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Author: Karl Raimund Popper
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
Published: 1987
Total Pages: 500
ISBN-13: 9780812690392
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Bartley and Radnitzky have done the philosophy of knowledge a tremendous service. Scholars now have a superb and up-to-date presentation of the fundamental ideas of evolutionary epistemology." --Philosophical Books
Author: J.R. Brown
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 1984-08-31
Total Pages: 350
ISBN-13: 9789027718129
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Soumyajit Patra
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2024-11-15
Total Pages: 262
ISBN-13: 1040165001
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a socio-historical analysis of rationalism as a world view – that guides many of our actions in concrete everyday life – and as a philosophy – that guides our epistemological understanding of the reality around us. It explores the multifaceted manifestations of the idea in the Enlightenment philosophy, modern sociological theorising and post-structural standpoints. The volume also critiques rationality from feminist, subaltern and postcolonial perspectives. Finally, it delves into the multi-layered sociological significances of rationalisation of different domains of life. Transdisciplinary in scope and with essays by foremost scholars in the field, this volume will be a major intervention across the humanities and the social sciences. It will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, gender studies, political science, cultural anthropology, education, and religious studies.
Author: Rafael Wittek
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013-06-05
Total Pages: 625
ISBN-13: 0804785503
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Handbook of Rational Choice Social Research offers the first comprehensive overview of how the rational choice paradigm can inform empirical research within the social sciences. This landmark collection highlights successful empirical applications across a broad array of disciplines, including sociology, political science, economics, history, and psychology. Taking on issues ranging from financial markets and terrorism to immigration, race relations, and emotions, and a huge variety of other phenomena, rational choice proves a useful tool for theory- driven social research. Each chapter uses a rational choice framework to elaborate on testable hypotheses and then apply this to empirical research, including experimental research, survey studies, ethnographies, and historical investigations. Useful to students and scholars across the social sciences, this handbook will reinvigorate discussions about the utility and versatility of the rational choice approach, its key assumptions, and tools.
Author: Raymond Murphy
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-02-07
Total Pages: 413
ISBN-13: 0429972822
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDivergent beliefs about humanity's relationship to nature collide as the second millenium ends. One belief emphasizes that a distinctive characteristic of humans—reason—enables them to reshape and master nature. Another insists that nature is not so plastic, hence humans must adapt to nature and render development sustainable, or even limit growth. "Social ecology" asserts that environmental problems result from institutional hierarchies and suggests decentralized institutions and egalitarian ethics. According to "deep ecology" such problems originate in cultures assuming only humans are worthwhile, thus it stresses the intrinsic value of nature. Feminists are torn between values based on the equality of men and women and ecofeminist values postulating that women are inherently closer to nature than men. Rationality and Nature critically assesses these conflicting cultural tendencies. Waste has been the forgotten element of political economy. Western society has sophisticated methods of financial accounting but does little to account for the losses—financial and human—of waste. Raymond Murphy proposes in this book a theory of environmental debt as a source of capital accumulation. He develops a model of "environmental classes" that helps us to understand the political and economic basis of conflict over the environment. Environmental degradation did not occur on a vast scale until science and applied science were developed. Are they responsible for it and can they be reoriented toward a more symbiotic relationship with nature? Other ways of bringing about a symbiotic relationship are also explored in this book: compulsion, ecological values, ecological experience, and ecological knowledge.
Author: Sam Whimster
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-04-04
Total Pages: 414
ISBN-13: 131783335X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book brings together leading figures in history, sociology, political science, feminism and critical theory to interpret, evaluate, criticize and update Weber's legacy. In a collection of specially commissioned pieces and translated articles the Weberian scholarship recognizes Max Weber as the figure central to contemporary debates on the need for societal rationality, the limits of reason and the place of culture and conduct in the supposedly post-religious age. In Part 1, Wolfgang Mommsen, Wilhelm Hennis, Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter provide a full and varied account of the theme of rationalization in the world civilizations. In Part 2 Pierre Bourdieu and Barry Hindess critically examine Weber's social action model, and Johannes Weiss and Martin Albrow address the putative 'crisis' of Western rationality. In Part 3 Jeffrey Alexander, Ralph Schroeder, Bryan Turner, Roslyn Bologh and Sam Whimster scrutinize Weber's understanding of modernity with its characteristic plurality of 'gods and demons'; they focus on its implications for individuality and personality, the body and sexuality, feminism and aesthetic modernism. Part 4 turns to politics, law and the state in the contemporary world: Colin Gordon on liberalism, Luciano Cavalli on charismatic politics, Stephen Turner and Regis Factor on decisionism and power and Scott Lash on modernism, substantice rationality and law. This book was first published in 1987.
