Sociological Theory
A sociological theory is a that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective,Macionis, John and Linda M. Gerber. 2010. ''Sociology'' (7th Canadian ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. . drawing connections between individual concepts in order to organize and substantiate sociological knowledge. Hence, such knowledge is composed of complex theoretical frameworks and methodology. These theories range in scope, from concise, yet thorough, descriptions of a single social process to broad, inconclusive paradigms for analysis and interpretation. Some sociological theories explain aspects of the social world and enable prediction about future events, while others function as broad perspectives which guide further sociological analyses. Prominent sociological theorists include Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Randall Collins, James Samuel Coleman, Peter Blau, Niklas Luhmann, Immanuel Wallerstein, George H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Reality
Social reality refers to a socially constructed perspective of the world, consisting of the accepted social tenets of a community involving laws and social representations. It is distinct from biological reality or individual cognitive reality, representing as it does on a subjective level created through social interaction and thereby transcending individual motives and actions. Radical constructivism would cautiously describe social reality as the product of uniformities among observers (whether or not including the current observer themselves). Schütz, Durkheim, and Spencer The problem of social reality has been treated exhaustively by philosophers in the phenomenological tradition, particularly Alfred Schütz, who used the term "social world" to designate this distinct level of reality. Within the social world, Schütz distinguished between social reality that could be experienced directly (''umwelt'') and a social reality beyond the immediate horizon, which could yet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerhard Lenski
Gerhard Emmanuel "Gerry" Lenski, Jr. (August 13, 1924 – December 7, 2015) was an American sociologist known for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality, and introducing the ecological-evolutionary theory. He spent much of his career as a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served as chair of the Department of Sociology, 1969–72, and as chair of the Division of Social Sciences, 1976–78. Life and career Lenski was born and raised in Washington, DC, the son of a Lutheran pastor, the grandson of German-born theologian Richard Charles Henry Lenski, and the nephew of children's author Lois Lenski. He attended Yale University where he received a BA degree in 1947, after serving as a cryptographer with the 8th Air Force in England in World War II, and then earned his PhD from Yale in 1950. Lenski was awarded a Pre-doctoral Fellowship by the Social Science Research Council, 1949–50, and later a Senior Faculty Fello ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Continental Philosophy
Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or self: , "It is with Kant that philosophical claims about the self attain new and remarkable proportions. The self becomes not just the focus of attention but the entire subject-matter of philosophy. The self is not just another entity in the world, but in an important sense it creates the world, and the reflecting self does not just know itself, but in knowing itself knows all selves, and the structure of any and every possible self." Continental philosophy includes German idealism, Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, Feminism in France, Fren ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason of 17th-century thought and the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. Commentators variously consider the era of modernity to have ended by 1930, with World War II in 1945, or as late as the period falling between the 1980s and 1990s; the following era is often referred to as "postmodernity". The term "contemporary history" is also used to refer to the post-1945 timeframe, without assigning it to either the modern or postmodern era. (Thus "modern" may be used as a name of a particular era in the past, as opposed to meaning "the current era".) Depending on the field, modernity may refer to different time periods or qualities. In historiography, the 16th to 18th centuries are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Critique
Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oral discourse. Although critique is frequently understood as fault finding and negative judgment, Rodolphe Gasché (2007''The honor of thinking: critique, theory, philosophy''pp. 12–13 quote: it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt. The contemporary sense of critique has been largely influenced by the Enlightenment critique of prejudice and authority, which championed the emancipation and autonomy from religious and political authorities. The term ''critique'' derives, via French, from the Greek word (), meaning "the faculty of judging", that is, discerning the value of persons or things. Critique is also known as major logic, as opposed to minor logic or dialectics. Critique in philosophy Philosophy is the application of critical thought, and is the disciplined practice of processing the ''theory/praxis problem''. In phi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Commentary
Social commentary is the act of using rhetorical means to provide commentary on social, cultural, political, or economic issues in a society. This is often done with the idea of implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace about a given problem and appealing to people's sense of justice. Social commentary can be practiced through all forms of communication, from printed form, to conversations to computerized communication,including visual arts, photography, literature, public speaking, music, film, television, comic strips, and digital media. Examples range from visual art like graffiti addressing social issues, photography documenting humanitarian crises, literary and film works critiquing social injustices, dystopian fiction exploring societal control, rap music highlighting racial and economic disparities, to internet-based platforms fostering open discussions. Forms This list is far from exhaustive. Examples of social commentary may be found in any f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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SAGE Publishing
Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American Independent business, independent Academic publishing, academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park, California, Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage Publishing has offices located across North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. In North America, Sage Publishing has offices in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Toronto. The European operations are headquartered in London, London, United Kingdom. In the Asia Pacific region, Sage Publishing has established offices in Melbourne, Australia, India and Singapore. It publishes more than 1,000 journals, more than 800 books a year, reference works and electronic products covering business, humanities, social sciences, science, technology and medicine. SAGE also owns and publishes under the imprints of Corwin Press (since 1990), CQ Press (since 2008), Learning Matters (since ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Value Judgment
A value judgment (or normative judgement) is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something or someone, or of the usefulness of something or someone, based on a comparison or other relativity. As a generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values or on a particular value system. A related meaning of value judgment is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand, where said evaluation was undertaken because a decision had to be made on short notice. Judgmentalism may refer to an overly critical or moralistic attitude or behaviour.Oxford English Dictionaryjudgementalism , judgmentalism accessed on 28 October 2024 Explanation A ''value judgment'' is a thought about something based on what it "ought" or "should" be given an opinion about what counts as "good" or "bad" — a contrast from a thought based on what the facts are. E.g. "The government should improve access to education" is a value judgment (that educa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Objectivity (philosophy)
The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is a basic idea of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Various understandings of this distinction have evolved through the work of countless philosophers over centuries. One basic distinction is: *Something is subjective if it is dependent on a mind ( biases, perception, emotions, opinions, imagination, or conscious experience). Solomon, Robert C.br>"Subjectivity" in Honderich, Ted. '' Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' (Oxford University Press, 2005), p.900. If a claim is true exclusively when considering the claim from the viewpoint of a sentient being, it is subjectively true. For example, one person may consider the weather to be pleasantly warm, and another person may consider the same weather to be too hot; both views are subjective. *Something is objective if it can be confirmed independently of a mind. If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it may be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scientific Method
The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and medieval world. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous skepticism, because Philosophy of science#Observation inseparable from theory, cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the Perception#Process and terminology, observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a testable hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results. Although procedures vary across Branches of science, fields, the underlying #Process, process is often similar. In more detail: the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), predicting the logical consequences of hypothesis, then ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Testability
Testability is a primary aspect of science and the scientific method. There are two components to testability: #Falsifiability or defeasibility, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible. #The practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist. In short, a hypothesis is testable if there is a possibility of deciding whether it is true or false based on experimentation by anyone. This allows anyone to decide whether a theory can be supported or refuted by data. However, the interpretation of experimental data may be also inconclusive or uncertain. Karl Popper introduced the concept that scientific knowledge had the property of falsifiability as published in '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery''.Karl Popper "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", 1934 (as ''Logik der Forschung'', English translation 1959), ISBN 0415278449 and 2002 ISBN 9780415278447, 0415278449 See also * Confirmability * Controlla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abstraction
Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the outcome of this process — a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts and connects any related concepts as a ''group'', ''field'', or ''category''.Suzanne K. Langer (1953), ''Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key'', p. 90: "Sculpture, Sculptural form is a powerful abstraction from actual objects and the three-dimensional space which we construe ... through sensory system, touch and sight." Conceptual abstractions may be made by filtering the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, selecting only those aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to the more general idea of a ball selects only the in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |