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Sociologists
Associated with the Frankfurt School (q.v.), Adorno spent much of his life in his
native Germany, but between 1934 and 1960 he lived mainly in the United States, where he
had fled as a refugee from Nazi Germany. He had wide interests in philosophy and in social
and cultural studies generally, especially music. Very much influenced by Marxism, Adorno
argued that social theory had to maintain a critical edge. On this basis he attacked many
of the approaches used in social studies, particularly those claiming to be scientific and
quantitative, on the grounds that they did not provide a basis for the transformation of
society. He is probably best known to sociologists for his critique of mass culture in the
modern world. This he saw as being purveyed by a culture industry and as manipulative of
the masses. Adorno's work is diffuse, but the books of most sociological interest are Prisms
(1967), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1973) and Minima Moralia (1974). He also
contributed to The Authoritarian Personality (1950). See: Authoritarian
Personality; Marcuse; Marxist Sociology; Mass Society. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:7] Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#ADORNO http://www.popcultures.com/theorists/adorno.html http://pratt.edu/~arch543p/help/Adorno.html http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-ador.htm http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~cmnF93/adorno.html A French Marxist philosopher, Althusser (1966; 1968; 1971) has had influence on contemporary sociology in four main directions. (I) He has attempted to reformulate the base and superstructure (q.v.) model, because he objects to the economic determinism (q.v.) which he believes is implicit in most accounts of that model. Instead of seeing superstructural elements, such as ideology and politics, simply as reflections of the economic base, he proposes a scheme in which ideology and politics are conditions of existence (q.v.) of the economy. Althusser has been partly responsible for the interest shown in the concept of the mode of production (q.v.) which he considers as a complex relationship of economy, ideology and politics. (2) Althusser has attempted to redefine the nature of ideology. He argues that ideology should be seen as a real social relation, or as a practice, not as an illusion as it is in conventional analyses. (3) The most influential of Althusser's specific proposals is his concept of ideological state apparatuses (q.v.), itself a notion deriving from A. Gramsci. For capitalist societies to continue over time, the relations of production (q.v.) must be reproduced, a requirement that is met by the ideological state apparatuses, for example, institutions of the media and education. (4) Althusser has advanced a number of arguments which touch on the old sociological debate about the relation of agency and structure. Essentially, Althusser objects to theories which reduce explanation to the characteristics of individuals or collections of individuals, for example, classes. Instead, individuals have to be seen as bearers or agents of the structures of social relations. There has been a great deal of criticism of Althusserianism from within conventional sociology, concentrating on the school's theoreticism, its neglect of relevant evidence, its dogmatism and its departure Mom Marxist principles, particularly that of the primacy of the economy. See: Agency and Structure; Marx; Marxist Sociology; Mode of Production; Structuralism. Bibl. Callinicos (1976); Thompson (1978) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:15] Internet Links: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/ http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/cbrooke/aacra/althusser.htm http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/althusse.html http://www.popcultures.com/theorist.htm http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/taccheri2.html http://www.anu.edu.au/english/althusser.html Often associated with French structuralism (q.v.), his idiosyncratic approach to
literature and society is complex, combining sociology, semiology, literary criticism,
structural anthropology and Marxism. He has made important contributions to the analysis
of culture, texts and ideology. His works include Mythologies (1957), Writing
Degree Zero (1953), S/Z (1970), The Pleasure of the Text (1975) and Sade,
Fourier. Loyola (1971). See: Myth; Semiotics; Tel Quel Group. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:27] Internet Links: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rbarthes.htm http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/critical/barthes.htm http://www.english.udel.edu/ardis/e300/barthes2.html http://kirjasto.sci.fi/rbarthes.htm http://www.erraticimpact.com/~20thcentury/html/barthes_roland.htm http://www.cwd.co.uk/babel/barthes.htm A French sociologist, originally critical of the neglect of consumption in Marxist economic theory, Baudrillard has turned increasingly to the analysis of the production, exchange and consumption of signs and symbols in a consumer society (q.v.). He argues that the electronic media of communication falsify social relations which become merely simulations of social reality. He has been concerned to understand the nature of mass society and mass communications. Because social reality is a simulation, he claims that society becomes hyperreal. His major works are: For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972); The Mirror of Production (1973); L'Echange Symbolique et la Mort (1976); In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities (1978); Seduction (1979); Simulations (198l); Fatal Strategies (1983); America (1986). Critics disagree sharply as to the importance of Baudrillard's work. See: Postmodernism; Sign; Situationists. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:29] Internet Links: http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/panop/baudrillard.htm http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/baud/ http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/baudweb.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#BAUDRILLARD http://www.uta.edu/english/cgb/Baud2/front3.html http://www.netspace.org/users/erica/Mobius/links.html http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~mnunes/jbnet.html German sociologist of risk and the environment. Professor of Sociology at University of Munich since 1992, Beck has written Risk Society (1986), Counterpoison (1991), Ecological Enlightenment (1992), Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk (1994), Democracy without Enemies (1998), with Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. Internet Links: http://www.erica.demon.co.uk/EV/EV814.html http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/jbl10211.htm http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/sociology/staff/beck.htm http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/articles/leiss.html As a contemporary representative of the tradition of the Chicago School (q.v.), his principal contributions to contemporary sociology have been in occupational socialization in Boys in White (1961), to the investigation of deviant subcultures and careers in Outsiders (1963), and to the study of youth culture and higher education in Making the Grade (1968) and Campus Power Struggle (1970a). He also wrote Sociological Work, Method and Substance (1970b). See: Career, Deviant Behavior, Labelling Theory. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:29] Internet Links: http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/hbecker/ http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#BECKER http://tikkun.ed.asu.edu/edrev/reviews/rev58.htm http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/becker.htm An American sociologist whose principal interests are social theory and the sociology of religion but who has also written on third world issues the sociology of the family and political sociology. (He is also a novelist.) His works are influenced by classical sociology, especially that of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, and phenomenological sociology (q.v.). His work is underpinned by a wish to reconcile human autonomy with the coercive powers of social structure in a sociology of interpretation (q.v.). His most influential books are: Invitation to Sociology (1963); The Social Construction of Reality (1966); The Sacred Canopy (1967); The Home-less Mind (1973); Facing up to Modernity (1977); The War Over the Family (1983); The Capitalist Revolution (1986). See: Agency and Structure. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:29] Internet Links: http://www.bu.edu/sth/faculty/berger.htm http://www.worsfold98.freeserve.co.uk/learning/thought/berger.html http://www.theology.ie/thinkers/berger.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#BERGER Beveridge, William Henry (1879-1963) He is best known for his role in the extension of social services and the creation of
the welfare state (q.v.) in post-war Britain. In 1941, Beveridge was appointed chairman of
a civil service inquiry into the management of the social services. The report of this
inquiry, Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), popularly known as the
Beveridge Report set out the principles which after the war guided the establishment of
the welfare state. Idleness, ignorance, disease, squalor and want were identified as the
major hazards facing individuals in industrial society, which should be remedied by
government. The report recommended a national health service, social insurance and
assistance, family allowances, and full-employment policies. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:31] Internet Links: http://www.xrefer.com/entry/168418 http://www.blpes.lse.ac.uk/archives/socialreformeractivists/bev.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/medicine/nonint/modern/ph/mophbi2.shtml http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/01424.html http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/beveridge.htm http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0807383.html Blau, An American sociologist who has contributed to exchange theory (q.v.) and conducted major empirical investigations of the United States occupational structure and the structure of business organizations. His major works are: The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (1955); Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (1962), with W. R. Scott; Exchange and Power in Social Life (1964); The American Occupational Structure (1967), with O. D. Duncan; The Structure of Organizations ([971), with R. A. Schoenherr. See: Exchange Theory; Social Mobility. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:29] Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#BLAU http://home.att.net/~cscavileer/blau.html http://wizard.ucr.edu/~bkaplan/soc/lib/blauexch.html A professor of sociology at the College de France, Paris, Bourdieu is best known for his work in the sociology of culture and education but deserves to be better known for his more general sociological theory. Several of his books have been translated into English, including Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977a), Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (1977b) and Distinction (1984). See: Cultural Capital. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:37] Internet Links: http://www.georgetown.edu/grad/CCT/tbase/bourdieu.html http://www.massey.ac.nz/~NZSRDA/bourdieu/pierre.htm http://www.utu.fi/erill/RUSE/blink.