Sociology Of Science Research Articles

Value and Money as Social Power: New Concepts for Old Questions

ABSTRACT The individualistic methodology that largely dominates economic thought is incapable of thinking of social facts as anything other than the aggregation of individual facts. In so doing, it ignores the powerful sui generis forces that emanate from the social sphere itself and that shape individual behaviour and subjectivity. Moral, aesthetic, and religious values are the paradigmatic illustration of this. But economic value is also a force of this nature. It cannot be identified with a substance, be it utility or labour. This new perspective provides the economist with new tools for thinking about what a monetary community is. In so doing, it lays the foundations for a renewed dialogue with the social sciences in general and sociology in particular.

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE INTERACTION OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES WITH THE ELEMENTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL

The importance of the development of civil society institutions in modern conditions is noted. Emphasis is placed on the formal participation of citizens in public policy through the collection of their proposals. The importance of implementing the practice of holding local referendums was emphasized. Significant development of the non-governmental sector, volunteer movement, and registered public organizations at the regional level is highlighted. Significant problems in regions with a high level of sociological and political science education and science are pointed out. Program priorities and the potential effectiveness of program activities to promote the development of regional civil society are outlined. Emphasis is placed on the importance of educational activities for pupils, students, and other categories to ensure public awareness of the activities of civil society institutions. The conceptual model of increased efficiency of state-public collaboration in Ukraine is analyzed. It is noted that the most common practices of cooperation are personal meetings, participation in working groups and round tables, participation in events, organization of joint events, and participation in public consultations during the development of city development strategies and joint projects. The existing mechanisms of informing about the possibility of interaction of civil society institutions are noted. The main obstacles to establishing cooperation are presented. The reverse of the traditional construction concerning the influence of the public on the activities of the state is proposed. The descriptive method in its analytical and systematic focus, as well as contextual, component analysis, are used in the study.

Une analyse de la régulation des communs scientifiques à partir des conventions et des imaginaires linguistiques

We aim to propose a typological analysis of the regulation of scientific creative commons from the linguistic codification activity. We analyze the commons since the point of view of the communities' work. We point the apparent homogeneity of the epistemic communities that support these commons. This leads to a questioning about the homogeneity of the community. We proceed, on the one hand, by means of a comparison between different research programs developed in the sociology of science and politics, on the other hand, by conducting a sociolinguistic analysis of the lexical statements resulting from the self-presentations of 23 creative commons. This critical analysis leads to segmenting all the groups that develop these commons into two families: communities with a stable and regular profile and scientific aims, and collectives with an abundant and unstable profile and with a view to social transformation.

Monographic Research and its Place in Lithuanian Sociology

The article defines the concept of the monographic method and presents the development of the emergence and evolution of monographic research. The contribution of such key representatives of these studies as Frédéric Le Play, Dimitrie Gusti and Franciszek Bujak to the science of sociology is reviewed. Attention is also paid to the place of monographic research in Lithuanian sociology, stating that Lithuania has its own history of monographic research, but this research does not fall within the focus of sociologists’ analysis. The article argues the importance of academic discussions in order to legitimise monographic research in Lithuanian sociology, which would create opportunities to expand the scope of works to be included in the history of sociology and look at Lithuanian rural research in the context of a common European tradition.

Robert Merton and the Sociology of Science: The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Robert K. Merton

Robert Merton and the Sociology of Science: The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Robert K. Merton

Wrenching Torque

Wrenching Torque

Farm Hall Transcripts Reconsidered.

The Farm Hall Transcripts appeared to offer a unique opportunity for a study in the history and sociology of science. My request for access to the transcripts was initially denied, but later was allowed thanks to the intervention of British intellectuals. The recorded opinions of the interned German scientists indicate that initially they had attempted to produce a nuclear weapon, but later abandoned it. The record also traces their development of a view of history, by which the relative morality of the German scientists' work could be judged, versus that of the Allies.

