Author's response to: Raphael Sassower, 'Heidegger and the Sociologists: A Forced Marriage?,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 5 (2018): 30-32. -- Part of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).

Abstract: This study is aimed to examine the role of youth in National Assembly Elections-2013 in Islamabad. After May,11, 2013 General Elections a Elections commission of Pakistan reported that due to involvement of youth the huge turnout in the elections first time in the Pakistanâ’s history. This study also examines this claim and analyzes different factors due to which young people are more involved in political process. It addresses different mobilization trends of political parties create interest among (...) class='Hi'>youth; their attitude towards the political institutions; their perception about the effectiveness of political parties and politicians; and their need to have a platform for their political ideology. This study also examines whether Socio-political culture of politics in Pakistan is responsible in shaping young peoples’ values and views on politics. Furthermore, it also focused the uses of media and Specially social media among the youth for campaigns by different political parties. It is also highlighted in the research that youth is seems frustrate before elections-2013. This descriptive study is qualitative in nature. This study collected a sample of 50 youth from educational institutions as well as from kachi abadis of Islamabad. The findings reveal that young people were frustrate due to traditional politics in Pakistan, lack of political education and political socialization. This study finds out that young people are aware of political scenario and they do take interest in political talk shows in the media but this awareness and interest does not always translate into formal or conventional engagement with political party structures through membership etc. The conclusion that new mobilization trends specially social media attract the young people towards National Assembly Elections and increasing the political interest which also leads towards higher voter turnout in the General elections-2013. (shrink)

REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the richness and range of (...) Kochan's discussion [...]. There is a great deal in this foundational portion of Kochan's discussion that I find tremendously interesting and engaging [...]." (David R. Cerbone, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science) ---- REVIEW (3): "Science as Social Existence will be of interest not only to Heidegger scholars but to anyone engaged in science and technology studies. [...] This is an informative and original book. Kochan should be praised for his clear, pleasant-to-read prose." (Michael Butler, in CHOICE). (shrink)

Book review of: Jeff Kochan (2017). Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).

Youth politics is celebrated locally, nationally and internationally. In this paper, I argue that such celebration must be deemed unethical. First, I assert that the vitality and sustainability of any democracy is contingent upon the people’s ability to reason and think critically. Second, I make the case that youth politics exerts negative effects on the members’ ability to reason and think critically. Then I approach Norway as a case study, exemplifying how these negative effects may play out. Thus (...) one is faced with the following dilemma: It is regarded ethically imperative to promote political engagement amongst youth, but it is unethical to promote youth politics. (shrink)

This volume comprises original articles by leading authors – from philosophy as well as sociology – in the debate around relativism in the sociology of (scientific) knowledge. Its aim has been to bring together several threads from the relevant disciplines and to cover the discussion from historical and systematic points of view. Among the contributors are Maria Baghramian, Barry Barnes, Martin Endreß, Hubert Knoblauch, Richard Schantz and Harvey Siegel.

Value dimensions of mature theory change in science are considered. It is argued that the interaction of the values of the cross-theories constitutes the major mechanism of theory change in this dimension. Examples from history of science describing the details of the mechanism are given.

This article aims to present a reconstruction of Gabriel Tarde’s micro-sociology in order to highlight its current relevance. The author of the article attempts to show that its distinction lies in taking the immense diversity of small social interactions as a starting point for the analysis of both face-to-face situations and large-scale institutions and social processes. Here the social field is described as made up of multiple propagations of desires and beliefs that spread from one individual to other, taking (...) countless directions, interfering with each other, forming networks, and escaping them in search of new connections. The author attempts to show, also, that this point of view doesn’t deny the existence of social systems but understands them as open ensembles of immanent and partial relationships of collective beliefs and desires. This is why Tarde may be considered the founder of a molecular or micro-physical sociology. (shrink)