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#BOURDIEU http://www.georgetown.edu/grad/CCT/tbase/bourdieu.html Until the appearance of Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital, the renaissance of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s had confined itself either to theories of the state, ideology, education or to capitalism as economic system, leaving Marx's analysis of production largely untouched. It was the unproblematic prop for the Marxian edifice. It was Braverman who took up the challenge of rewriting volume one of Capital, producing a history of capitalism's expropriation of control from direct producers. First proletarianized, then deskilled, the working class -- he among them -- was subject to the inexorable logic of capital. Where industrial sociology and industrial psychology aimed to attune workers to work, Braverman focused on the transformation of work itself. For the empirical exploration of the subjective side of work -- attitudes, perceptions, consciousness and even conflict -- Braverman substituted a critique of capitalism from the standpoint of its artisans. In expelling the craftworker, the capitalist labor process divided mental from manual labor, so that workers could no longer imaginatively fabricate the products of their labor. In his historical analysis of the degradation of work, Braverman was simultaneously recounting the objective experience of the worker and the recomposition of class structure. [Michael Burawoy. U.C. Berkeley. ] Internet Links: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/blmc1.html http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/braver.html http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/blmc1.html Inventor of the term 'sociology', first publicly used in the fourth volume of Cours de philosophie positive (1838), Comte was secretary to G. Saint-Simon, and there has long been a debate over the relative importance of these two writers for socialism and sociology. Comte thought that sociology was a science employing observation, experimentation and comparison, which was specifically relevant to the new social order of industrial Europe. Comte's scientific positivism (q.v.) was conjoined with an evolutionary view of society and thought which he saw progressing through three stages: theological, metaphysical and positive. Human societies evolve through three major stages of development (primitive, intermediary and scientific). Human thought progressed by a process of decreasing generality and increasing complexity. Employing an organic analogy (q.v.), Comte argued that society, through the division of labour, also became more complex, differentiated and specialized. The division of labour, along with language and religion, created social solidarity, but also generated new social divisions between classes and between the private and public domains. Sociology, standing at the pinnacle of the sciences, was to proceed in terms of an analysis ofsocial dynamics and social statics. The first would consider the general laws of social development, while the second concentrated on the 'anatomy' of society and the mutual interaction between its constituents. Comte studied the functional contribution of social institutions (such as the family, property and the state) to the continuity of social order. While his view of the interconnectedness of elements of the social system anticipated functionalism (q.v.), Comte's view of sociology is now generally regarded as arcane. See: Division of Labour; Durkheim; Evolutionary Theory; Saint-Simon; Sociology BibI. Coser (1971) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:78] Internet Links: http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/Comte.htm http://www.multimania.com/clotilde/urls.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#COMTE http://www.pagesz.net/~stevek/intellect/comte.html http://teach.eac.cc.az.us/smith/comte.htm Cooley, Charles Horton (1864-1929) Cooley was one of the first generation of American sociologists, but an eccentric who differed from most of his peers. Whereas the majority of the pioneers were Social Darwinians, Cooley was a less mechanical evolutionist: most were reformists, often inspired by religion, while Cooley was more artistic and romantic; and most were aiming to make sociology a rigorously objective (positivist) science, but Cooley was an idealist, more concerned with introspection and imagination - one of the earliest of humanistic sociologists. Cooley sought to abolish the dualisms of society/individual and body/mind, emphasizing instead their interconnections, and conceptualizing them as functional and organic wholes. The root problem of social science was the mutual interrelationship between the individual and social order. In his view, the concepts of the 'individual' and of 'society' could be defined only in relationship to each other, since human life was essentially a matter of social intercourse - of society shaping the individual and individuals shaping society. However, his critics did not see him as being successful in this enterprise, ultimately siding too much with the individual and idealism. Cooley launched his career 'in defiance of categories', refusing to label himself a sociologist, and seeking instead to merge history, philosophy, and social psychology. Two of his concepts have, nevertheless, captured the sociological imagination. The first is the looking-glass self: the way in which the individual's sense of self is 'mirrored' and reflected through others. This was an idea later to be greatly expanded by William James and George Herbert Mead in their attempts to build a general theory of the self. The second of Cooley's lasting concepts is that of the 'primary group', characterized by close, intimate, face-to-face interaction, which Cooley contrasted with the larger and more disparate 'nucleated group' (subsequently referred to more commonly as the 'secondary group'), whose members were rarely if ever all in direct contact. (Families or friendship circles are typical primary groups; trade unions and political parties are characteristically secondary groups.) Cooley was both a student and professor at the University of Michigan. His major works are Human Nature and the Social Order (1902). Social Organisation (1909). and Social Process (1918). See also SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM. [Gordon Marshall, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, Oxford: OUP, 1998:120] Internet Links: http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca/~lward/Cooley/cool_20.html http://wizard.ucr.edu/~bkaplan/soc/lib/coollkgl.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#COOLEY http://www.slider.com/enc/13000/Cooley_Charles_Horton.htm A German sociologist who has contributed to class theory and role theory, Dahrendorf was formerly a professor of sociology in Germany, then a European Economic Community Commissioner, and recently Director of the London School of Economics. His major works are: Class and Class Conflict in an Industrial Society (1959); 'Conflict after Class' (1967a); Society and Democracy in Germany (1967b); The New Liberty (1975); Life Chances (1979). See: Conflict Theory; Imperatively Coordinated Association; Institutionalization of Conflict; Service Class. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:101] Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#DAHRENDORF He is widely acknowledged as a 'founding father' of modern sociology who helped to
define the subject matter and establish the autonomy of sociology as a discipline. He
taught first at the University of Bordeaux and then at the Sorbonne in Paris. In his first major work, The Division of Labour in Society (1893), he argued against the British writer H. Spencer that social order in industrial societies could not adequately be explained as an outcome of contractual agreements between individuals motivated by self-interest, because the pursuit of self-interest would lead to social instability, as manifest in various forms of social deviance such as suicide. He distinguished the forms of social order found in primitive and modern societies. Mechanical solidarity in primitive societies was based on the common beliefs and consensus found in the conscience collective (q.v.). As societies industrialized and urbanized and became more complex, the increasing division of labour destroyed mechanical solidarity arid moral integration, thus rendering social order problematic. He was well aware at the time he was writing that industrial societies exhibited many conflicts and that force was an important factor in preventing social disruption. He believed, however, that a new form of order would arise in advanced societies on the basis of organic solidarity. This would comprise the interdependence of economic ties arising out of differentiation and specialization within the modern economy, a new network of occupational associations such as guilds that would link individuals to the state, and the emergence within these associations of collectively created moral restraints on egoism. T. Parsons (1937; 1968a) interpreted organic solidarity as the continuation of the conscience collective in a modified form, suggesting that Durkheim's analysis of social order in modern society demanded a prior consensus and moral order, and this view has proved influential. Evidence for this interpretation can be drawn from a variety of Durkheim's publications. For example, in two pamphlets written during the First World War Durkheim noted that the communal experience of warfare had created a moral consensus in France and involvement in public ceremonies which resembled religious festivals. In his sociology of religion, Durkheim also argued that modern society would require some form of conscience collective relevant to contemporary circumstances - an argument clearly dependent on Saint-Simon's conception of the New Christianity. However, it is difficult to reconcile this view of the continuing importance of religious values in modern societies, which Durkheim appears to have accepted towards the end of his life, with the argument of The Division of Labour in Society which recognized the importance of economic reciprocity (q.v.) in creating social consensus. There has been considerable controversy over the continuity of the theme of moral consensus in Durkheim's sociology. Parsons (1937) argued that the early emphasis on social facts in a positivistic framework collapsed as Durkheim adopted a voluntaristic action framework. An alternative view suggests that the central theme of Durkheim's sociology was the idea of moral compulsion and normative constraint. The changes in Durkheim's epistemology did not produce significant discontinuities in his sociology of moral life. He saw the domain of sociology as the study of social facts and not individuals. He believed both that societies had their own realities which could not simply be reduced to the actions and motives of individuals, and that individuals were moulded and constrained by their social environments. In 1895 he wrote The Rules of Sociological Method, in which he demonstrated that law was a social fact, embodied in formal, codified rules and not dependent on individuals or on any particular act of law enforcement for its existence. In Suicide (1897), he explained how even apparently individual decisions to commit suicide could be understood as being affected by the different forms of social solidarity in different social settings. He identified four types of suicide (q.v.) on the basis of his analysis of the suicide statistics of different societies and different groups within them. 'Egotistic' and 'anomic' forms of suicide were most commonly found in modern societies where, as The Division of Labour in Society had previously shown, traditional forms of social regulation and integration like the conscience collective of n~echanical solidarity had declined. The higher incidence of 'egotistic' suicides among modern Protestants than Catholics reflected an individualistic ethos in which individuals were responsible for their own salvation. 