From Trans-Disciplinary Research to Trans-Domain Approaches

The concept of transdisciplinarity refers to the historically grown organization of science – an issue of sociology of science – and hence is not suitable for epistemological concerns. Instead, it is proposed to broaden the concept and speak of Trans-Domain Approaches (TDAs). Domains are fairly homogeneous knowledge fields that are clearly distinct from other such fields on scientific grounds. A TDA consists either (a) in a General Theory (GT) that connects, integrates and transcends a set of Domain-specific Theories (DTs); or (b) for practical purposes, in an action model that describes how practitioners can deal with DTs in concrete situations, for which no general rules are available. The Is-Ought problem, an important topic in research and in practice, serves as example for the use of TDA. It is shown that Is and Ought are separate domains. In a decision how to act, practitioners need to take both Is and Ought into account and relate them with each other. Further, TDAs can form a hierarchy, which means that the DTs can become GTs of subordinate TDAs. Finally, it is argued that one single universal TDA does not make sense; rather, the TDA will depend on the research topic and the author’s theoretical background.

MODELS AND TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF MODERN SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS

The article is devoted to the sociological study of specific features of organizational culture in organizations of public, private (commercial) and public (non-profit) sectors of society in the context of social change in Ukrainian society (on the example of Zaporozhye region). Based on the analysis of different approaches to the definition of "organizational culture", its essential features are highlighted: 1) is part of the management of social development and accordingly has elements of management (leadership interaction, power-division, management style, etc.); 2) is an orderly moral and ethical, value and normative system (values, ideas, beliefs and normative patterns of behavior) of organizations; 3) ensures the optimal integrity of the organization through integration (internal) and adaptation (external), comprehensively characterizes the level of development of the organization; 4) is a specific type of group culture, the degree of institutionalization of which is much higher than other types of group cultures. The aim of the study − to define the purpose and types of organizational culture in the context of modern social transformations. To solve the purpose of the article, both general scientific and sociological methods of cognition of social phenomena and processes were used, namely: logical-historical, structural-functional and comparative analysis − to study organizational culture and its features; analysis and synthesis − to highlight the content of organizational culture; classifications - for the typology of organizational culture in modern sociological science; structural-functional analysis − to clarify the structure and functions of organizational culture. The sociological interpretation of organizational culture using the provisions of different paradigmatic approaches, which explains it: a) as an element of social management and as a value-normative system of social organization that regulates the behavior of individuals − members of the organization; b) as an extrapolation of the value structure of society and value-normative consistent patterns of management and organizational interaction on the functioning of individual organizations in different sectors of society.

Social impacts of COVID-2019 in China

The article presents the results of a descriptive and analytical study of scientific works by Chinese authors on the social consequences of COVID-2019 in China. Using the methods of content analysis, classification and systematization, the author of the article identified the role of the COVID-2019 pandemic in Chinese society, identified the main directions for studying its impact in sociological science. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the social impact of the COVID-2019 pandemic is reduced to the formation of a new type of risk society, changes in the social spheres of education and healthcare, the socio-psychological state of Chinese society, the formation of new social trends in consumption, the aggravation of the unemployment problem in the country, the transformation values ​​of student youth, as well as an increase in the gap in the social well-being of rural and urban areas. The identified social consequences of COVID-2019 serve as the basis for the subsequent development of a social policy for the socio-economic recovery of the country in the post-pandemic period.

