Modern Social Theory Research Articles

Individuals Are Continents; or, Why It's Time to Retire the Island Approach to Addiction

Individuals are not island isolates. This is an old insight that finds expression in indigenous worldviews, ancient philosophies, religious doctrine, and modern social theories. Even so, science remains encumbered by the false dichotomies and reductionism inherited from the capitalist revolution and reinforced by the fragmentation of modern life. This same heritage encumbers addiction research and efforts to devise effective interventions. It does so because the island concept at its core filters out the most decisive factors contributing to addiction. We therefore recommend its replacement with what we call the continental concept of the individual, which conceives of society and the natural environment as extensions of individual corporeal bodies. Such a theoretical reorientation has significant implications for intervention research and practice. More specifically, it radically expands the scope of what constitutes a valid intervention in the first place. We call this reorientation the continental approach to drug addiction.

Contra Politanism: Against the Teleology of Political Forms

In this article, I diagnose and critique pervasive forms of teleological thought about basic structures of political organization in modern and contemporary political thought: arguments that the sovereign state, the nation-state, or some variant of a cosmopolis both represents the unfolding of history’s moral logic and offers us full moral personhood, agency, and maturity. Despite the received wisdom that modern political thought beginning with Hobbes broke with teleology, I argue that early modern social contract theory was deeply teleological. The emergence of the normatively self-contained sovereign state from the state of nature represented both decisive historical-moral progress from the medieval European non-state polities, and the possibility of true moral personhood thanks to the unity of will and judgment created by a unified authority structure. In other words, social contract theory depicted the then-recent emergence of the modern European sovereign state in ways that necessarily implied the moral, cognitive, and historical backwardness of both pre-modern Europeans and contemporaneous non-Europeans who had not yet reached the decision to exit the state of nature. The article then argues that this overattachment to unity, both as an historical culmination and as a prerequisite to full personhood, was carried over into subsequent nationalist and cosmopolitan thought, where we see over-moralizations of historical processes, excessive claims for the teleological causal force of moral progress, and critiques of the immaturity of those persons who do not live in the recommended political form. The article closes with a sustained critique of both historical and individual-moral teleologies of these sorts.

Beyond stateless democracy

Pierre Bourdieu began his posthumously published lectures “On the State” by highlighting the three dominant traditions that have framed most thinking about the state in Western social science and modern social theory. On the one hand, he highlighted what he termed the “initial definition” of the state as a “neutral site” designed to regulate conflict and “serve the common good.” Bourdieu traced this essentially classical liberal conception of the state back to the pioneering political treatises of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.1 In direct response to this “optimistic functionalism,” Bourdieu noted the rise of a critical and more “pessimistic” alternative—something of a diametric opposite.

Human Rights: From an Alternative Viewpoint

The historical progression of the idea of ‘Rights’ and ‘Citizenship’ are embedded in a narrative, which postures itself as a Universalist in nature. The role of ‘State’ in such a narrative account cannot be over-stressed. The concept of ‘Rights’ in such a context comes across as an act of dispensation. Dispensation of ‘Justice’, such an account and its discussion problematises the almost universally accepted notions regarding ‘Human Rights’. In order to do so, some of the major epistemological shifts are identified to analyze the ‘accepted’ continuum of human thought and behaviour which are universal in nature. It would be useful here to question the ‘universal’ tenor of this kind of exercise in modern social science theories where nature has been ‘pushed’ in to the periphery. The MDG envisioned, must overcome this academic and practical resistance to identify the crux of international relation.

SÖYLEM, İDEOLOJİ, SÖYLEM, İDEOLOJİ, SÖYLEM, İDEOLOJİ. . .