'Anomie' suicides occurred when the individual experienced a state of normlessness or when norms conflicted. Both forms were to be found when the social checks on individual behaviour typical of traditional societies had lost their force. In primitive societies and in armies in modern societies, where mechanical solidarity was stronger, 'altruistic' suicides for the good of the group were more common. Fatalistic suicides, for example among slaves, were the result of excessive social regulation. Although there have been major criticisms of his approach (Atkinson, 1978), Durkheim's Suicide represents the most influential sociological contribution to this issue. He came to see social norms as regulating people's behaviour by means of institutionalized values which the individual internalized, rather than society simply acting as an external constraint. In 1912, in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he suggested that primitive religions embodied the idea of society and that sacred objects were so because they symbolized the community. Religious culture consisted of the collective values which comprised a society's unity and personality. Religious ceremonies served to reinforce collective values and reaffirm community among individuals. This process was clearly identifiable in primitive societies, though Durkheim recognized how difficult it was to find similar sacred objects and collective rituals in modern organic societies. His approach to the sacred/profane dichotomy represents a niajor alternative to arguments about secularization (q.v.). Durkheim was concerned to understand the universal functions of religious systems for the continuity of society as such. In Primitive Classification (1903), written with M. Mauss, he argued that the fundamental categories of human thought, such as number, time and space, were modelled upon features of social organization. In his political writings he expressed concern at the dangers to society of individuals who do not feel that social norms are meaningful to them, who are in a state of anomie (q.v.). He saw the attraction of socialism to the working class as a protest against the disintegration of traditional social bonds and values, rather than as a desire for the abolition of private property per se. He advocated guild socialism as a means of rebuilding cohesive and solidary social communities. See: Differentiation; Division of Labour; Guild; Norm; Official Statistics; Religion; Sacred; Social Order; Social Pathology; Suicide. Bibl. Lukes (1972); Giddens (1978) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:130] Internet Links: http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/durkheim/durk.htm http://www.spc.uchicago.edu/ssr1/PRELIMS/Theory/durkheim.html http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/durkheim.html http://www.d.umn.edu/~jhamlin1/durkheim.html After fleeing from Germany in 1933, Elias held academic posts in sociology at the universities of Leicester (1954-62) and Ghana (1962-4). He was also professor emeritus at the University of Frankfurt and visiting professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld. His major work (Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation) was neglected at the time of publication in 1939, but has subsequently come to be regarded as a classic of historical sociology since its recent publication as The Civilizing Process (1939a and 1939b). His major interest has been the pacification of medieval society through the development of individual, moral forms of restraint in codes such as table-manners and etiquette. The development of the state as a system of social regulation has been accompanied by the emergence of civilized systems of self-control. In The Court Society (1969), he studied the evolution of ceremony in the French court before the Revolution, the economic decline of aristocratic society as a result of its internal competition for influence, and the emergence of bourgeois society. The impact of individual norms of restraint on the process of dying in a secular society has been outlined in The Loneliness of the Dying (1982). He has also made important contributions to theoretical problems in sociology. For example, in What is Sociology? (1970) he developed the idea of figurational analysis; the reciprocity between people creates the figurations of social interaction which develop in ways which are unplanned. Concepts like group or community refer to figurations of interdependent individuals. His contribution to the sociology of knowledge has been published in Involvement and Detachment (1986). [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:138] Internet Links: http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/social/elias/book/cover.html http://home.planet.nl/~elias/home.html http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/social/elias.html A German-born industrialist whose family partly owned a textile business in Manchester, Engels spent most of his adult life working in England. He was the close collaborator and friend of K. Marx, introducing him to economics in the 1840s, later supporting him financially, then spending years preparing the manuscripts of Capital, vols. 2 and 3, for publication after Marx's death. In 1844 Engels published a newspaper article, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, which analysed capitalism as an economic system based on private property and class conflict and criticized the contradictions of liberal economics. This led to the association with Marx, and jointly they wrote The Holy Family (1845 a), The German Ideology (1845b) and the Communist Manifesto (1848). Engels' own contributions to the development of Marxism were varied. (1) After Marx's death, he suggested that superstructural elements such as law and ideology had some independence of the economic base and might on occasion determine it, separating the economic from other factors in a way that Marx rarely did. (2) He laid the foundations of what came to be known as dialectical materialism (q.v.) in AntiDuhring (1877-8) and the posthumously published Dialectics of Nature (I952). (3) Influenced by C. Darwin, he believed that social development followed evolutionary principles and he emphasized the notion of unilinear development more strongly than Marx. (4) He attempted to develop Marxism on a natural scientific basis, natural science being conceived as both materialistic and following dialectical laws. His work also covered history, anthropology and military commentary. The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), based mainly on direct observation of Manchester and Salford, remains the classic description of working-class life in industrializing England, though modern historians debate whether the wretched living standards Engels describes were in fact an improvement on what went before or, as Engels claims, a deterioration. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) is notable for its condemnation of women's subjugation and its association of patriarchy (q.v.) with private property, though its anthropological base is discredited. See: Base and Superstnicture; Ideology; Marx; Matriarchy. Bibl. McLellan (1977) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:143] Internet Links: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUengels.htm http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/socsja/SC2202/Forces/TwoStoriesa.html http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/ARTICLES/0375/03974144_Q.html http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/engels.html http://csf.colorado.edu/marx/Bio/Photo/index1.htm Representative of a pervasive French influence in contemporary sociology, Foucault has provided a major critique of conventional methodology and assumptions in historiography and sociology. His approach has been particularly influential in historical studies of the asylum, prison and clinic. The main topics of his published works are knowledge, power and the human body. In Discipline and Punish (1975), he studied the development of new systenis of knowledge (penology and criminology), new forms of architecture (pailopticism) and new disciplines of social regulation. In Madness and Civilization (1961), he traced social reaction to madness from the medieval 'ship of fools' through the asylum to the nineteenth-century 'moral treatment'. Similarly, The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and History of Sexuality (1976) are focused on the control of the body through the medium of rational, systematic knowledge. The more abstract problems of discourse are dealt with in The Order of Things (1966) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In his final lectures, Foucault traced the genealogy of the self through the Christian confessional. He studied how the self is created and subjected to relations of power in terms of 'techniques of the self' (1993). See: Discourse; Madness. Bibl. Cousins and Hussain (1984); Smart (1985) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:172] Internet Links: http://sociology.about.com/science/sociology/cs/foucaultmichel/ http://tigger.uic.edu/~nhighb1/terms.htm http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/foucault.bio.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#FOUCAULT http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~possible/foucault.html http://www.haberarts.com/foucault.htm http://www.mnstate.edu/borchers/Teaching/Rhetoric/RhetoricWeb/Foucault/foucault.html http://www.qut.edu.au/edu/cpol/foucault/ http://landow.stg.brown.edu/cpace/theory/foucault.html http://nakayama.org/polylogos/philosophers/foucault/index-e.html http://www.sou.edu/English/IDTC/People/fouclt2.HTM http://www.popcultures.com/theorists/foucault.html http://www.tonyfitzgerald.freeserve.co.uk/BodyFoucault.htm http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/foucault.home.html German-born economist wno has held professorial posts in development studies and economics at numerous universities in Latin America, Europe and the US. Whilst by training an economist, deriving some of his key concepts on ECONOMIC SURPLUS from the Marxist political economist Paul Baran, he is one of the most influential writers within the SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT. Frank is best known for his theory of UNDERDEVELOPMENT which had an immediate impact on sociology through his critique, in Sociology of Development and the Underdevelopment of Sociology (1967a), of the structural-functionalist theory of development influenced by PARSONS and Almond and Coleman (1960). His best-known substantive work is on Latin America, especially Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin Amenca (1967b) and the collection of articles in Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution (1969). In the 1970s and 80s his work was taken up by the WORLD SYSTEM theorists, and Frank himself continued to write on global aspects of capitalism and its effects on THIRD WORLD countries. His later writings, such as Crisis: in the World Economy (1980), have been less influential in sociology than his earlier works. See also CENTRE AND PERIPHERY, METROPOLIS-SATELLITE, DENDENCY THEORY. [David Jary and Julia Jary, Collins Dictionary of Sociology. Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1971:237] Internet Links: http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/bios/gunder/gunder97cd.html http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/papers/gunder/gunderpap.htm http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Frank.A_Gunder/index.html Born in Moravia of Jewish parents, he was brought up in Vienna where he studied medicine. His early work was in the histology of the nervous system, but, influenced by J. Breuer's use of hypnosis, he made an important contribution to the study of hysteria by the use of free association (or 'talking therapy'). Their research on hysterical phenomena and psychotherapy was published as Studies on Hysteria (1895). As a consequence of this clinical work, Freud developed the basic concepts of psychoanalysis (the unconscious, repression, abreaction and transference), which were described in, for example, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1910). Freud became interested in how jokes and dreams might reveal the nature and problems of human sexuality in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (1905a). He applied the same approach to the study of lapses of memory and verbal slips in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901). Freud also developed a psychoanalysis of art in Leonardo da Vinci (1910), where he argued that paintings like 'Madonna and Child with St Anne' were products of Leonardo's homosexuality, rejection of parental authority and narcissism. The theory of childhood sexuality was outlined in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905b); his conception of the dynamics of personality was published in The Ego and the Id (1923). Freud and his colleagues founded the International Psycho-Analytical Association in 1910 in Nuremberg; they also created journals to disseminate their ideas. These were the Central Journal for Psycho-Analysis and Internal Journal for Medical Psycho-Analysis. Freud wrote an account of these