Transdisciplinary Approach in Studying Organisational Transformations

Digital transformation has a notorious record of failures. Maybe the enterprise architects do not have a holistic model to study and model the organisational transformation. An enterprise consists of several structural components, which vary from culture to technology layers defined in the Enterprise Architecture. Usually, the transformation of an enterprise involves most of the interrelated layers in connection to the environment around the organisation. Seemingly, no single science provides frameworks to study the transformation of a whole system of systems (including the layers of enterprise strategy, culture, business, information, and technology). Therefore, the paper proposes a transdisciplinary approach combined with spiral research design as a framework for the business sciences and enterprise architecture. The proposed framework connects different sciences of sociology, business, strategy, history, information, and technology to understand the evolutionary particularities of each layer of enterprise in transformation. The transdisciplinary approach supports the modelling of the entire enterprise in all of its complexities and over a longer time. In contrast, the current monodisciplinary focuses only on parts of an enterprise at a particular window of time. By definition, transdisciplinary research fuses findings across the disciplines, between the disciplines and beyond the disciplines. Furthermore, the framework supports spiralling between scientific methods and non-scientific practices. The case study utilised a spiralling research process that provided a tighter feedback loop from application in practice to model development in theory. The transdisciplinary spiralling approach provided an iterative approach to verify the outcome, reduce the complexity, and address the practitioner’s reality. Hopefully, the research approach used in the case study and the tool created will improve enterprise architecture practice to ensure a successful digital transformation of military organisations.

Startling Discoveries and Contrarian Anomalies: Small Comets and Other Heresies

This book should be required reading for all scholars and students of Science and Technology Studies (STS), which encompasses the history and sociology of science and the interaction of science with society as a whole.1 Anomalists will find the discovery narrative engrossing and the whole book rewarding, well worth coping with the occasional technicalities. Lay readers should likewise appreciate Part 1 and will miss little of importance to them by scanning Part 2 more rapidly. Cosmic Rain is really several books in one. Most directly, it is a fascinating scientific detective story. At the same time, as Frank recognized (p. 4), it is an important case study in the history of science, illuminating most particularly the circumstances of scientific breakthroughs that are surprising and unforeseen. Frank’s experiences illustrate several general points about the manner in which science receives—or rather, resists—startling novelty. Furthermore, this book is a very detailed first-hand description of scientific activity, warts and all, that should enable non-scientists to begin to recognize that scientific activity is very much like other human activities: influenced by human behavior and human psychology, not only by the objective technical considerations. Louis Frank was a distinguished physicist at the University of Iowa whose specialty was plasma physics. In the early 1980s, he was puzzled by persistent dark spots in ultraviolet (UV) images of the outer reaches of the Earth taken from a satellite, the Dynamics Explorer, which carried several instruments that were Frank’s responsibility.

Xeoretical and methodological problems of digital sociology

This article is devoted to the theoretical and methodological problems of conceptualizing a new branch of sociological knowledge — digital sociology. The transfer of various aspects of human life to the virtual space (to social networks and new media) has created a number of challenges for the classical social sciences that have never been faced before. The main one is the assessment of the impact of social processes taking place in virtual space on the reality around us. Today, the phenomena emerging on the Internet are invading our “physical” world with increasing intensity, the so-called “real virtuality” is being formed. At the same time, an important aspect is the reverse effect on the virtual world of the processes taking place in social reality.The response to the virtualization of social life was the emergence of a new branch of sociological science — digital sociology. Having originated in the mid-2000s, it is actively developing: the problem Jeld is being clarified, its subject is being concretized, and the methodological toolkit is expanding. At the same time, there are also problems, “bottlenecks” that require comprehension and scientific overcoming.Within the framework of this scientific article, the processes of virtualization of public life, the essence and features of an electronic social network account are considered, the author’s definition of digital sociology is formed, the methodological toolkit is characterized, and the advantages and challenges of digital sociology are identified.

Xe development of the sociology of religion in the Middle Volga region: 1960–1980s

The text is a part of the project for the historical reconstruction of the Soviet regional sociology of religion in the late Soviet Middle Volga region. The process of the development of the discipline is studied primarily from the point of view of the interaction of the state-party apparatus and various groups of the scientific community. This approach is dominant in the study of the revival of sociology in the USSR. The weak side of the issue is its historiography that remains the problem at the regional level. The research is based mainly on the set of sociological data, on documents discovered by the author in historical archives, on the works of domestic and foreign researchers, and author’s expert interview. The author’s point of view is that, first of all, the development of the regional sociology of religion was influenced by the state-party order created by the need for scientific support of the Soviet atheistic campaigns. There was also a significant public demand for the services of the sociology of religion. The flip side of the CPSU’s enthusiasm for sociology turned out to be ideological diktat over scientific activity. The ideological and corporate interests of various groups engaged in the ideological service of party politics hindered the institutionalization in the region of both sociological science in general and the sociology of religion as its particular discipline. The article describes various barriers to the institutionalization of regional sociological science at the union, regional and intra-university levels. Political fluctuations have negatively affected the development of discipline. Since the early 1970s in most republics and regions of the Middle Volga region, it is going through a stagnation period.