This article focuses on two developments in nineteenth-century (philosophy of) social science: Moritz Lazarus’s and Heymann Steinthal’s Völkerpsychologie and Georg Simmel’s early sociology of knowledge. The article defends the following theses. First, Lazarus and Steinthal wavered between a “strong” and a “weak” program for Völkerpsychologie. Ingredients for the strong program included methodological neutrality and symmetry; causal explanation of beliefs based on causal laws; a focus on groups, interests, tradition, culture, or materiality; determinism; and a self-referential model of social institutions. (...) Second, elements of the weak program were the blurring of explanatory and normative interests, an emphasis on freedom of the will, and antirelativism and antimaterialism. Third, later research projects keeping the label “Völkerpsychologie” followed the weak program. Fourth, in the 1880s and 1890s, Simmel tried to build on some of the elements of the strong program. Finally, and fifth, part of the explanation for why Simmel did not succeed in his attempt had to do with the social-political situation of German academia around 1900. (shrink)

A polemical account of Australian philosophy up to 2003, emphasising its unique aspects (such as commitment to realism) and the connections between philosophers' views and their lives. Topics include early idealism, the dominance of John Anderson in Sydney, the Orr case, Catholic scholasticism, Melbourne Wittgensteinianism, philosophy of science, the Sydney disturbances of the 1970s, Francofeminism, environmental philosophy, the philosophy of law and Mabo, ethics and Peter Singer. Realist theories especially praised are David Armstrong's on universals, David Stove's on logical probability (...) and the ethical realism of Rai Gaita and Catholic philosophers. In addition to strict philosophy, the book treats non-religious moral traditions to train virtue, such as Freemasonry, civics education and the Greek and Roman classics. (shrink)

The relationship between archaeology and other sciences has only recently become a research topic for sociologists and historians of science. From the 1950s to the present day, different approaches have been taken and the aims of research studies have changed considerably. Besides methodological textbooks, which aim at advancing archaeological knowledge, historians of archaeology have tackled this question by exploring the development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. More recently, collaborations between archaeologists and other scientists have been examined as a general (...) phenomenon regarding transfers of knowledge and power relationships between specialists, organizations, and scientific tools, where archaeology is considered as a scientific practice. Adopting a sociohistorical perspective, this entry examines the specificity of aims, facts, and procedures shared by archaeologists and other scientists regarding the crucial question of measuring time and computations. (shrink)

This work is a critical introduction to Alfred Schutz’s sociology of the multiple reality and an enterprise that seeks to reassess and reconstruct the Schutzian project. In the first part of the study, I inquire into Schutz’s biographical con- text that surrounds the germination of this conception and I analyse the main texts of Schutz where he has dealt directly with ‘finite provinces of meaning.’ On the basis of this analysis, I suggest and discuss, in Part II, several solutions (...) to the shortcomings of the theoretical system that Schutz drew upon the sociological problem of multiple reality. Specifically, I discuss problems related to the struc- ture, the dynamics, and the interrelationing of finite provinces of meaning as well as the way they relate to the questions of narrativity, experience, space, time, and identity. (shrink)

Today, artificial intelligence, especially machine learning, is structurally dependent on human participation. Technologies such as Deep Learning (DL) leverage networked media infrastructures and human-machine interaction designs to harness users to provide training and verification data. The emergence of DL is therefore based on a fundamental socio-technological transformation of the relationship between humans and machines. Rather than simulating human intelligence, DL-based AIs capture human cognitive abilities, so they are hybrid human-machine apparatuses. From a perspective of media philosophy and social-theoretical critique, I (...) differentiate five types of “media technologies of capture” in AI apparatuses and analyze them as forms of power relations between humans and machines. Finally, I argue that the current hype about AI implies a relational and distributed understanding of (human/artificial) intelligence, which I categorize under the term “cybernetic AI”. This form of AI manifests in socio-technological apparatuses that involve new modes of subjectivation, social control and discrimination of users. (shrink)

Sociology, as conceived by Comte, was to put an end to the anarchy of opinions characteristic of liberal democracy by replacing opinion with the truths of sociology, imposed through indoctrination. Later sociologists backed away from this, making sociology acceptable to liberal democracy by being politically neutral. The critics of this solution asked 'whose side are we on?' Burawoy provides a novel justification for advocacy scholarship in sociology. Public sociology is intended to have political effects, but (...) also to be funded by the politically neutral state. He argues that public sociology is institutionally neutral, but that committing to an organic relation with a social movement is legitimate as a matter of the sociologist's personal value choice. Although this produces side-taking sociology, by improving the case for particular standpoints it serves to improve democratic discussion generally, which is an appropriately neutral public aim. (shrink)

This paper follows Francois Laruelle’s non-philosophy and his non-religion and non-theology to suggest anon-philosophical approach to the sociology of religious pluralism. The entanglements of experiences of the religious end-user are analysed vis-a-vis Laruelle’s thought and a dogma free inclusive approach to religion is envisaged.

This book offers a theoretical investigation into the general problem of reality as a multiplicity of ‘finite provinces of meaning’, as developed in the work of Alfred Schutz. A critical introduction to Schutz’s sociology of multiple realities as well as a sympathetic re-reading and reconstruction of his project, Experiencing Multiple Realities traces the genesis and implications of this concept in Schutz’s writings before presenting an analysis of various ways in which it can shed light on major sociological problems, such (...) as social action, social time, social space, identity, or narrativity. (shrink)

This article embarks on making a political analysis of Islamist politics by criticizing the hegemonic approach in the field and considering a number of the institutions or structures, composing of either state and its ideological-repressive apparatuses, political parties and actors, intellectual leadership and ideology, and political relations, events, or facts in political sphere. The aforesaid approach declares that the social and economic factors, namely class position, capital accumulation, market, education, and culture, have been far better significative for a political study (...) in examining any political movement, party, and fact or event. However, our study will more stress on political structures, events and struggles or conflicts produced and reproduced by the political institutions, the relationships and the processes in question. Taking into account all these, it will be argued that they have been more significant as compared to class position, capital accumulation, market in economic structure, or culture and education, in a political study. (shrink)

The article regards the age peculiarities of the development of personality’s self-consciousness in youth. -/- The conducted theoretical analysis and empirical research contribute to the definition of the following features of the formation of personality self-consciousness in youth: -/- – strengthening the integrative tendency in this process, which leads to an increase in the level of cognitive complexity, differentiation, integrity, and hierarchy of the “Self-image”, as well as the emergence of a holistic, integrated “I”; -/- – the ability (...) of self-awareness as the highest form of self-knowledge, due to the higher level of development of intelligence and the individuals thinking; -/- – increase of the level of awareness of the personality of their own experiences, self-attitude, and selfesteem, which contributes to the growth of interest in his/her “I”; -/- – actualization of the process of development of personal and social self-identity (self-determination) of youth; -/- – intensification of formation of the system of value orientations as a psychological basis for the development of personality’s self-consciousness; -/- – an ability to make informed decisions in various spheres of life (social, professional, personal, etc.), which is the evidence of becoming a socially mature person; -/- – psychological mechanisms for the development of the youth’s self-consciousness is self-reflection, identification, and separation; -/- – a pivotal object of self-reflection is the relationship with significant others and their own life position; the object of identification presents socially valuable qualities of others, which promotes the assimilation of social norms; due to separation of the acquired norms of behavior, value orientations and motives become individualized. -/- The identified features are important for the psychological and pedagogical theory and practice. (shrink)

This study focuses on the engagement of children and youth in their communities and the ways they are included in and excluded from community life. Using a content analysis of a small town United States newspaper over a one-year period, examples of engagement were identified and classified into 12 categories: programs, clubs and special events; fundraising and community ser- vice; business and community support; participation in community events; school events; athle- tic and other performances; employment; involvement in local planning (...) and decision making; serving as a community representative; visibility and recognition; criminal activity and accidents; and use of public space. Examples of community exclusion were identified as well. Young peo- ple were engaged primarily through activities that were adult-directed or supervised, or organi- zed through schools, churches, and youth clubs. There was little involvement in local planning, decision making, or activism. Some evidence existed of peer teaching, leadership, and self-initia- ted activities, as well as intentional efforts by adults to give youth a greater voice in community activities. Implications include several ethical issues regarding the role of young people in com- munity life, particularly young children, and the need for greater awareness on the part of com- munities of the contributions young people can make. (shrink)