institutional and theoretical developments in On the History of the Psycho-Analytical Movement (1914) and An Autobiographical Study (1925). Although Freud's psychoanalytical research covered a wide variety of issues, it was his perspective on the conflict between the instinctual gratification of the individual and the requirements of social order which was particularly influential in sociology. In his later work - The Future of an Illusion (1927), Civilization and its Discontents (1930), and Moses and Monotheism (1934-8) - Freud emphasized the contradiction between the satisfaction of sexuality and aggression for the individual and the importance of social control for civilization. The social order is a fragile compromise between sexual fulfilment, social discipline and work. Freud's theories have been influential in both sociology and Marxism. T. Parsons (q.v.) adopted Freud's account of personality development to provide the psychological underpinnings of the socialization process, but, in stressing the complementarity between personality and social systems, Parsons neglected the contradictory relationship between sexuality and social order. In Marxism, L. Althusser referred to Freud's discovery of the unconscious as parallel to K. Marx's discovery of the laws of modes of production. In the Frankfurt School (q.v.), psychoanalytical theories were adopted to develop a materialist conception of personality as a companion to Marx's materialist analysis of society. See: Althusser; Feminism; Foucault; Gellner; Gender; Myth; Patriarchy; Taboo. BibI. Bocock (1983) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:173] Internet Links: http://www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/freud.htm http://plaza.interport.net/nypsan/freudarc.html http://www.geocities.com/~mhrowell/index.html http://plaza.interport.net/nypsan/freudarc.html http://www.links2go.com/topic/Freud Between 1946 and 1952 Garfinkel trained in the Department of Social Relations at
Harvard University under the supervision of Talcott Parsons (q.v.). Responsible for
initiating a school of sociology known as ethnomethodology (q.v.), Garfinkel is interested
in analysing the methods used by people in everyday life to describe and make sense of
their own activities. His main publication is a collection of essays, Studies in
Ethnomethodology (1967). Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#GARFINKEL http://hss.fullerton.edu/sociology/laney5.htm http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/ERA/Divination/Garf/index.html Currently professor of sociology and fellow of King's College, Cambridge, he has contributed extensively to the interpretation of classical sociological theory in Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber (1972), Emile Durkheim (1978) and Sociology (1982). He attempted a resolution of the traditional problems of class analysis in The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (1973). The central theme of his perspective has been to develop the theory of action, agency and structure (q.v.) and the knowledgeability of the social actor, through a theory of structure (q.v.), in New Rules of Sociological Method (1976), Studies in Social and Political Theory (1977), Central Problems in Social Theory (1979), Profiles and Critiques ln Social Theory (1983), and The Constitution of Society (1984). He has begun an extensive critique of the theoretical limitations of historical materialism (q.v.) in A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (1981). He has also presented an innovative framework for an integration of sociology and geography in the analysis of time and space (1984). He has criticized sociology for its failure to provide an analysis of the development of the state and the impact of international conflicts on social relations in The Nation-State and Violence (1985). Giddens has been critical of postmodernism (q.v.) as a theory of society in The Consequences of Modernity (1990), preferring as an alternative the idea of the reflexivity of modernity and 'high modernity' as a definite stage in the development of society. Reflexivity is important in the development of the self, a topic explored in Modernity and Self Identity (1991). He has also explored the sociology of emotions (q.v.) in The Transformation of Intimacy (1992). [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:182] Internet Links: http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#GIDDENS http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/giddens/index.htm http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/factfile.htm http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/ http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/books.htm http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/publications.htm http://www.polity.co.uk/giddens/interview.htm http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/mod/gidmdn.htm In contemporary sociology, he has made a major contribution to the study of social interaction, encounters, gatherings and small groups in Behaviour in Public Places (1963), Interaction Ritual (1967), and Relations in Public (1971). He has also made important contributions to role analysis in Encounters (1961a). His principal concern has been with the constituents of fleeting, chance or momentary encounters, that is with the sociology of everyday life. To grasp the orderliness of such meetings, Goffman employed drama as an analogy for the staging of social meetings in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). For Goffman, the social order is always precarious because it is disrupted by embarrassment, withdrawal and the breakdown of communication; these issues are explored in Stigma (1964). He has also contributed to the analysis of inmates in mental institutions in Asylums (1961b). His recent publications include Frame Analysis (1974) and Gender Advertisements (1979). See: Dramaturgical; Ethnomethodology; Role; Stigma; Symbolic Interactionism; Total Institution. BibI. Ditton (ed.) (1980) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:186] Internet Links: http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/psych/miller/goffman.htm http://stanley.feldberg.brandeis.edu/~teuber/goffmanbio.html http://www.cfmc.com/adamb/writings/goffman.htm http://www.extend.indiana.edu/courses/soc/socs320b/lesson4/Disc4c.htm http://socsci.colorado.edu/~marxg/ascervg.html http://www.researchresources.net/amazon/ervinggoffman.htm http://sobek.colorado.edu/~marxg/ascervg.html http://members.aol.com/dpj845/goffman.htm Gouldner, Alvin Ward (1920-1980 Born in New York, he was professor of sociology at Washington University (1959-67) President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1962), professor of sociology at Amsterdam (1972-76) and Max Weber Professor of Sociology at Washington University (from 1967). His early works such as Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (1954) and Wildcat Strike (1955h) explored aspects of M. Weber's theory of bureaucracy in relation to strikes, management aud control. He emphasized the capacity for working-class action and industrial disruption despite the constraints of bureaucracy. Features of Weber's Sociology of religion were explored in Notes on Technology and the Moral Order (1962): he argued that certain moral orders (the Apollonian) which emphasized order, reason and activism were causally important in the development of technology. An important change of direction occurred in the 1960s when lie turned to theoretical debates with Marxism and scientific sociology. He worked on a project which would provide a historical and critical study of social theory from Plato (in Enter Plato, 1965) to Marxism (in The Two Marxisms, 1980) to contemporary sociology (in Against Fragmentation, 1985). In these publications Gouldner rejected the fashionable distinction between neutral science, moral discourse and political commitment. These criticisms were first formulated in The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (1970), a major and controversial study of functionalism (q.v.) and Marxism as it had developed as a scientific theory within the Soviet bloc. In 1974, he founded the influential journal Theory and Society, which has done much to develop and elaborate his views on critical theory. Gouldner was always concerned with the possibilities for progressive social change, and specifically with the role of intellectuals in directing and contributing to change in The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (1979). He called upon sociologists to be more reflexive about their theories and role in society in The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology (1976). Following his death, there has been much debate as to the dominant intellectual forces which shaped his vision of critical theory. His views on rationality and criticism were influenced by the Frankfurt School (q.v.), but his radical style and outlook were also shaped by C. Wright Mills (q.v.). However, his concern for bureaucracy, power and knowledge reflected his debt to the Weberian tradition. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:187] Internet Links: http://www.tryoung.com/dramasociallife/002POLITICS.htm http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/gouldner.htm http://www.spc.uchicago.edu/ssr1/PRELIMS/Strat/stmisc1.html#GOULDNER Initially a journalist, then a militant in the Italian Communist Party and imprisoned for ten years by Mussolini, Gramsci was one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century. His work, a deliberate attempt to unify social theory and political practice, was dominated by a rejection of economic determinism (q.v.) and the attempt to find an alternative way of interpreting Marx. This rejection was achieved in two ways: (i) by insisting on the independence of politics and ideology from economic determination; (2) by emphasizing the way that men and women can change their circumstances by struggle. Gramsci argued that the domination of the capitalist class could not be secured by economic factors alone but required political force and, much more importantly, an ideological apparatus which secured the consent of the dominated classes. In capitalist societies, these apparatuses were effectively the institutions of civil society (q.v.), the churches; the family and even trade unions. Political coercion was essentially the province of the state. The stability of capitalist societies was mostly dependent on the ideological donimation of the working class. Gramsci suggested that this domination could not be complete, however, for the working class has a dual consciousness (q.v.) one part of which is imposed by the capitalist class while the other part is a commonsense knowledge (q.v.) derived from the workers' everyday experience of thc world. This commonsense knowledge is potentially revolutionary but requires development by party intellectuals to make it an effective force. For Gramsci, radical social change can only come about when a revolutionary consciousness is fully developed, and hence the role of the party is crucial in articulating and promoting this consciousness. The class struggle (q.v.) is very largely a struggle between intellectual groups, one beholden to the capitalist class and the other to the workers. See: Class Consciousness; Dominant Ideology Thesis; Hegemony; Leninism; Marxist Sociology. BibI. Mouffe (ed.) (1979) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:188] Internet Links: http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-gram.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#GRAMSCI http://www.cruznet.net/~marcus/gramsci-links.html http://timon.sir.arizona.edu/syllabus/gramsci.html http://www.soc.qc.edu/gramsci/ http://www.soc.qc.edu/gramsci/writings/index.html http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm http://www.popcultures.com/theorists/gramsci.html Habermas is one of the principal exponents of critical theory (q.v.) and is also closely associated with the Frankfurt School (q.v.). The main theme of Habermas' theory (1970a; 1970b) is that valid knowledge can only emerge from a situation of open, free and uninterrupted dialogue. In Towards a Rational Society (1970c) and Theory and Practice (1963) he argued that the idea of a neutral apolitical science, based on a rigid separation of facts and values, is untenable since questions of truth are inextricably bound up with the political problems of freedom to communicate and to exchange ideas. He has been a prominent critic of positivism (q.v.) and economic determinism (q.v.) in Knowledge and Human Interests (1968). Habermas has also been highly critical of systems theory (q.v.), engaging in a prolonged debate with N. Luhmann in Theorie der Gessellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie? (1971). He has been influential in recent studies of the state and the decline of normative legitimacy in Legitimation Crisis (1973). Communication and the Evolution of Society (1979) was concerned with problems of power and legitimacy. In The Theory of Communicafive Action (1981) he criticized Western social theory for its failure to avoid reductionism and to develop a valid theory of communication and rationality. In his recent work he has criticized post-modernism (q.v.) in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1988). See: Hermeneutics. BibI. McCarthy (1978) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:192] Internet Links: http://www.phy.nau.edu/~danmac/habcritthy.html http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/1643/habermas.html http://www.anu.edu.au/english/habermas.html http://home.cwru.edu/~ngb2/Authors/Habermas.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#HABERMAS http://www.msu.edu/user/robins11/habermas/ http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/marhab.html http://www.popcultures.com/theorists/habermas.html http://www127.pair.com/critical/j-habe.htm A German philosopher, critical in Being and Time (1927) of abstract theories of
human existence because they neglected the concrete, actual, everyday world. He developed
a view of this mundane social world which subsequently influenced the sociology of the
life-world or everyday life. Heidegger formulated a philosophical methodology for the
analysis of texts which contributed to the modern technique of deconstruction (q.v.). His
analysis of technological society (Heidegger, 1954) was an important conservative
criticism of capitalism, hut his association with fascism (q.v.) has damaged his
reputation. See: Everyday Life, Sociology of Foucault; Ontology, Phenomenological
Sociology; Poststructuralism; Structuration. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:195] Internet Links: http://www.howardri.org/Heidegger.html http://www.webcom.com/~paf/ereignis.html http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/heidegger.htm http://www.connect.net/ron/heid.html http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/martin1.html Trained at the universities ot Berlin aud Freiburg, Marcuse was influenced by the phenomenology of E. Husserl and M. Heidegger. In 1934 he joined the Frankfurt School (q.v.) in exile at Columbia. Approaching Marxism via phenomenology and critical theory (q.v.), his central concern has been the possibility of authentic existence in industrial capitalism; for example, One-Dimensional Man (1964) argued that modern societies generate artificial needs, giving the working class a false consciousness. Believing that Marxism had failed to conceptualize the individual, he turned to S. Freud (q.v.) to provide an analysis of sexuality, which resulted in Eros and Civilization (1955). His interpretation of Freud was challenged by E. Fromm (1993) on the grounds that Freud was a conservative, not a revolutionary thinker. Marcuse's critical views on American liberal democracy were reflected in An Essay on Liberation (1969), but he was equally critical of Soviet society in Soviet Marxism (1961). Marcuse is also known for his controversial studies of philosophy in Reason and Revolution (1954) and of sociology in Negations (1968). See: Marxist Sociology. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:247] Internet Links: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/ http://www.popcultures.com/theorists/marcuse.html http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/ http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/herbert.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#MARCUSE http://www.worldsocialism.org/marcuse.htm Martineau, Harriet (1802-1876) Harriet Martineau was effectively the first woman sociologist. Martineau. who was English, wrote the first systematic treatise in sociology, carried out numerous cross-national comparative studies of social institutions, and was the first to translate Auguste Comte's Cours de philosophie positive into English. A professional and prolific writer. she popularized much social-scientific information by presenting it in the form of novels. Feminist, Unitarian, critic, social scientist, and atheist, she matched her activism about the issues of slavery and the 'Woman question' to her arguments for equal political, economic, and social rights for women. She undertook many pioneering methodological, theoretical, and substantive studies in the field that would now be called sociology: the analysis of women's rights, biography, disability, education, slavery, history, manufacturing, occupational health, and religion all came within her gamut. One of her best-known works, Society in America (1837). compared American moral principles with observable social patterns. and outlined a yawning gap between rhetoric and reality. Martineau's How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838) is arguably the first systematic methodological treatise in sociology. in which she outlined a positivist solution to the dilemma of reconciling intersubjectively verifiable and observable data with unobservable theoretical entities. She tackled the classic methodological problems of bias, samplin,. generalization, corroboratio,. and interviews, as well as outlining studies of major socal institutions such as family, education, religion, markets, and culture. Long before Marx, Weber, or Durkheim, Martineau also studied and wrote about social class, suicide, forms of religions, domestic relations, delinquency, and the status of women. Her neglect by sociologists in subsequent years is therefore often cited as an illustration of the ways in which academic sociology has until more recently excluded women sociologists from its agenda. [Gordon Marshall, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, Oxford: OUP, 1998:390] Internet Links: http://www.transcendentalists.com/harriet_martineau.htm http://fp.armitt.plus.com/harriet_martineau.htm http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/martineau.html http://edocs.lib.sfu.ca/projects/VWWLP/Harriet-Martineau.htm http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/harrietmartineau.html http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmartineau.htm http://cepa.newschool.edu/~het/profiles/martineau.htm A political revolutionary and social theorist, Marx was born and educated in Germany. After finishing his education, he married and became a journalist but, being unable to find permanent employment, he migrated to Paris in 1843. There he mixed with emigre radicals, became a socialist and met F. Engels (q.v.) with whom he formed a life-long friendship and collaboration. Expelled in 1845, he moved to Brussels and, after travelling around Europe, finally settled in London in 1849. There he stayed for the rest of his life in considerable poverty, occupied in wniting and political activity, and supported financially largely by Engels and occasional journalism. Marx's major works of sociological importance are: The German Ideology (1845b), with F. Engels; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847); Manifesto of the Comnunist Party (1848), with F. Engels; The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852); Capital (1867, 1885, 1894); and two manuscripts published after his death, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscnpts of 1844 (1964) and Grundrisse (1973). Marx has been a major influence on the development of sociology, as often a subject of criticism as of inspiration. There arc five important sociological areas covered by his writings. (1) In his early work Marx was interested in the concept of alienation (q.v.). One of the senses that he gave to the term was that of alienated labour, in which condition man had work imposed on him by others, a theme that was to run through all his subsequent contributions. (2) Marx is best known for his views on the relationship between economic life and other social institutions. It is often suggested that he was an economic determinist, believing that the nature of a society was determined by the manner in which its economy was owned arid organized. This is certainly not the case. AIthough he thought that human labour was the basis of social activity, he also held that social institutions, like the state or the family, were relatively independent of the economy in their development and even had an influence on the operation of the economy. Marx's views on this question are best summed up in the theory of base and superstructure (q.v.). (3) Although Marx was influenced by his anthropological reading and speculated on primitive states of human society he was primarily interested in the analysis of societies organized into social classes. The basis of social classes lay in the relations of production (q.v.) in the economy. Those who own and control the means of prodtiction, and are able to take the product, form one class and those depending on their own labour alone the other. The form of the relations of production will vary from society to society, producing different class relations. For example, in capitalist societies the relationship between capitalists and workers is based in the control the capitalist has over both the forces of production (q.v.) and the product. He can direct the use to which equipment is put, control the labour process, and take the product whatever it is. In feudal societies, however, the lord does not have direct control over the means of production, which remains in the hands of the peasant, but he can appropriate the product. For Marx, the basic model of such societies is of a two-class structure. He argued, however, that in all real societies the picture will be more complicated, with several classes, particularly those left over from earlier stages of society. Marx's analysis of social class as applied to contemporary capitalist societies has attracted a great deal of criticism, because of the difficulties in fitting the middle class into his scheme and of identifying a class of persons who own and control the means of production when ownership of capital passes increasingly to institutions such as pension funds. For Marx, the relations of production necessarily involve conflict because the owners of the means of production, for example capitalists within a capitalist society, effectively exploit workers by appropriating the product of their labour. (4) This conflict, or contradiction (q.v.), at the heart of class societies also suggests a theory of social change. Marx argues that class struggle (q.v.) is the 'motor of history'; the rising capitalist class overthrew the feudal aristocracy and will be similarly displaced by the working class. In capitalist societies Marx suggests that, other things being equal, the society will become polarized with the working class becoming poorer and poorer. It should be clear that change does not follow automatically from changes in the economic structure; class struggle as the active intervention of human beings is necessary. Historical change takes the form of a succession of societies dominated by different modes of production (q.v.), feudalism or capitalism for example, each of which represents greater technological control over nature. Marx's analysis of class struggle and social change has proved controversial. It has been argued that class struggle has little to do with change from one society to another and, specifically for capitalist society, there is no sign of impending disintegration, polarization, or progressive impoverishment of the working class. (5) Marx was pre-eminently a theorist of capitalist society. Capital, his most detailed work, spells out the economic mechanisms of capitalist society, developing the labour theory of value (q.v.), the theory of capital accumulation, and the possibilities of capitalism's internal collapse. Also in Capital is a discussion of other issues which have become important recently, for example, commodity fetishism (q.v.) and appearance and reality (q.v.). See: Althusser, Bourgeoisie; Capital Fractions; Capital Functions; Capitalism; Class; Determinism; Division of Labour; Feudalism; Historical Nationalism; Ideology; Labour Power; Labour Process; Labour Process Approach; Marxist Sociology; Mental/Manual Division; Periodization; Political Fconomy; Praxis; Ruling Class; Socialist Societies; Surplus Value. Bibl. McLellan (1973); Bottomore (1978) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:251] Internet Links: http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/marx.html http://www.radicalacademy.com/philmarx.htm http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/marx/marx1.htm http://studyingmarx.com/about.html http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96may/marx.html http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#MARX http://www.karl-marx.com/ http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/176.html http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/marx/ http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/marx.html http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/marx.html Although publishing little in his lifetime, Mead, through his lectures, came to have a profound effect on the development of symbolic interactionism (q.v.) in American sociology. His lecture notes were posthumously published in a number of major volumes - Mind, Self and Society (1934), The Philosophy of the Act (1938) and The Philosophy of the Present (1959). In Mead's philosophy, the self emerges through the process of social interaction with