Sociology of religion in the system of scientiSc knowledge

The article examines the sociology of religion as one of the spheres of sociological cognition, as well as those approaches to the definition of religion that predetermined the specifics of the development and self-identification of the sociology of religion in the system of scientific knowledge. The author compares various ideas about religion that exist in everyday consciousness, definitions of religion in the system of theology and its scientific interpretations. At the same time, it is emphasized that recently the efforts of scientists have begun to focus on finding a new, more balanced and universal approach to the definition of religion, although any attempt to give a final definition of religion is doomed to be limited and debatable.The heterogeneity of the tools and approaches used by the sociology of religion has created a serious problem of its place in the structure of sociological knowledge. The sociology of religion is most often identified either with religious sociology or with an autonomous branch in the horizontal structure of sociology. These two scientific identities of the sociology of religion appear both blurred and limited. Without denying the value of generally accepted directions for the sociological analysis of religion, the author reveals a lot of diverse and heterogeneous directions, within which both classics of sociological science who studied religion and modern sociologists worked. As a result, the sociology of religion is simply an arbitrary set of topics, including the analysis of fundamental works of a predominantly socio-philosophical nature, replete with religious terms that are incomprehensible to a reader unfamiliar with at least the basics of religious studies, especially to a student, seriously complicates the understanding of the essence and methodology of the sociological analysis of religion. For this purpose, the article differentiates and structures the subject Jeld of sociological analysis of religion, highlights its most promising fields of research.The author argues that it is appropriate to talk about the sociological analysis of religion, which has developed and continues to develop within the framework of two major, but equivalent directions. The first focuses on the sociological knowledge of religion in line with the general modern sociological theory, in a broad social context, as one of the subsystems of the general, societal system, organically interconnected with its other subsystems — cultural, social, political, etc. A special place within this direction is occupied by the analysis of religion as a social phenomenon and social institution, social functions and dysfunctions of the latter, including the intensive process of politicization of religion. The second is based on an internal analysis of religion and various religious doctrines, primarily from the point of view of those social relations that are formed within their framework. The perspective focus of the second direction is the social functions of various religions, their influence on the moral values and worldview of individuals and social groups, the peculiarities of manifestation in people’s daily lives, the peculiarities of the formation and functioning of new religious movements, including totalitarian religious cults and sects.

NETWORK APPROACH IN SOCIOLOGISTS: A THEORETICAL REVIEW OF MAIN DIRECTIONS

The twentieth century was marked by a large number of various kinds of changes that affected almost all spheres of society. New phenomena began to appear in sociological science, the explanation of which caused difficulties and required sociological theory to rethink the methods and analytical models used by it. Among the factors that have had an active influence on the evolution of the network concept, first of all, we should include the development of transport infrastructure, telephone networks and the Internet. The concept of a network has been increasingly used to explain social phenomena. This approach in modern sociology is called "network", which, according to many researchers, is quite productive, as it has a high potential in solving existing problems and in forming a response to the emerging tasks of modern sociological science. It should be noted that in the domestic sociological tradition and in applied research, the possibilities of using the "network approach" remain poorly understood. Many Russian sociologists do not include this approach in the focus of their attention. This article presents a comparative theoretical analysis of the existing areas of the network approach. The main aspects of comparison are: the time and context of appearance, the main provisions, the methodology and methods of empirical research. Common features and differences between the analyzed areas are highlighted. At the end of the article, a conclusion is formulated about the autonomy of each of the designated areas. Based on this fact, it is assumed that the term "network approach" is used solely as a collective name for different theories and approaches that operate with the concept of a network in different senses.