Author: Gianluca Manzo
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2014-03-04
Total Pages: 508
ISBN-13: 1118762738
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDemonstrates the power of the theoretical framework of analytical sociology in explaining a large array of social phenomena Analytical Sociology: Actions and Networks presents the most advanced theoretical discussion of analytical sociology, along with a unique set of examples on mechanism- based sociology. Leading scholars apply the theoretical principles of analytical sociology to understand how puzzling social and historical phenomena including crime, lynching, witch-hunts, tax behaviours, Web-based social movement and communication, restaurant reputation, job search and careers, social network homophily and instability, cooperation and trust are brought about by complex, multi-layered social mechanisms. The analyses presented in this book rely on a wide range of methods which include qualitative observations, advanced statistical techniques, complex network tools, refined simulation methods and creative experimental protocols. This book ultimately demonstrates that sociology, like any other science, is at its best when it dissects the mechanisms at work by means of rigorous model building and testing. Analytical Sociology: • Provides the most complete and up-to-date theoretical treatment of analytical sociology. • Looks at a wide range of complex social phenomena within a single and unitary theoretical framework. • Explores a variety of advanced methods to build and test theoretical models. • Examines how both computational modelling and experiments can be used to study the complex relation between norms, networks and social actions. • Brings together research from leading global experts in the field in order to present a unique set of examples on mechanism-based sociology. Advanced graduate students and researchers working in sociology, methodology of social sciences, statistics, social networks analysis and computer simulation will benefit from this book.
Author: Kenneth Allan
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2016-09-22
Total Pages: 512
ISBN-13: 1483356701
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPraised for its conversational tone, personal examples, and helpful pedagogical tools, the Fourth Edition of Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World is organized around the modern ideas of progress, knowledge, and democracy. With this historical thread woven throughout the chapters, the book examines the works and intellectual contributions of major classical theorists, including Marx, Spencer, Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Simmel, Martineau, Gilman, Douglass, Du Bois, Parsons, and the Frankfurt School. Kenneth Allan and new co-author Sarah Daynes focus on the specific views of each theorist, rather than schools of thought, and highlight modernity and postmodernity to help contemporary readers understand how classical sociological theory applies to their lives.
Author: Barry Hindess
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-08-21
Total Pages: 102
ISBN-13: 1317652134
DOWNLOAD EBOOKChoice, Rationality and Social Theory is a powerful rebuttal of the remarkably influential theories underlying 'rational choice analysis'. Rational choice analysis maintains that social life is principally to be explained as the outcome of rational choices on the part of individual actors. Adherents of this view include not only philosophers, political scientists and sociologists, but also prominent politicians in Western governments – notably of the United Kingdom and the United States. Rational choice analysis is said to be rigorous, capable of great technical sophistication, and able to generate powerful explanations on the basis of a few, relatively simple theoretical assumptions. Barry Hindess argues that the theory is seriously deficient, first, because there are important actors in the modern world other than human individuals, and second, because it says nothing about those processes of deliberation that play an important part in actors' decisions. The use of highly questionable assumptions about actors and their rationality has the effect of closing off important areas of intellectual inquiry and ignoring the reality of certain forms of thought and the social conditions on which they depend. These points are established through detailed examination of the concepts of the actor and of rationality – providing an overall argument that constitutes a serious challenge to any adherent of rational choice analysis.
Author: Stephen Parsons
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-12-19
Total Pages: 175
ISBN-13: 1317797337
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis unique study into the roots of Max Weber's Political Economy, is an intriguing read and a valuable contribution to the Weberian literature. Parsons argues that Weber's analysis is highly influenced by the Austrian School of Economics and the relationship between his critique of centrally planned economies and that of Mises.