others. In his social behaviourism, the conditioned responses of human beings include
gesture and role-taking, which are the bases of social life. Gestures and conversation are
crucial features of the symbolic interaction, the distinctive feature of which is that the
individual can imagine the effect of symbolic communication on other social actors. Human
actors carry on an 'internal conversation' with the self and and anticipate the response
of other actors. We imaginatively assume other social roles and internalize the attitudes
of 'the generalized other' - the attitudes of the social group. See: Action Theory;
Chicago School; Role; Symbolic Interactionism. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:258] Internet Links: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/m/mead.htm http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/08257.html http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#MEAD http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca/~lward/ http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca/~lward/pubs/MEAD_084.html Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900) A German philosopher, one of the great (if not the greatest of) modern iconoclasts, Nietzsche has been read as the precursor of such varied phenomena as Nazism and post-modernism. Essentially, he appears to have been outraged by the lack of reflexivity (see ETHNOMETHODOLOGY) among philosophers and scientists who failed to apply to their own thoughts the rigorous questioning they applied to those of others, a reaction which led him to dispute the supposed rationalism, scientism, and humanism of modern Western societies. Against this, he upheld the ideals of individualism, self-reliance, competition, and elitism. The three terms that summarize both the reasons for the continuing controversy over his thought, and the results of his own self-questioning, are 'nihilism', 'will to power', and 'superman'. Among those said to have been influenced by his works are Max Weber and Michel Foucault. Most of his books are available in good modern translations. Amongst the best-known are The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-92), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), and Ecce Homo (1908). [Gordon Marshall, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, Oxford: OUP, 1998:451] Internet Links: http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/fns/fnslink.htm#NGeneral http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6041/links.html http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/1834/nietzschemain.html http://www.execpc.com/~ferguson/nietzsch.html http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/ http://www.fns.org.uk/fnslink.htm http://www.connect.net/ron/nietzsche.html http://pratt.edu/~arch543p/help/Nietzsche.html The son of a congregational minister, Parsons spent the whole of his adult life in academic positions in the United States, with a short period of postgraduate training in Europe. He had a powerful influence on sociology after the Second World War, particularly in America, although, being a theorist, he was not in the dominant tradition of US empirical research. As often criticized as supported Parsons' work was at the centre of debate in sociological theory until the mid-1970s. He wrote a great deal, his principal publications being: The Stucture of Social Action (1937); Toward a General Theory of Action (1951) with E. Shils; The Social System (1951); Working Papers in the Theory of Action(1953) with R. F. Bales and E. A. Shils; Economy and Society (1956) with N. Smelser; Social Structure and Personality (1964); Societies; Evolutionary and comparative perspectives (1966) and The System of Modern Societies (1971). Parsons' aim was nothing less than to provide a conceptual structure for the whole of sociology which would serve also to integrate all the social sciences This was to be accomplished by a synthesis between the analysis of individual action and analysis of large-scale social systems. His starting point is the theory of social action, the essential feature of which is the relationship between actors and features of their environment, social and natural, to which they give meaning. The most important features of the environment are other people, which suggests further that social interaction, in which actors have to take notice of the actions, wishes and aims of others, should be the focus of inquiry. In these interactions, norms and values are critical as they regulate and make predictable the behaviour of others. Socialization (q.v.) ensures that individuals internalize norms and values as they grow up. Parsons treats personality and social systems as complementary, though in his analysis the latter ultimately determine the former. Parsons notes that social interaction has a systemic character, hence his use of the term social system (q.v.). The concept that bridges social action and social system is that of pattern variables. He defines these as the fundamental dilemmas that face actors. Social systems may be characterized by the combinations of solutions offered to these dilemmas. There are four sets of dilemmas. (1) Particularism versus universalism: actors have to decide whether to judge a person by general criteria (universalism) or criteria unique to that person (particularism). (2) Performance versus quality: actors have to decide whether to judge persons by what they do (performance) or by their personal characteristics (quality). (3) Affective neutrality versus affectivity: actors can either engage in a relationship for instrumental reasons without the involvement of feelings (affective neutrality) or for emotional reasons (affectivity). (4) Specificity versus diffuseness: actors have to choose, in any situation, between engaging with others totally across a wide range of activity (diffuseness) or only for specific, structured purposes (specificity). These pattern variables structure any system of interaction. Such systems, however, also have certain needs of their own which have to be met, required both by the relationship between the social system and its environment and by the internal workings of the system. There are four such functional needs (known as AGIL): (i) adaptation: the need to relate to the environment by taking resources from it; (2) goal attainment: the setting of goals for the system; (3) integration: the maintenance of internal order; (4) latency or pattern maintenance: the generation of sufficient motivation to perform tasks. In order to meet each of these functional requirements, groups of actions or sub-systems of action develop. At the most general level, for example, the cultural sub-system discharges the function of integration. Each of these sub-systems in turn is also faced by the same four functional needs and consequently each subsystem can be divided into four sub-sub-systems. In the social system as a whole, the economy performs the function of adaptation, for example. In theory, there is no limit to the subdivision of systems and Parsons does describe in detail the structure of the economy and the relations between it and the other sub-systems of the social system. Parsons holds that systems of social action tend to equilibrium even if they never actually reach it, and that social change is movement from one state of equilibrium to another. Change in the system is achieved by differentiation (q.v.) and in his later work Parsons used evolutionary theory (q.v.) to describe the progressive changes in society that result from this. A number of criticisms have been levelled at Parsons: (1) his is a grand theory (q.v.) of little empirical use; (2) he gives too much importance to values and norms; (3) he does not pay enough attention to social conflict; (4) he is unable to reconcile action theory and system theory, and in effect sees individual action as structurally determined; (5) his functionalism involves teleology (q.v.). In the 1980s a new evaluation of Parsons' sociology which was called 'neo-functionalism' argued that these five criticisms were either invalid or that his theories could be modified to resolve these limitations. [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:303] Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#PARSONS http://www.spc.uchicago.edu/ssr1/PRELIMS/Theory/parsons.html http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/sf/parsons.htm http://www.uwlax.edu/ereserves/cox/soc390/talcott_parsons_and_c.htm http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/PARSONS/Parsons.htm http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/sf/parsons.htm An influential and internationally renowned Austrian-born economic historian, who taught widely throughout Europe and the United States, and has a substantial and continuing influence in sociology because of the way in which his empirical studies undermine many of the assumptions of neoclassical economic theory. His best-known publication is The Great Transformation (l944) - which has a Foreword by Robert M. Maclver - in which he seeks to document the causes of the two world wars, the depression of the 1930s, and the basis of the 'new order' of the mid-twentieth century. His was a stringent study of the consequences of the emergence of the 'world market' and the manner in which society can protect itself against its consequences. He warned against promoting the economy to the point at which power becomes highly concentrated, economic decision-making escapes human control, and human dignity and freedom are threatened. This economism could destroy society by undermining social cohesion: it requires that the economy be embedded within relations of social control similar to those found in traditional societies. His other major publications, notably the co-authored Trade and Markets in the Early Empires (1957) and the posthumously published The Livelihood of Man (1977) develop Polanyi's so-called substantivist critique of liberalism, challenging the idea that freedom and justice are inextricably tied to the free market, and documenting the various ways in which economic processes in any society are necessarily shaped by its cultural, political, and social institutions. Polanyi was a genuinely interdisciplinary scholar: an entry on him is also likely to be found in dictionaries of economics, history, anthropology, and political science. Most recently. his work has become part of the debate around the possibility for a 'Third Way' in the transition from communism to the market. Untrammelled market economics, as exported by most Western advisers, are seen by some East European social scientists and policy-makers