Social theories are analytical frameworks or paradigms used to examine social phenomena. The term social theory encompasses ideas about how societies change and develop, about methods of explaining social behaviour, about power and social structure, gender and ethnicity, modernity and civilization, revolutions and utopias. In contemporary social theory, certain core themes take precedence over others, themes such as the nature of social life, the relationship between self and society, the structure of social institutions, the role and possibility of social transformation, (...) as well as themes such as gender, race and class. Interaction between social theory and cultural criticism has also been very prominent in modern culture. In recent decades, renewed investigation of the mean- of high culture' and 'popular culture' in the context of consumer practices and new media technologies has led to a flourishing of academic subdivisions such as cultural studies, film studies, and media and communication studies. Many of the informing theories of these studies are discussed in this Book. Sociological theory is rather an abstract subject, this is not a course about the history of ideas! Rather, it is a critical introduction to the basic concepts and substantive theory of sociology, which focuses on the analysis of issues that are part of your everyday experience -- social relations and how individuals interact with one another, the nature of ideas, culture and how institutions shape our lives. Explorations in Social Theory: From Metatheorising to Rationalization coverage ranges across a broad landscape, from prehistory to contemporary affairs, from treatments of individuals to nations to world culture, from discussions of theory to methodological critique. It raises interesting and pertinent questions about these and other areas. It examines theories and ideas in relation to one another and in relation to the context in which they emerged. It is specifically concerned with examining the development of sociological theory from its beginnings in the philosophy of the Enlightenment and its subsequent development in the work of Marx, Durkheim and Weber to modern sociological theory, including sociological functionalism, interactionism, contemporary Marxism(s), structuralism and post-structuralism, postmodernism and globalisation. The Book will enable you to ask questions and raise issues about the nature of contemporary societies. (shrink)

This paper considers the goals and methods of theoretical sociology. The chief goal of theoretical work is a theory in two parts-postulates and predictions-the key challenge being to minimize the number of postulates and maximize the number and variety of predictions. The paper discusses the distinctive character of the sentences in each part of the theory and, in light of that bipartite structure, the two main activities of theoretical analysis: (i) speculative thinking, whereby the theorist identifies the starting ideas for (...) the postulates; and (ii) formal reasoning, whereby the theorist constructs the postulates and derives predictions from them. To illustrate the features of a theory and the tasks of theoretical analysis, the paper briefly sketches the theory of the distributive-justice force. (shrink)

Rhetoricians usually consider Plato's Republic as a work dedicated to political philosophy. As such, it is ostensibly antidemocratic and thus antirhetorical. But if we focus on the reason for the political allegory—the investigation of justice in the soul—it is clear that Plato is interested in Burke's question: “What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?” Accordingly, this article employs the terms of Burke's pentad in order to articulate the rhetorical significance of Plato's (...) own drama of psychic motivation. Ultimately, I read the degenerating constitutions of the Republic as a rhetorical typography that not only identifies audience types and how to influence them, but also offers a map of psychic transformation that addresses Socrates's famous challenge to rhetoric in the Phaedrus. (shrink)

The goal of sociology, and all social science, is to produce reliable knowledge about human behavioral and social phenomena. To reach that goal, we undertake three kinds of activities: theoretical work, empirical work, and, even more basic, we develop frameworks that assemble the fundamental questions together with the fundamental tools that will be used to address them. This article examines the three sets of activities and their interrelations. Both deductive and nondeductive theory are highlighted, as are three kinds of empirical (...) work—testing the predictions of deductive theories, testing the propositions produced by nondeductive theories, and extratheoretical measurement and estimation. Illustrations are drawn from the fields of status, justice, and migration. (shrink)

When S.C. Dodd concocted the empty formulae for which he is now remembered--as the butt of Sorokin's ridicule--he imagined that he was making a first pass at formulating the laws of social science. Dodd was as serious as Jasso and perhaps a bit more sophisticated and consistent in his choice of philosophical authorities. So one might suppose that Jasso's formulae (1988), which resemble them in certain respects, are subject to the same criticisms. I will argue that Jasso’s (...) formulae are not empty, but that they are also not what Jasso represents them to be. (shrink)

The formal part of this chapter is concerned with measures of need-based justice. According to the measures we propose, a distribution is unjust (i) the more it deviates from absolute need satisfaction and equal degrees of need satisfaction, (ii) the more the given undersupply could have been mitigated by transfers, or (iii) the more resources are used for oversupply instead of need satisfaction. These measures are compared, i.e., as to the satisfaction of need-oriented relatives of axioms prominent in poverty measurement; (...) and we have a critical eye on the proposals of Jasso and Miller. The empirical part reports on three vignette studies conducted to find out how people evaluate the justice of given distributions and how they distribute goods when aiming at justice. The main goal was to measure the significance ascribed to need. This significance was compared with the significance ascribed to effort or equality; and it was shown that a need’s influence decreases when the corresponding person is accountable for having a higher amount of it. In the third study, we found out that needs that are not directed at bare survival, such as the need for participation in social life, are attributed lower degrees of importance. The chapter concludes with some implications of our research for a theory of need-based justice. (shrink)