notion of state.

從夢、神話到儀式展演：中國貴州侗人的自我意象與象徵形構

The paradox of Durkheim's manifesto: Reconsidering The Rules of Sociological Method

The institution of marriage and the family it is one of the social and ecclesial realities, difficult to stick in its full meaning. It, as a natural reality, involves the whole life of man, of each man, both as a right and as a possibility. In his great redemptive plan, God, through Jesus Christ, in the New Law established by the sacrifice of love to the ultimate sacrifice, assigns a saving dimension to natural marriage. This new dimension makes marriage a supernatural and profoundly human reality, anchored in social realities in a continuous becoming. The current situation that the Church is experiencing in the pastoral field through the different choices that believers make regarding the sacrament of marriage invites us to deepen and analyze all the aspects that affect the choice of the type of marital union. All these motivations makes us to take in consideration the different spheres of human existence as well with visions of living life to see the way marriage as a natural and sacramental reality, involving every human being, presents itself to contemporary society in all its complexity, or in what way society’s problems come to be reflected and also involves the institution of marriage.

questioning, militant stance. They are dissatisfied with the omissions and presumptions of their European peers. History has cast them in a different mold and made them sensitive to the subtle complexities of their role as scholars. In the process of reappraising their African heritage, in their efforts to discover the past and contemporary social, political, and economic realities of African societies, they must examine critically the theoretical constructs, the assumptions and biases contained in the disciplines in they were trained. Put simply, the theoretical constructs, assumptions, and biases of European scholarship have hindered an accurate appraisal and assessment of African culture. But this is not to say that one may not employ the techniques and concepts of a discipline to illuminate the problem. As an anthropologist, in order to elucidate my argument, I turn to Levi-Strauss, a noted contemporary French anthropologist. Levi-Strauss draws a distinction between or participant models and or observer models, those of the social scientists. He says that the conscious or participant models, which are usually known as norms, are by definition very poor ones, since they are not intended to explain phenomena but to perpetuate them.' They are homemade models, the constructs of the people under study. They are produced by the culture in order to perpetuate the given social arrangements of a society. Levi-Strauss considers them as part of the social facts with social scientists must concern themselves. However, the task of anthropologists is to penetrate these conscious, homemade models in order to reach the structural organization of the society, to discover the social reality. In other words, the understanding of the members of a society of its social organization is considered to be generally inaccurate and untrustworthy. In contrast to the participants model there is the unconscious or observers model, is considered as an accurate appraisal and assessment of the underlying structural organization of a society. In other words, social scientists enter Africa equipped with their bags of theoretical tricks and emerge with accurate understandings of an African society, or so we are led to believe. But a point of interest is that the participant models, a social fact for social scientsits, are constantly being tested and redefined by the dialectical confrontation between belief and action, symbols and reality, the

This research examines the transformation of educational sociological thinking in Islam, with a focus on the contributions of classical scholars such as Al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, and Al-Farabi. These three figures integrate education with social, moral and spiritual values, creating a holistic approach that not only emphasizes intellectual development, but also character formation. Al-Ghazali emphasized the importance of balanced education between worldly and ukhrawi knowledge, while Ibn Khaldun, through al-umran theory, viewed education as a tool to maintain social cohesion and build a just civilization. Al-Farabi, with his thoughts about the ideal society, emphasized the role of education in creating virtuous individuals. The research method used is a literature review with a qualitative-descriptive approach to analyze the relevance of these thoughts in facing contemporary educational challenges. The results show that even though they come from different historical contexts, their thoughts remain relevant, especially in responding to today's educational challenges which prioritize a balance between science, morality and spirituality. Thus, the contribution of sociological thought to education in Islam has had a significant impact on the social structure and development of Muslim education to date.