as likely to create the kinds of problems associated with the self-regulating market that Polanyi documents across a range of historical examples. The opposition between the 'logic of the economy' and the 'logic of society' are particularly acutely felt by these postcommunist societies as they leave their protective states and face the uncertainties of a rapid transition to the market. [Gordon Marshall, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, Oxford: OUP, 1998:499] Internet Links: http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/polanyi.htm http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Comments/polanyi.html http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/6997/rorty.html http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/ihr/esh/archpolanyi.html http://www.web.net/blackrosebooks/karlpol.htm http://www.lonsoc.org.uk/ihr/esh/archpolanyi.html George Ritzer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, where he has been named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He has served as Chair of the American Sociological Association's Sections on Theoretical Sociology and Organizations and Occupations. His major areas of interest are sociological theory and the sociology of work. His main theoretical interests lie in metatheory as well as in the theory of rationalization. In metatheory he has written Matatheorizing in Sociology (1991) and earlier books Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science (1975, 1980) and Toward an Integrated Sociological Paradigm (1981). He has written a number of books on rationalization such as Expressing America: A critique of the Global credit Card Society (1996), The McDonaldization of Society (1996), The McDonaldization Thesis: Explorations and Extensions (1998) and Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption (1999). Internet Links: http://www.mcspotlight.org/ http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/interviews/ritzer_george.html http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/silverstone.html http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/books/ritzer_excerpt.html http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/theory/Ritzer.html http://www.stedwards.edu/bss/farrall/mcdonize.htm http://www.stedwards.edu/bss/farrall/dimenz.htm http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/010/mcdonsoc.html Born in Austria, Schutz emigrated to the United States in 1939 where he taught and wrote part-time, only taking a full-time academic post in 1952. His main publications are: Collected Papers (1971); The Phenomenology of the Social World (1972); and, with T. Luckman, The Structures of the Life- World (1974). Schutz was a major influence in the development of phenomenological sociology in the English-speaking world. He was primarily interested in three problems: ( 1) he wanted to construct an adequate theory of social action, partly based on a critique of M. Weber; (2) he carried out a series of investigations into the constitution of the life-world (q.v.); (3) he tried to investigate the manner in which a sociology which took human action as important could be scientific. In a dispute with T. Parsons (q.v.), Schutz did much to advance and clarify the
problems of action theory and Verstehen (q.v.). His posthumous works included an
analysis of the role of relevance in structuring the life-world (Schutz, 1970). See: Phenomenological
Sociology. Alfred Schutz (Vienna 1899 - New York1959) studied law and the social sciences in Vienna under such famous scholars as Ludwig von Mises, Othmar Spann, Hans Kelsen, Friedrich von Wiesser. The methodological aspects of the sciences of man which were familiar to him were circumscribed by the critique of naturalism, the reflection of conscious life on itself, the understanding of significations, ideation. Soon it became his aim to establish a rigorous philosophical foundation for these aspects and he pursued this ideal throughout his life. It was Husserl's theory of intentionality and his notions of intersubjectivity and of the Lebenswelt which were to guide his thought and to give it its specific character. After twelve years of research he published his main work In 1932: Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. In this work he undertook to trace the origin of categories peculiar to the social sciences in the fundamental facts of the life of consciousness, thus establishing a connection between Weber's verstehende Soziologie and Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. On Husserl's invitation, Schutz weut to Freiburg to join in investigations with a group of phenomenologists in whose work the founder of phenomenology placed much hope. Husserl appreciated the collaboration of the young philosopher and asked him to become his assistant. For personal reasons Schutz had to decline this offer, yet he continued to pay frequent visits to Freiburg and corresponded with Husserl until the latter's death. The coming occupation by Nazi Germany forced him to leave Austria. He stayed in Paris for over a year, and then decided to emigrate to the United States, arriving there in July, 1939. Through the initiative of Marvin Farber he was asked to join in the establishment of the International Phenomenological Society and to become a member of the editorial board of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He was appointed lecturer and later professor in the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New School For Social Research in New York, where he found colleagues and friends who had also studied with Husserl, especially Dorion Cairns and Aron Gurwitsch. In this favorable environment he took up his investigations again and pursued them in a dialogue with American philosophy and sociology. It was always a matter of retracing the original constitution of the fundamental skeleton of the life-world which man takes for granted in the natural attitude and which the social scientist rarely makes thematic. [Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory, Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague. 1971. Cover] Internet Links: http://home.att.net/~cscavileer/Schutz.html http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/schutz.htm http://members.aol.com/desertabd/mywork5.html A German professor of philosophy who wrote extensively on aesthetics, epistemology (q.v.), the philosophy of history as well as sociology, Simmel's views were formed by opposition both to the structural sociology of writers like A. Comte (q.v.) and to the German tradition of Geisteswissenschaften (q.v.), in which social and historical events were to he seen as unique and not generalizable. Simmel's solution was to picture society as a web of interactions between people. He stressed the interaction. For example, in his analysis of power, he argued that the powerful could not exercise their power without the complicity of their subordinates; power is an interaction. If there are social structures like the family, they are to he considered as mere crystallizations of interactions between individuals. Simmel's proposed method of analysing human interactions was by formal sociology (q.v.). He suggested that one could isolate the form of interactions from their content, so that apparently very different interactions (with different contents) could be shown to have the same form. For example the relationship between a writer and an aristocrat in eighteenth-century England and the relationship between a peasant and his landlord in twentieth-century Latin America are apparently different interactions. However, they do have the same form, in that they are both examples of patronage relationships. Simmel was particularly fascinated by numbers. For example, he argued that social situations involving two or three parties have the same formal similarities whether the parties are people or nation states. This similarity of form means that certain properties of the relationships are manifested in very different situations. For example, the options open to three nation states, and their consequent behaviour, are much the same as those applying to three people. Another way in which Simmel applied his formal sociology was in the analysis of social types. Thus he argued that certain social types, the stranger for example. appear in different societies at different times and the behaviour of the stranger and the behaviour of others towards him or her, is very similar in these different social situations. Although subsequent commentators have concentrated on his formal sociology, his analyses of social interaction and his views about the functions of social conflict, Simmel was also concerned with the study of social development, as characterized by social differentiation and the emergence of a money economy. The translation into English of The Philosophy of Money (1900), which, among other topics presents an alternative to the Marxist labour theory of value (q.v.), has inspired a new interest in the whole corpus ot Simmel's work. The evolution of economic exchange from barter to paper money to credit represents a rationalization (q.v.) of daily life. This economic quantification of social interaction was a further illustration of the separation of the form from the content of social life. Simmel's analysis of money provided a phenomenological alternative to Marxist economic categories. Simmel's main works available in English include The Problems of the Philosophy of History (1892) and two collections of essays. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. K. Wolff (1950) and Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations (1955). See: Conflict Theory; Neo-Kantianism. BibI. Frisby (1981; 1984) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:378] Internet Links: http://www.socio.ch/sim/bio.htm http://www.pscw.uva.nl/SocioSite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#simmel http://www.sla.purdue.edu/people/soc/mdeflem/zsimhab.html http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/v22/v22n3.habermas.html http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/frameset_students/introsoc/simmwrk.html http://home.att.net/~cscavileer/Simmel.html http://www.babsim.com/gsimmel.htm http://erraticimpact.com/~20thcentury/html/simmel_georg.htm http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Simmel/society http://wizard.ucr.edu/~bkaplan/soc/lib/simldyad.html Currently Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bristol, and author of possibly one of the most extensive surveys in the twentieth-century, Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979). Born in Middlesbrough in 1928, Townsend has spent his career promoting social reform both intellectually through his research and writings, and practically with, for example, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). Often Townsend's work has been criticised for being only empirical, but this clearly is an inaccurate assessment, and his own views on the matter are most informative: 'theories and data are, of course, interdependent. Bad theories may not just be the consequence of bad data, but also give rise to the collection of bad data, or at least the failure to collect good data.' (1979, p.45). Townsend began his studies of poverty - initially with Brian Abel-Smith - in order to demonstrate the persistence of poverty in affluent, post-war Britain. Indeed by the mid-1950s a number of studies had appeared in Britain showing that despite post-war social reform, high taxation and low levels of unemployment there was poverty among old people, fatherless families, the unemployed and the sick. Townsend's Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) has been described as a 'bible' for the poverty lobby (Donnison, 1979, p.24) but it has nonetheless had little effect in terms of reform, which would not greatly surprise Townsend but merely disappoint him. [Bob Mullan. Sociologists in Sociology. London: Macmillan, 1982:204 (abridged)] Internet Links: http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/CTU/travaux-étudiants/uk-poverty-sam.htm http://libwww.essex.ac.uk/guide/corti.html An American social critic who held university posts at Chicago, Stanford and Missouri but remained an outsider in the academic community. He developed an economic sociology of capitalism that criticized the