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John Searle's social ontology seels for nothing less than the fundamental "structure of human civilization". By trying to reconcile the description of the world by the natural sciences with our self-understanding as free, rational and conscious beings, he points to the core of meaningful social life with its institutions, rules and normative expectations. Searle's often provocative project of explaining "the exact role of language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality" manifested in his book "Making the Social World" (2010) and outlined in this volume, is taken on by philosophers and social scientists in a critical encounter. Among the large range of topics discussed in these articles are Searle's concept of collective intentionality, the status of social facts, the social acceptance of institutions, the magic of speech acts as well as Searle's excursion into the world of power and human rights. Not least, these reflections help to clarify the sometimes conflict-laden relation of philosophy and social theory.
There are few more important philosophers at work today than John Searle, a creative and contentious thinker who has shaped the way we think about mind and language. Now he offers a profound understanding of how we create a social reality--a reality of money, property, governments, marriages, stock markets and cocktail parties. The paradox he addresses in Making the Social World is that these facts only exist because we think they exist and yet they have an objective existence. Continuing a line of investigation begun in his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality, Searle identifies the precise role of language in the creation of all "institutional facts." His aim is to show how mind, language and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how a single linguistic operation, repeated over and over, is used to create and maintain the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle then applies the account to show how it relates to human rationality, the freedom of the will, the nature of political power and the existence of universal human rights. In the course of his explication, he asks whether robots can have institutions, why the threat of force so often lies behind institutions, and he denies that there can be such a thing as a "state of nature" for language-using human beings.
In this provocative analysis of the central issues and developments in modern social theory, Dr Strasser contends that enquiry into the function, tasks and mission of sociology as a discipline can be understood only in relation to the subject's historical development. He believes that a discussion of the origin and intention of sociology, particularly in relation to the established social order, enables us to grasp fully the nature of sociological theory, both past and present. He maintains that a sociologist's own position in society, and consequently his views on its development and his way of expressing those views, will affect the theoretical position he takes up.
The great civilizations of the world are very different from one another, indeed more strangely different the closer they come in economic, social, and cultural interaction. Yet each claims to be a normative way of being human. At the very minimum human achievement requires competence in the conventions of one's own civilization. To be human is to participate in a conventional culture, and the normatively human conventional cultures are different. Here is the "clash of civilizations": Without commitment to some conventions of civilized humanity, no one can be human; yet the conventions are different, perhaps even opposed. Two problems bring philosophy to the refiner's fire. How can we conceive of human culture across the differences of civilized cultures? This is a problem about the nature of theory itself. It calls for a new theory of theorizing that at once provides synoptic understanding and recognized differences and incommensurabilities. Many postmodern critics have thundered against theories that oppress by the value-laden bias of their own forms, and by the interest guiding their forms. Neville provides a theory of theories that responds to these challenges and addresses the problem of theorizing across different cultures. The other problem is how to exercise practical reason across cultures expressive of different civilizations. How can human beings be responsible in a world where all values seem culture-bound and the obvious solution seems to be moral relativism that trivializes responsibility? Neville presents a theory of practical reason oriented to objective norms determined cross-culturally and based on a Confucian sense of the ritual character of the most important levels of moral life. This book completes Neville's series, Axiology of Thinking, a trilogy of systematically related studies of valuation in four kinds of thinking: imagination, interpretation, theorizing, and the pursuit of responsibility. Reconstruction of Thinking and Recovery of the Measure, both published by SUNY Press, are companion volumes.
Elucidates and argues for the author's concept of human history from the past to the present.
"The exploration of the social conditions that facilitate or retard the search for scientific knowledge has been the major theme of Robert K. Merton's work for forty years. This collection of papers [is] a fascinating overview of this sustained inquiry. . . . There are very few other books in sociology . . . with such meticulous scholarship, or so elegant a style. This collection of papers is, and is likely to remain for a long time, one of the most important books in sociology."—Joseph Ben-David, New York Times Book Review "The novelty of the approach, the erudition and elegance, and the unusual breadth of vision make this volume one of the most important contributions to sociology in general and to the sociology of science in particular. . . . Merton's Sociology of Science is a magisterial summary of the field."—Yehuda Elkana, American Journal of Sociology "Merton's work provides a rich feast for any scientist concerned for a genuine understanding of his own professional self. And Merton's industry, integrity, and humility are permanent witnesses to that ethos which he has done so much to define and support."—J. R. Ravetz, American Scientist "The essays not only exhibit a diverse and penetrating analysis and a deal of historical and contemporary examples, with concrete numerical data, but also make genuinely good reading because of the wit, the liveliness and the rich learning with which Merton writes."—Philip Morrison, Scientific American "Merton's impact on sociology as a whole has been large, and his impact on the sociology of science has been so momentous that the title of the book is apt, because Merton's writings represent modern sociology of science more than any other single writer."—Richard McClintock, Contemporary Sociology
In this provocative analysis of the central issues and developments in modern social theory, Dr Strasser contends that enquiry into the function, tasks and mission of sociology as a discipline can be understood only in relation to the subject's historical development. He believes that a discussion of the origin and intention of sociology, particularly in relation to the established social order, enables us to grasp fully the nature of sociological theory, both past and present. He maintains that a sociologist's own position in society, and consequently his views on its development and his way of expressing those views, will affect the theoretical position he takes up.