Modern social theory is awash with talk of “discourse” and “ideology”. Sometimes the two concepts are used interchangeably and at other times they are counterposed. The paper seeks to make sense of the part played by these concepts in contemporary debates. It proposes an exercise in retrieval which suggests that our two key terms form distinct theoretical traditions which, while they can be distinguished, can both be made good use of. We first engage with the debate over ideology within modern western Marxism and explore the suggestive distinction proposed by Larrain between a negative and a positive conception of ideology. Next we explore Foucault's version of discourse theory. Our third investigation focuses on the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe who opt for a rupture between discourse and ideology; their solution will be contrasted with the Gramscian position espoused by Stuart Hall- the approach closest to the solution we will propose-that retains the concept ideology whilst benefiting from the advances secured by discourse theory. The theory of ideology we propose supplements discourse theory rather than opposing it. It is a version of ideology theory that is different from that bequeathed by Marx. Retained and moved into central prominence is a key feature of the critical thrust of Marx's account, namely, its focus on the way in which the interpellation of subject positions operates systematically to reinforce and reproduce dominant social relations—it is this that is described as the “directionality” of ideology theory. This directionality is captured by employing ideological analysis to focus upon the effects of discur­ sive practices, which we term “ideology effects”.

Financial affect

Critical theory has often remained unduly beholden to accounts of capitalist development that emphasize its homogenizing effects and the tendency of its financial logic to destroy the complexity and organic connectedness of human life. This paper suggests that we may move beyond the impasse of this style of critique by analyzing money, capitalism's quintessential sign, as an icon – a sign that represents a paradoxical coincidence of potentiality and contingency and so organizes a particular logic of affective investments. Whereas critical theory tends to associate capitalist development with the decline of affect, this essay suggests that a more paradoxical logic is at work, one whereby economic rationalization generates an affective logic that is distinctly secular and performative but no less powerful than traditional modes of rule and in fact commands a paradoxical binding force. The paper situates the notion of iconicity vis-à-vis some key notions in modern social theory and proceeds to examine its emotional and psychological modalities through an engagement with theorizations of narcissism, a paradoxical affective structure that deploys its reflexive powers to elaborate its attachment to a sign that it experiences as problematic. It then explores the logic of financial affect through a selective analysis of neoliberalism's public culture of self-help, moving beyond a focus on disciplinary individualization to emphasize the associative production of emotional investments. The paper concludes with some considerations on the political implications of the analysis.

Barbara Ann Naddeo, Vico and Naples: The Urban Origins of Modern Social Theory

Barbara Ann Naddeo, <i>Vico and Naples: The Urban Origins of Modern Social Theory</i>

The natural law foundations of modern social theory: a quest for universalism

After several decades in which it became a prime target for critique, universalism remains one of the most important issues in social and political thought. Daniel Chernilo reassesses social theory's universalistic orientation and explains its origins in natural law theory, using an impressive array of classical and contemporary sources that include, among others, Habermas, Leo Strauss, Weber, Marx, Hegel, Rousseau and Hobbes. The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory challenges previous accounts of the rise of social theory, recovers a strong idea of humanity, and revisits conventional arguments on sociology's relationship to modernity, the enlightenment and natural law. It reconnects social theory to its scientific and philosophical roots, its descriptive and normative tasks and its historical and systematic planes. Chernilo's defense of universalism for contemporary social theory will surely engage students of sociology, political theory and moral philosophy alike.

Jürgen Habermas: Modern social theory as postmetaphysical natural law

This article revisits Jürgen Habermas’s long-lasting engagement with the tradition of natural law and argues that his work is unique in the contemporary context because it takes place without seeking to sever all possible connections to natural law. Its goals are then twofold: on the one hand, the article reconstructs what Habermas understands by natural law in order to account for its wider relevance as an intellectual resource in modern social theory; on the other, it reassesses the natural law elements that still reside in Habermas’s own thinking. In terms of structure, the article starts by revisiting Habermas’s definition of natural law and its role in modernity’s claim to normative self-foundation. The second section focuses on the role Habermas gives to sociology as the discipline through which the theory of communicative action was systematically elaborated. Being simultaneously an empirical approach and a normative theory of modern society, the sociological tradition is reconstructed in connection rather than in opposition to natural law. The last part turns to the universalistic foundations of Habermas’s social theory as way of recovering its moment of ‘unconditionality’. As they centre on the question of universalism, all three sections come together in the idea that Habermas’s social theory be depicted as postmetaphysical natural law.