al-Zuhd, one of the most prominent themes in the Arab poetry in the Abbasid period, came to the summit by the poets like Abū l-ʻAtāhiyya and Abū Nuwās. Another important poem known with his poems on al-Zuhd is Mahmud al-Warraq. Warrak, after a youth life in pleasure, understood the s of life and apply himself to poetry on zuhd. Warrak produced a number of different works in verse form. He was distinguished by the sincerity in his statements and the (...) simple language he used. He had thought that he was deceived by worldly gifts and pleasures in his youth and thus tried in his poems to guide young people with a sense of responsibility not to fall in same mistakes. This paper will examine Warraq emphasis on “youth un in his Diwan. Poems will be discussed in the context of the nature and the fate of youth. In the introduction, the development of poetry tradition on al-zuhd in the period of Umayyads and Abbasids will be mentioned briefly. Afterwards, poems About youth in his diwan will be researched. (shrink)

The four volume work of which this book is a part has been praised as one of the great monuments of theoretical scholarship in sociology of the century. The praise has come largely from the older generation of students of Parsons and Merton. A great deal of dispraise has come from Alexander's own generation. Alan Sica's (1983) brilliant, biting review of Volume I speaks for many of Alexander's peers. Volume II is likely to be even more controversial. This volume (...) begins the substantive task of the text, the reinterpretation of the 'theoretical logic' of the classical sociologists, a reinterpretation governed by the intention of transcending the errors and limitations of the 'presuppositional' reasoning of the classical thinkers. For Alexander's sociological audience the second volume is the beginning of what really counts, and Volume II is indeed quite a different affair from the first, 'philosophical' volume: the prose tightens, and the air of getting down to work is palpable. (shrink)

From the temporal perspective, this article examines shifts in the productionof sociological knowledge. It identifies two kinds of rhythms of sociology: 1) that of sociological standpoints and techniques of investigation and 2) that of contemporary academic life and culture. The article begins by discussing some of the existing research strategies designed to "chase"high-speed society. Some, predominantly methodological, currents are explored and contrasted with the "slow" instruments of sociological analysis composed of different, yet complementary, modes of inquiry. Against this background, (...) the article stresses that it is through the tension between fast and slow modes of inquiry that sociology reproduces itself. The subsequent part explores the subjective temporal experience in contemporary academia. It is argued that increasing administration and auditing of intellectual work significantly coshapes sociological knowledge production not only by requiring academics to work faster due to an increasing volume of tasks, but also by normalizing time-pressure.The article concludes by considering the problem as to whether the increasing pace of contemporary academic life has detrimental consequences for the more organic reproductive rhythms of sociology. (shrink)

In 1873, 75 years before Karl Jaspers published his theory of the Axial Age in 1949, unknown to Jaspers and to contemporary scholars today, Scottish folklorist John Stuart Stuart-Glennie elaborated the first fully developed and nuanced theory of what he termed “the Moral Revolution” to characterize the historical shift emerging roughly around 600 BCE in a variety of civilizations, most notably ancient China, India, Judaism, and Greece, as part of a broader critical philosophy of history. He continued to write on (...) the idea over decades in books and articles and also presented his ideas to the fledgling Sociological Society of London in 1905, which were published the following year in the volume Sociological Papers, Volume 2. This article discusses Stuart-Glennie’s ideas on the moral revolution in the context of his philosophy of history, including what he termed “panzooinism”; ideas with implications for contemporary debates in theory, comparative history, and sociology of religion. It shows why he should be acknowledged as the originator of the theory now known as the axial age, and also now be included as a significant sociologist in the movement toward the establishment of sociology. (shrink)

Swami Vivekananda is considered as one of the most influential spiritual educationist and thinker of India. He was disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the founder of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. He is considered by many as an icon for his fearless courage, his positive exhortations to the youth, his broad outlook to social problems, and countless lectures and discourses on Vedanta philosophy. For him, “Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs (...) riots there, undigested all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas.” It is rightly said that, “The Swami’s mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind, he strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic Oneness of existence. (shrink)