acquisitiveness and predatory competition of American society and the power of the corporation. His best-known publication was The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). In this he argued that the dominant class in American capitalism, which he labelled as the 'leisure class', pursued a life-style of conspicuous consumption, ostentatious waste and idleness. In The Higher Learning in America (1918a), he claimed that the universities were dominated by considerations of profitability, economic patronage, and self-interest, and had no commitment to true academic values. In The Instinct of Workmanship (1914), The Place of Science in Modern Civilization (191 8b) and The Engineers and tile Price System (1921), Veblen optimistically suggested that engineers, who embodied the spirit of science and technology, would replace the parasitic leisure class. In The Theory of the Business Enterprise (1904) and Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise (1923) he considered the distinctive features of U S capitalism, namely the separation of ownership and control and the oligopolistic power of the giant corporation. During the First World War, he published Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (1915). He regarded warfare as a threat to economic productivity, which he defined as the production of useful commodities and services. Contrasting the authoritarian politics of Germany with the British democratic tradition, he noted that in Germany industrialization had not produced a progressive political culture. He contributed to the analysis of American diplomatic strategy in An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation (1917). BibI. Diggins (1978) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:446] Internet Links: http://villa.lakes.com/eltechno/TV%20WHO.html http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/ http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#veblen http://www.mnc.net/norway/veblen.html http://www.cpm.ll.ehime-u.ac.jp/AkamacHomePage/Akamac_E-text_Links/Veblen.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/VEBLEN/veblenhp.html Weber is often regarded as the founder of modern sociology, because: (1) he provided a systematic statement of the conceptual framework of the sociological perspective; (2) he developed a coherent philosophy of social science, which recognized the essential problems of explanation of social action; (3) in a variety of substantive fields, he grasped the basic characteristics of a modern, industrial civilization; (4) through these empirical studies of modern society, he identified a number of key issues which have become the foci of the principal debates within the discipline; (5) his own life in many respects provides a forceful example of sociology as a vocation. The details of Weber's life have been fully and sympathetically examined in an extensive biography by his wife, Marianne Weber (1975). Born in Erfurt, Weber grew up in a family context characterized by merchant wealth, liberal politics and Protestant pietism. He attended the universities of Heidelberg, Gottingen and Berlin, and completed his academic training by research on the history of commercial societies in the Middle Ages and on Roman agrarian history. While Weber held professorial posts at Freiburg, Heidelberg aud Munich, his teaching and research were interrupted by illness following a mental breakdown in 1897. Despite this, his academic productivity was formidable. Weber has suffered in English translation from a highly selective aud discontinuous publication ot his work, much of which originally took the form of essays, papers, lectures and even speeches. However, the major German text, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1922), published posthumously has been translated in its its entirety as Economy and Society (1968). The complexity and controversy of Weber's sociology has been repeatedly illustrated by the contradictory interpretations of his work. Both the nature of his work aud the diversity of exegesis can be examined by summarizing Weber's contribution to modern social science under the following topics: (i) philosophy of social science (1949; 1975); (2) rationalization (1922; 1930); (3) the Protestant ethic thesis (1930); (4) Weber's relationship to Marx and Marxism (1922); (5) his analysis of power politics in relation to German society (1946; 1978). (1) Weber's analysis of the methodological and philosophical problems of sociology is conventionally regarded as a form of NeoKantianism (q.v.). In his early commentaries on the methodology appropriate to sociology, Weber denied that sociology could: (i) discover universal laws of human behaviour comparable with those of natural science; (ii) confirm any evolutionary progress in human societies; (iii) provide any evaluation of, or moral justification for, any existing or future state of affairs; (iv) develop any collective concepts (like 'the state' or 'the family') unless they could be stated in terms of individual action. Sociology had to aim at the understanding ot the meaning of actions, on the basis of which sociology could work towards formal models or ideal types of action on a comparative basis. Concepts in sociology like 'bureaucracy would have thc samc analytical status as those in economics such as 'perfect competition'. Sociology was not simply a subjective interpretation of action, because sociologists were guided by certain public norms (such as 'value neutrality') aud their findings were open to academic scrutiny and criticism. Weber regarded statistics aud social surveys as an essential aid to sociological research, but statistical data still had to be interpreted and evaluated. While Weber rejected as unwarranted the claims of positivism (q.v.) and Marxism, it is not clear from his actual studies of socicy that he fully adhered to his own methodological principles. (2) Having denied the posibility of developmental laws in sociology, Weber implicity presented rationalization as the master trend of Western capitalist society. Rationalization is the process whereby every area of human relationships is subject to calculation and administration. While Marxists have noted the prominence of rational calculation in factory discipline and the labour process, Weber detected rationalization in all social spheres - politics, religion, economic organization, university administration, the laboratory and even musical notation. Weber's sociology as a whole is characterized by a metaphysical pathos (q.v.) whereby the process of rationalization eventually converted capitalist society into a meaningless 'iron cage'. (3) One source of rationalization in Western societies lay in the cultural changes brought about by the Protestant Ethic. Protestantism was not a direct cause of capitalism, but it did provide a culture which emphasized individualism, hard work, rational conduct and self-reliance. This ethic had an 'affinity' with early capitalism, but Weber thought that advanced capitalist societies would no longer require any religious legitimation. (4) It is conventional to regard Weber as one of the major critics of Marx and Marxism. The reasons for this position are: (i) that Weber's emphasis on the role of culture, especially religion, in shaping human action appears to be a refutation of economic determinism (q.v.); (ii) the importance of subjective orientation of individuals in Weber's analysis of social relations is said to be in contrast to the analysis of objective structural effects in Marxism; (iii) Weber's account of status groups and markets appears to run counter to Marx's emphasis on economic class and relations of production; (iv) Weber was explicitly critical of Marxist analysis of the imminent collapse of capitalism, since he argued that the planned economy in socialist society would enhance rationalization, not terminate it. An alternative view is that: (i) Weber regarded Marx, along with Nietzsche, as one of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth century; (ii) Weber's criticisms were directed at institutionalized Marxism (in the form of the German Democratic Party) rather than at Marx; (iii) the Protestant Ethic thesis was not intended to be a refutation of Marx; (iv) Weber often wrote in a manner that suggests a strong element of determinism; (v) Weber's description of the nature of capitalism as an 'iron cage' was often very close to Marx's analysis and, in particular, there is a close relationship between the concepts of alienation (q.v.) and rationalization; (vi) Weber came to regard capitalist society as having a logic which operated independently of the subjective attitudes of social actors. (5) Weber's sociology and his attitude towards Marxism have to be seen in the context of German society between 1870 and 1918. For Weber, Germany lacked an independent, politically educated middle class, while the working class was underdeveloped, partly because of the late development of industrialization. The political and economic development of Germany had been brought about by a strong state under Bismarck, and political power rested in the hands of the feudal land-owning class of Junkers. With the death of Bismarck, the German bureaucracy and state lacked leadership, which neither the middle nor working class could provide. This political vacuum partly explains the importance of power and power conflicts in Weber's writing on authority and charisma (q.v.). There are basically two responses to Weber's political soclology: (i) Marxists tend to regard Weber's analysis of German politics as a precursor of fascism; (ii) Liberals suggest that Weber's sociology is in fact grounded in an anxiety that rationalization will destroy individual freedom and creativity. There is evidence for both views, since Weber thought Germany would require strong state leadership to beat off the economic threat posed by the United States and Great Britain, but he also sought to encourage a situation in which the importance of the individual could be maximized. The debate about the political implication of Weber's sociology has continued to be important in modern Germany, while controversy about his contribution to contemporary sociology continues unabated. Weber also contributed to the sociology of comparative religions (1951; 1952; 1958a), urban sociology (1958b), the sociology ot music (1958c), economic history (1950), the sociology of law (1922; 1977), and the analysis of ancient civilization (1976). Recent interpretations of Weber have emphasized his contribution to cultural sociology and his critical attitude towards capitalist modernization. These reinterpretations suggest that we should see Weber's cultural critique as part of the legacy of Nietzsche; they also show that that Weber's analysis of religious orientations to the world is fundamental for an understanding of his analysis of modern society. See: Action Theory; Authority; Bureaucracy; Capitalism; Class; Ideal Type; Legal-Rational Authority; Marx; Marxist Sociology; Meaningful Action; Methodological Individualism; Protestant Ethic; Rational Choice Therapy; Rationality; Rationalization; Social Closure; Status; Value Freedom; Value Neutrality; Value Relevance; Verstehen. BibI. Bendix (1960); Seyfarth and Schmidt (1977); Turner, B.S. (1981); Lowith (1993) [Nicholas Abercrombie et al., The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd edition. London: Penguin Books, 1994:450] Internet Links: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/TOPICS/Sociologists.html#weber http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Weber/Whome.htm http://www.criticism.com/md/weber1.html http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/ Born in Germany. he studied in the United States, where he became a leading figure in Chicago sociology during the 1930s. His doctoral thesis was published as The Ghetto (1925), and he maintained his interests in city life, minority group behaviour, and mass media throughout his influential career. He is best known as the author of a classic (and much discussed) essay on 'Urbanism as a Way of Life'. For a sampling of his work, together with a comprehensive bibliography, see Louis Wirth, On Cities and Social Life (1964).See also URBAN SOCIOLOGY; URBANISM. [Gordon Marshall, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 2nd edition, Oxford: OUP, 1998:703] |