A project to take Activity Theory into modern social theory

A project to take Activity Theory into modern social theory

Alienation as Atrophied Moral Cognition and Its Implications for Political Behavior

AbstractI present a theory of alienation that accounts for the cognitive processes involved with moral thinking and political behavior in modern societies. On my account, alienation can be understood as a particular kind of atrophy of moral concepts and moral thinking that affect the ways individuals cognize and legitimate the social world and their place within it. Central to my argument is the thesis that modern forms of social integration—shaped by highly institutionalized, rationalized and hierarchical forms of social life—serve to constrain the moral‐ cognitive powers of subjects leading to a condition of alienation as moral atrophy. This state results from the withering of the subject's internal powers of moral reflection and an overriding predisposition to rely on external value schemas to make sense of moral and political problems. I then present an analysis of alienated moral consciousness and its implications for modern social theory.

Fashion Landscapes: Networks, Markets, and Agents

In previous work, Joanne Entwistle has identified areas in fashion stud ies where knowledge is lacking. In The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory (2000) for instance, she identifies lived experi ence and the economy as two spheres that demand further exploration. Entwistle stresses the dynamic nature of fashion and the fact that lived experience, culture, and economy intersect. She developed the notion of embodiment in previous work that captures fashion practices as they relate back to the body while simultaneously being situated and reproduced in a variety of contexts. In The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Values in Clothing and Modelling (2009) she singles out two cultural intermediaries or arbiters: fashion buyers at the high-end Selfridges department store in London and bookers of male models. Both shape the aesthetic within their own fields, which in turn influence, to some degree, the larger fash ion industry. To answer the question of how a particular fashion aesthetic takes shape, or indeed how aesthetic economies emerge, one might have expected an exploration of many fields, starting with fashion designers, stylists, editors, bloggers, and trend forecasters, leading perhaps to buyers and model agents, in the interest of understanding more about a complex industry that involves creation, production, distribution, and communication. Entwistle grasps two ropes—not the thickest ones—and decides to follow them throughout a deep and tangled journey, without being sure of how and where they will intersect. As Entwistle shows readers, there have been a variety of approaches that address how styles in fashion become trends, from Simmel’s topdown approach to Polhemus’s bottom-up approach, which considers the

Ernst Mach and the Origin of the Knowledge Theory in the Former Austrian Empire

This paper discusses the origin of the modern social knowledge theory and Ernst Mach’s role in its development and his contribution to the history of economics. We categorize economic and scientific methodologies based on the dichotomy between“describable” and “indescribable” knowledge. The arguments of both groups drew from Mach’s theory and later developed along different lines. We investigate the reason for this by assessing evolutionism. It is important to assess fallibility and anti-rationalism as causes for the development of both concepts of knowledge. We also discuss Ludwig Mises’ unique standpoint. Although he criticized socialist economy planned rationally, he was also a rationalist. In other words, Mises was politically on the same side as Hayek and M. Polanyi but he was rather in a closer position about knowledge to the Vienna Circle. The aim of this paper is to consider Ernst Mach’s contribution in the history of economics.

Emergence and Reduction

AbstractThe question of the ontological status of social wholes has been formative to the development of key positions and debates within modern social theory. Intrinsic to this is the contested meaning of the concept of emergence and the idea that the collective whole is in some way more than the sum of its parts. This claim, in its contemporary form, gives exaggerated importance to a simple truism of re‐description that concerns all wholes. In this paper I argue that a better way to test the ontological status of wholes is to ask whether their causal properties can be reduced to the qualities of their parts. If reduction is possible the ontological status of emergent wholes is diminished. A close analysis of William Wimsatt's definition, conceptualisation, and characterisation of emergent phenomena provides an understanding of the relationship between wholes and their parts and suggests, also, that the properties of collective phenomena of a social kind reduce to the activities of people. Social wholes and their parts reside in the same mode (or level) of organisation. This paper concludes by employing Jaegwon Kim's method of ‘functional reduction’ to demonstrate how to reduce the qualities of wholes to those of their parts.

La pérdida del control de la información y la comunicación: apuntes sobre una tesis de Manuel Castells

Since 1983 Manuel Castells frequently holds that information and communication control was and is the foundation or the source of power, and particularly state power. In this article we refer to that formula in general terms, and then we focus on a central thesis the spanish sociologist proposes since 1997, which indicates that in the current situation there is an irrepressible tendency towards the loss of information and communication control. The principle of the end of the mentioned control is for our author most probably the main support of his thesis about the definitive decline of nation states power. Among other aspects, the research allows us to discover some features of the anti-state view Castells displays in his social theory.This product is inscribed on the research about the development of Manuel Castells’ concept of power during the period 1967-2009, and in more general terms in current efforts to revalue modern social theory and to recover the question of power as a general interpretation key.