Much of the literature on ethical issues in child and youth participation has drawn on the epi- sodic experiences of participatory research efforts in which young people’s input has been sought, transcribed and represented. This literature focuses in particular on the power dynamics and ethi- cal dilemmas embedded in time-bound adult/child and outsider/insider relationships. While we agree that these issues are crucial and in need of further examination, it is equally important to examine the ethical issues embedded within the (...) “everyday” practices of the organizations in and through which young people’s participation in community research and development often occurs (e.g., community-based organizations, schools and municipal agencies). Drawing on experience from three summers of work in promoting youth participation in adult-led organizations of varying purpose, scale and structure, a framework is postulated that presents participation as a spatial practice shaped by five overlapping dimensions. The framework is offered as a point of discussion and a potential tool for analysis in examining ethical issues for young people’s parti- cipation in relation to organizational practice. (shrink)

With the failure of the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Bogdanov has come under increasing scrutiny as the anti-authoritarian, left-wing opponent of Lenin among the Bolsheviks and the main inspiration behind the Proletk'ult movement, the movement which attempted to create a new, proletarian culture (Sochor, 1988). Bogdanov's efforts to create a new, universal science of organization, a precursor to systems theory and cybernetics, has also attracted considerable attention (Gorelik, 1980; Bello, 1985; Biggart et.al. 1998). And he has been recognized as an early (...) environmentalist and as a feminist (Graham, 1984; Gare, 1994; Gare, 1996, pp.249-52). But few people have paid much attention to Bogdanov as an historian, sociologist and philosopher of science. Yet Bogdanov developed highly original ideas on science, offering unique resolutions to the oppositions between instrumentalism and realism and between internalist and externalist accounts of scientific development, and following from these, proposed a radical transformation of science as the foundation for an equally radical transformation of society. (shrink)

This article encourages a reconsideration of Christian sociology. It explains how deism makes a decisive impact in the theoretical foundations of the discipline. Dutch neocalvinistic philosophy in its North American immigrant setting after World War II issued a challenge which drew attention to the dogmas of deism implicit in sociology, but this challenge has not been met. Christian sociology, however, still retains its God-given vocation to find ways to encourage people everywhere to positively form complex differentiated social (...) settings in the Spirit of the Suffering and Glorified Messiah. (shrink)

Commentators have long remarked the influence of Lévi-Strauss on Lacan, yet they have largely ignored important philosophical parallels between Lacan and Emile Durkheim, Lévi-Strauss's predecessor in the French anthropological tradition. I suggest that we are better served by understanding Lacan as heir to Durkheim rather than Lévi-Strauss, especially when Lévi-Strauss is seen as the ambassador of a new "scientific" method ("structural anthropology") modeled on structural linguistics. Lacan's reference to linguistics is, I maintain, a red herring that has misled interpreters. Instead, (...) Durkheim's ideas offer a more fruitful interpretive lens to understand the paradigm shift that defines Lacan's mature thought: a renewed understanding of the primacy of collective categories over individual experience and of the importance of the social and "symbolic" status of the human environment as opposed to its grounding in biological or physical reality. (shrink)

The VIA Inventory of Strengths and the VIA model were originally developed to assess and study 24 character strengths. In this paper, I discuss how the VIA Inventory and its character strength model can be applied to the field of moral education with moral philosophical considerations. First, I review previous factor analysis studies that have consistently reported factors containing candidates for moral virtues, and discuss the systematic structure and organization of VIA character strengths. Second, I discuss several issues related to (...) the VIA model, including a lack of previous studies that directly support the moral justifiability of the model and the presence of a fundamental virtue component required for optimal moral functioning in virtue ethics, phronesis, practical wisdom, in the model. Finally, I propose future directions for research on the VIA model in order to address the aforementioned issues and facilitate the application of the model in moral education. (shrink)

It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative linguistic System 2 and unconscious automated prelinguistic (...) System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of two of the most eminent students of behavior of modern times, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, on the logical structure of intentionality (mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything, but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I analyze various writings by and about them from the modern perspective of the two systems of thought (popularized as ‘thinking fast, thinking slow’), employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. I show that this is a powerful heuristic for describing behavior. -/- Thus, all behavior is intimately connected if one takes the correct viewpoint. The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s future. -/- . (shrink)

