AGAINST ESSENTIALISM : A THEORY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

AGAINST ESSENTIALISM : A THEORY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

By STEPHAN FUCHS (Author)

ISBN 9780674015968

Pages 398

Year 2001

Edition 1

Publisher HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Subject SOCIOLOGY

~~Rs 2992.00~~ Rs 2393.60

Description

Against Essentialism presents a sociological theory of culture. This interdisciplinary and foundational work deals with basic issues common to current debates in social theory, including society, culture, meaning, truth, and communication. Stephan Fuchs argues that many mysteries about these concepts lose their mysteriousness when dynamic variations are introduced. Fuchs proposes a theory of culture and society that merges two core traditions—American network theory and European (Luhmannian) systems theory. His book distinguishes four major types of social “observers”—encounters, groups, organizations, and networks. Society takes place in these four modes of association. Each generates levels of observation linked with each other into a “culture”—the unity of these observations. Against Essentialism presents a groundbreaking new approach to the construction of society, culture, and personhood. The book invites both social scientists and philosophers to see what happens when essentialism is abandoned.

About Author(s)

Stephan Fuchs is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia.

Content

Introduction

1. Theory after Essentialism Accounting for the Observer Observing Observers Levels of Observing Ideological Conflicts in Observation Inside and Outside Observers Value-Freedom and Disinterestedness The Myth of “Going Native” A Few Pretty Old Rules of Method The Classics Revisited, Briefly Networks and Systems Some Elements of a Working Epistemology

2. How to Sociologize with a Hammer The Crisis of Representation Underdetermination and Theory-Ladenness The Indeterminacy of Translation Empiricizing Contexts and Demarcations Incommensurability The Double Hermeneutic Things and Persons

3. Cultural Rationality After Reason Causes and Reasons The Unity of Persons What Do Persons Want and Believe? Decisions, Decisions How to Locate Rationality Some Covariates of Rationality

4. Foundations of Culture Never Minds Who Knows? No Idea! The Meanings of Meaning Observing Culture and Cultural Observers What Is in a Culture? Cultural Stratification Art Reputation From Creativity to Genius

5. Modes of Social Association I: Encounters, Groups, and Organizations The Bodies and Brains of Persons Emotional Selves Levels of Society Encounters Groups Organizations Variations in Organizational Cultures

6. Modes of Social Association II: Networks Drift Fields of Forces Power to the Networks Metabolism Renormalization Autopoiesis Self-Similarity Unity Boundaries Network Expansions Networks of Culture

7. Realism Explained A Continuum of Realism Core Expansions and Time Machines Instruction Density Monopoly and Hegemony Competition and Decentralization Literacy and Printing Orality, Perception, and Copresence Consensus Distance and Frontstages

Conclusion

Appendix: Theses

References

Index

Related Books