The Libertarian Welfare State

This review essay, occasioned by Robert Frank's new book titled The Darwin Economy, elaborates and celebrates the author's unique, positional-externality-informed blend of Millian libertarianism, Coasian bargaining, and modern social contract theory. The essay begins by first noting that Americans' cherished value of liberty is a multidimensionally relational concept, such that your being free - as against me or others - to do this or that always entails both (a) your not being free, once you have done this or that, to do what this or that physically forecloses, and (b) our not being free - as against you - to impede your doing it. Liberty thus always comes at the expense of liberty. But this means that optimizing the quantum of liberty in a life or in a society always involves working tradeoffs of liberty for liberty, meaning in turn that appeal must be had to some normative principle additional to liberty if we would determine which liberties 'outweigh' which in working to 'maximize' liberty. Mill's 'harm principle,' the essay continues, constitutes an early and incomplete attempt to articulate such a principle for the case of a society, while Coasian bargaining - much like early renditions of the normative 'economic analysis of law' that Coase inadvertently inspired - affords some, if but incremental, additional guidance. Ultimately what is required for the social case is an account of distributive justice such as can give content to the notion of Millian 'harm' or Coasean-inspired 'welfare' or 'wealth,' as this author has argued many times elsewhere - and as Frank implicitly acknowledges in arguing from a rendition of the Rawlsian 'original position,' the normative appeal of which lies precisely in its modeling a form of impartiality, when elaborating on what libertarian principles yield by way of a political society. Incorporating, as he does, a keen appreciation of positional externalities and other collective action problems into the picture as only he could, however, Frank also significantly enriches both the Coasian bargaining scenario and the venerable 'veiled choice' social contracting scenario familiar to readers of Harsanyi, Rawls, Dworkin, and other theorists. In so doing he plausibly arrives at some very surprising results, not least of which is the likelihood that libertarians contracting to build a political society from scratch would be apt to adopt taxation and social welfare policies much more redistributive than those that today's vulgar libertarians appear to realize. They would contract, in short, for a 'libertarian welfare state.'

Introduction to the special issue on new developments in social choice and welfare theories

Preliminary versions of most of the papers in this special issue of Annals of Economics and Statisticswere presented at the annual conference of the ADRES (Association pour le Developpement de la Recherche en Economie et Statistiques). This conference, untitled ''New Developments in Social Choice and Welfare Theories - Conferences in Honor of Maurice Salles" took place at the University of Caen Basse Normandy from June 10th to 12th 2009. The articles collected here examine three aspects of modern social choice theory: the measure of inequality and welfare, the analysis of voting rules and voting behaviors, and Arrovian aggregation.

Bowling Alone: Urban Tribes in Concrete Jungles

Utilising the modern social network theory, the present descriptive article has examined the art of urbanites’ ‘bowling alone’ in concrete jungles and its negative effect on their social and civic life. Mainly, such a process has resulted in the formation of ‘urban tribes’ characterized by their isolation from the mainstream social life influenced by people’s ego-centric and limited personal networks in the form of cliques with clique culture, dominated by rugged individualism, instead of developing broad social networks based on reciprocity that generate social capital with community feeling, collective consciousness and altruism. Their silent withdrawal from social intercourse has affected urbanites propensity to pitch into the common tasks that bind people together with a ‘we feeling’. The net result is, today, people in large cities have collectively turned away from the responsibilities of community building, community development and community participation in civic activities and social and public affairs. The article in this context has identified some of the factors that have contributed to this urban pathology and civic malaise and, finally, offers some possible and feasible remedies to control and contain this social malady.

The Prometheus Myth in the Sculptures of Sami Mohammad and the Plays of Aeschylus and Shelley

The Prometheus Myth in the Sculptures of Sami Mohammad and the Plays of Aeschylus and Shelley

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Class Identification in Review: Past Perspectives and Future Directions

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Class Identification in Review: Past Perspectives and Future Directions