Despite the growing popularity of participatory video as a tool for facilitating youth empower- ment, the methodology and impacts of the practice are extremely understudied. This paper des- cribes a study design created to examine youth media methodology and the ethical dilemmas that arose in its attempted implementation. Specifically, elements that added “rigor” to the study (i.e., randomization, pre- and post-measures, and an intensive interview) conflicted with the fun- damental tenets of youth participation. The paper concludes with (...) suggestions for studying par- ticipatory media methodologies that are more in line with an ethics of participation1. (shrink)

This is a review of Henk Woldring's book on Karl Mannheim.

This paper is based on case study research conducted in an economically depressed, immigrant gateway neighborhood of Escondido, California. This study has been in progress since 2005 and involves working with children at the local middle school on rights-based community environ- mental action research projects in coordination with student facilitators in an upper-division uni- versity class titled “Children and the Environment.” This case study has suggested inquiry into the practical ethical dimensions of working with children, administrators, and university students on (...) action research. Examples of the ethical questions which arose during this study include: how can continuity for the middle school children be achieved as different groups of university stu- dents move in and out of the project as they take and finish the “Children and the Environment” class, and is it ethical for the middle school children’s work to be facilitated by university stu- dents only freshly trained in the action research technique? This paper explores these and other ethical questions involving power, coercion, tension over expectations, and obligation and pro- vides direction for on-going ethical questions scholars should pursue in involving children in rights-based community environmental action research. (shrink)

Gabriel Tarde, along with Durkheim and others, set the foundations for what is today a common-sense statement in social science: crime is a social phenomenon. However, the questions about what social is and what kind of social phenomenon crime is remain alive. Tarde’s writings have answers for both of these capital and interdependent problems and serve to renew our view of them. The aim of this article is to reconstruct Tarde’s definition of crime in terms of genus and specific difference, (...) exploring his criminology as a case of his general sociology. This procedure shows that Tarde succeeded in creating a comprehensive theory of crime and criminals founded not only on his most well-known concept, imitation, but also on his equally important concepts of invention, opposition, social logic and social teleology. For Tarde, crime is a complex phenomenon related to criminal inventions, criminal propagations, the production of penal laws, the execution of controls and punishments, and the collective reactions to all these. (shrink)

The four sections of this article are reactions to a few interconnected problems that Mario Bunge addresses in his The Sociology-Philosophy Connection , which can be seen as a continuation and summary of his two recent major volumes Finding Philosophy in Social Science and Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective . Bunge’s contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences has been sufficiently acclaimed. (See in particular two special issues of this journal dedicated to his social philosophy: "Systems (...) and Mechanisms. A Symposium on Mario Bunge’s Philosophy of Social Science," Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34, nos. 2 and 3.) The author discusses therefore only those solutions in Bunge’s book that seem most problematic, namely, Bunge’s proposal to expel charlatans from universities; his treatment of social laws; his notions of mechanisms, "mechanismic explanation," and systemism; and his reading of Popper’s social philosophy. Key Words: theory • laws • mechanism • explanation • Popper. (shrink)

This paper presents the history of the Frankfurt School’s inclusion of normative concerns in social science research programs during the period 1930-1955. After examining the relevant methodology, I present a model of how such a program could look today. I argue that such an approach is both valuable to contemporary social science programs and overlooked by current philosophers and social scientists.

The article provides a historical contextualization of the debates on theory and method within interwar American sociology. This period is often portrayed as the “golden” age of empirical inquiry resulting in proliferation of methodological orientations. It is argued that the demands of professionalization and specialization within the discipline produced a research model which succeeded in analyzing specific issues, but failed to find a convincing answer to the general question of the logic of society’s development.