The Causal Fairness Field Guide: Perspectives From Social and Formal Sciences.

Over the past several years, multiple different methods to measure the causal fairness of machine learning models have been proposed. However, despite the growing number of publications and implementations, there is still a critical lack of literature that explains the interplay of causality-based fairness notions with the social sciences of philosophy, sociology, and law. We hope to remedy this issue by accumulating and expounding upon the thoughts and discussions of causality-based fairness notions produced by both social and formal (specifically machine learning) sciences in this field guide. In addition to giving the mathematical backgrounds of several popular causality-based fair machine learning notions, we explain their connection to and interplay with the fields of philosophy and law. Further, we explore several criticisms of the current approaches to causality-based fair machine learning from a sociological viewpoint as well as from a technical standpoint. It is our hope that this field guide will help fair machine learning practitioners better understand how their causality-based fairness notions align with important humanistic values (such as fairness) and how we can, as a field, design methods and metrics to better serve oppressed and marginalized populaces.

От цифровизации социума к киберпреступности, кибердевиантности и развитию цифровой девиантологии

The article reveals the main stages and specificity of socio-technological changes in the world and in Russia at the beginning of the XXI century. It is shown that digitalization and networkization are fundamental dimensions of society in the postmodern era. The main manifestations of crime and deviance in cyberspace are highlighted. It is shown that at the present stage, Internet, social networks and digital payment systems users are the main victims of the cybercrime pandemic. Research into cybercrime and other manifestations of deviance should be based on a hybridization of sociological, technological and other knowledge. It is proposed to use the methodological triangulation of empirical methods in combination with computational algorithms and big data analytics in Internet research. The author concludes that ontological and methodological prerequisites for the development of digital deviantology as an integrative sociological science about cybercrime and other manifestations of cyberdeviance have been formed.

The Geo-Ecological Turn in Sociology and its Implications for the Sociology of the Arts

Accelerating climate change has set in motion a broad change in beliefs about human life that is affecting the social sciences and humanities (SSH). A deeper understanding of the social causes and consequences of climate change is evolving in sociology, yet some of the discipline’s subfields have not responded to climate change. Is this because climate change is perceived to be irrelevant or are scholars suppressing new beliefs that could disrupt the norms of their field? The sociology of the arts provides an illustrative case. This subfield has historically ignored environmental factors, but there is mounting pressure for correcting this oversight and rethinking the beliefs and norms of the field. This article argues that climate change is relevant to the sociology of the arts and that this subfield can become more aligned with the geo-ecological turn in sociology and the SSH. This turn is part of a wider epochal and existential transformation in public consciousness in response to broad changes in society and nature. Changing beliefs about the arts are therefore not explained by endogenous dynamics in the arts field. The article provides a meta-analysis of the geo-ecological turn in sociology and in interdisciplinary arts and cultural research where pioneering arguments have emerged. The analysis uses theory of disciplinary transformation in the sociology of science to analyze largely implicit sociological claims for a transformation of ‘normal science’ beliefs about (1) aesthetic exceptionalism, illustrated by a new conception of music as a study object, and (2) the role of the arts in economic growth. Some implications for the sociology of the arts are considered.

The Concept of Subjectivity in the Light of Józef Tischner’s Thought

Reverend Józef Tischner was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding Polish philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. What we owe to this student of Roman Ingarden is the flourishing of phenomenology and the philosophy of dialog not only in our domestic philosophical, but also sociological, psychological, and anthropological thought. His philosophy of drama is an original and very important current, which is enriched not only by the “Queen of the Sciences” but also offers great support to the related sciences, particularly sociological sciences. Within them, subjectivity is an extremely important subject of contemplation. This article is a sketch of the analysis of the benefits that a sociologist, researcher of subjectivity, can derive from reading Józef Tischner’s works.