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First published in 1976, this book is concerned with the nature of classification in the social sciences. Its thesis is that classifications are dependent upon and are derived from theoretical explanations. Classification is not a theoretically neutral typification or ordering of social forms. This is because objects classified – societies, social institutions – are not given to knowledge independently of the categories which construct them and because the categories of classification are themselves the products of theories.
Why do people like books, music, or movies that adhere consistently to genre conventions? Why is it hard for politicians to take positions that cross ideological boundaries? Why do we have dramatically different expectations of companies that are categorized as social media platforms as opposed to news media sites? The answers to these questions require an understanding of how people use basic concepts in their everyday lives to give meaning to objects, other people, and social situations and actions. In this book, a team of sociologists presents a groundbreaking model of concepts and categorization that can guide sociological and cultural analysis of a wide variety of social situations. Drawing on research in various fields, including cognitive science, computational linguistics, and psychology, the book develops an innovative view of concepts. It argues that concepts have meanings that are probabilistic rather than sharp, occupying fuzzy, overlapping positions in a “conceptual space.” Measurements of distances in this space reveal our mental representations of categories. Using this model, important yet commonplace phenomena such as our routine buying decisions can be quantified in terms of the cognitive distance between concepts. Concepts and Categories provides an essential set of formal theoretical tools and illustrates their application using an eclectic set of methodologies, from micro-level controlled experiments to macro-level language processing. It illuminates how explicit attention to concepts and categories can give us a new understanding of everyday situations and interactions.
Evolution is among the most central and most contested of ideas in the history of anthropology. This book charts the fortunes of the idea from the mid-nineteenth century to recent times. By comparing biological, historical, and anthropological approaches to the study of human culture and social life, it lays the foundation for their effective synthesis. Far ahead of its time when first published, the book anticipates debates at the forefront of contemporary thinking. Revisiting the work after almost thirty years, Tim Ingold offers a substantial new preface that describes how the book came to be written, how it was received and its bearing on later developments. Unique in scope and breadth of theoretical vision, Evolution and Social Life cuts across the boundaries of natural science and the humanities to provide a major contribution both to the history of anthropological and social thought, and to contemporary debate on the relationship between human nature, culture, and social life.
Evolutionism and Its Critics is a critical history of evolutionary theories in the social sciences and a defense of them against their many critics. Sanderson deconstructs not only the wide array of social evolutionary theories, but the criticisms of the antievolutionists. Deconstructing evolutionary theories means laying bare their fundamental epistemological, methodological, conceptual, and theoretical assumptions and principles. Deconstructing antievolutionism means showing just where and how the critics have, for the most part, gone wrong. But Evolutionism and Its Critics aims to reconstruct as well as deconstruct and does this by building on the shoulders of past giants of evolutionary theorizing a comprehensive evolutionary interpretation of human society based on abundant scientific and historical evidence.
This set traces Herbert Spencer's influence, from his contemporaries to the present day. Contributions come from across the social science disciplines and are often taken from sources which are difficult to access.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Max Weber, central thinkers to the discussion of political legitimacy, represent two very different stages and forms of social theory: early modern political philosophy and classical sociology. In these studies, Dr Merquior describes and assesses their individual contributions to the understanding of the concept of political legitimacy. Dr Merquior compares Rousseau and Weber to a handful of other major theorists and highlights the contemporary prospects of the alternatives between democratic participation and bureaucratizm. This book was first published in 1980.
Talcott Parsons (1904-79) is widely regarded as one of the most important sociologists of the twentieth century. These four volumes provide an essential guide to the thought and work of this major sociologist.
A central problem in contemporary social theory is that of providing an account of social interaction that does justice both to the self-monitoring capacities of the individuals involved and to the society that ‘frames’ the interaction. This book attempts to resolve this problem, arguing for an objectivist or ‘structuralist’ account which does not undervalue the importance of the indexical and negotiated aspects of interaction, and which takes seriously the Marxist-rationalist critique of empiricism and humanism and the associated idea that society should be treated as a supra-individual, preconstituted and constraining object of scientific analysis. First, Dr Layder pinpoints certain of the strengths and weaknesses of various schools of thought: social psychology (scrutinized in both its sociological and psychological forms), sociology, the Marxist-rationalist approach. Whilst rejecting the mechanistic or naively deterministic theories which are often associated with an objectivist stance, he argues that the productive activities of situated actors must be understood as existing in an articulated relationship with, and within, sets of preconstituted contextual constraints. This thesis is illustrated conceptually by the development of a framework which distinguishes two types and levels of social structure, with different modes of production and reproduction, and empirically by an analysis of aspects of interaction in the occupation of acting.
The concept of industrial society plays a dominant role in the social sciences. The ‘Great Divide’ between pre-industrial and industrial societies is commonly assumed to be the main bridge separating modern societies from the past, and distinguishing ‘developed’ from ‘undeveloped’ states in the present era. In history, economics, politics and sociology the concept of industrial society underlies a wide variety of discussions, particularly those relating to economic development and social progress. Outside academic writing, too, the concept exerts a great deal of influence. In the developing world, there is a widespread concern to ‘industrialise’, whilst in the developed world there is growing uneasiness as to whether ‘industrialisation’ is beneficial or not, but still the concept is central. This book examines critically the concept of industrial society, its pervasiveness and influence. It reviews all the major theories of industrial society and the research into the changing character of post-industrial societies. It argues that the decision to use the concept severely restricts the social imagination, and that the concept becomes increasingly less useful as criticism of the equating of industrialisation with social progress grows.
First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.