The author asks whether there was a “scientific ‘68”, and focuses on aspects of two specific methodological proposals defined in the 1940s and 50s by the terms “action research” and “mixing methods”, applied particularly to social sciences. In the first, the climate surrounding the events of 1968 contributed to heightening the participative element to be found –by definition– in “action research”; that is: the importance of making the research subjects themselves participants in the design, execution and application of the study (...) of which they are the focus. This approach captured the democratic and anti-authoritarian spirit at the heart of the proposal, which was part of the prevailing climate in those days. The repercussions of 1968 on “mixing methods” focused on studying what had actually occurred, especially between the youth and workers, and therefore, particularly from the point of view of sociology and social psychology, using a “mixed methods” approach. The author explores the proposal of Norman Denzin; but traces the recent origins of both “mixing methods” and “action research” back to the proposals of mainly Kurt Lewin and the Chicago School. (shrink)

Review of OUP volume on collective emotions which provides a taxonomy of the different theories, raising potential objections for each.

Final instalment of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers). -- Author's response to: Paolo Palladino (2018), 'Heidegger Today: On Jeff Kochan’s Science and Social Existence,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 41-46; and Adam Riggio (2018), 'The Very Being of a Conceptual Scheme: Disciplinary and Conceptual Critiques,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(11): 53-59.

Author's response to: Pablo Schyfter, 'Inaccurate Ambitions and Missing Methodologies: Thoughts on Jeff Kochan and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 8 (2018): 8-14. -- Part of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).

This article is a theoretical treatment of the ways in which local worldviews on wealth acquisition give rise to contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace. It unpacks spiritual (occult) economies and wealth generation through a historical perspective. The article ‘devil advocates’ the ‘sainthood’ of claimed law-abiding citizens, by highlighting that the line dividing them and the Nigerian cybercriminals (Yahoo-Boys) is blurred with regards to the use of magical means for material ends. By doing so, the article also illustrates that the (...) intersectionality of the spirit world and the acquisition of wealth (crime or otherwise) is connected with local epistemologies and worldviews, and its contemporaneity has social security benefits. Therefore, the view that the contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace signify a ‘new-danger’ and an ever-increasing outrage in the Nigerian society is misplaced. I conclude that if people believe all aspects of life are reflective of the spiritual world and determined by it, the spiritual realm, by implication, is the base of society, upon which sits the superstructure comprised of all aspects of life, especially wealth. Inferentially, this conceptual position that the spirit world is the base of society is an inversion of Orthodox Marxist’s theory of economic determinism. (shrink)

In the Sociology of Emotion and Affect Studies, affects are usually regarded as an aspect of human beings alone, or of impersonal or collective atmospheres. However, feelings and emotions are only specific cases of affectivity that require subjective inner selves, while the concept of ‘atmospheres’ fails to explain the singularity of each individual case. This article develops a theory of social affect that does not reduce affect to either personal feelings or collective emotions. First, I use a Spinozist understanding (...) of the ‘body’ to conceptualize the receptivity and mutual constitution of bodies, to show how affects do not ‘belong’ to anybody; they are not solely attributable either to the human or to any kind of body alone, but emerge in situations of the encounter and interaction . Next I build upon Jean-Marie Guyau’s concept of transmissions to show how we can theorize affect as an emerging transmission between and among bodies. Finally, I demonstrate how we now have a complete conceptual frame for theorizing affect in relation to all bodies in any given social scene, the grand composition of which I call affectif. (shrink)

The 21st-century university is a contested site of neoliberal transformation. Its role is moving away from that of a hub of culture, knowledge and critique to that of a provider of skills and employability for the market. The move towards a lean business model in the management of knowledge production is not an isolated phenomenon, but integral to the shifting economic, political and moral landscapes of global capitalism and the knowledge society. The literature discussing the changes in higher education, which (...) could be collectively termed "critical studies of academia", remains fragmented and is yet to yield tangible resistance or envision viable alternative models of academic governance. This article discusses the possibility of generating constructive critique of "the new spirit of academic capitalism" from within. French Convention Theory is employed as a conceptual toolbox for unpacking the worlds of worth, conventions and justifications which operate beneath the surface of the marketisation, acceleration and casualisation of scientific labour - and suggested as a potential tool for building a generative sociology of critique. (shrink)