Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist

Preface to the Second Edition Part 1: Philosophical Bearings 1. Aims and Strategy 2. The Underlabourer Conception of Philosophy 3. Philosophy and Science 4. The Philosopher's Concern with Language 5. Conceptual and Empirical Enquiries 6. The Pivotal Role of Epistemology in Philosophy 7. Epistemology and the Understanding of Society 8. Rules: Wittgenstein's Analysis 9. Some Misunderstandings of Wittgenstein Part 2: The Nature of Meaningful Behaviour 1. Philosophy and Sociology 2. Meaningful Behaviour 3. Activities and Precepts 4. Rules and Habits 5. Reflectiveness Part 3: The Social Studies as Science 1. J.S. Mill's 'Logic of the Moral Sciences' 2. Differences in Degree and Differences in Kind 3. Motives and Causes 4. Motives, Dispositions and Reasons 5. The Investigation of Regularities 6. Understanding Social Institutions 7. Prediction in the Social Studies Part 4: The Mind and Society 1. Pareto: Logical and Non-Logical Conduct 2. Pareto: Residues and Derivations 3. Max Weber: Verstehen and Causal Explanation 4. Max Weber: Meaningful Action and Social Action Part 5: Concepts and Actions 1. The Internality of Social Relations 2. Discursive and Non-Discursive 'Ideas' 3. The Social Sciences and History 4. Concluding Remark

The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy.

When the red harvester ant is threatened, nestmates rush to its assistance. The message is a chemical one. Distress is communicated and help summoned by the potential victim ejecting a tiny cocktail of alkanes and terpenoids. Professor E 0 Wilson, who made this discovery, is a distinguished zoologist whose writings have twice been awarded Pulitzer Prizes. His interests extend far beyond entomology, however. Why should human communication be qualitatively different from that of the ant, in being achieved by definable, physicochemical processes? And, if this is the case, surely the same must be true of other social phenomena? Having conceded so much, on what grounds can we exclude other products of human activity such as the social sciences, arts, humanities and ethics? In a mechanistic universe, the whole of human civilization is the ultimate product of the interaction between genes and environment, incredibly complex, as Wilson admits, but susceptible to fundamentally the same analytic techniques as communication in the harvester ant. Consilience (literally, a 'jumping together') is the notion that a common groundwork of explanation applies not only to the sciences but also to the arts, ethics and religion. In his book Consiliencel Wilson applies a combination of broad learning and a style of baroque exuberance to put the case for such a unity of knowledge. Wilson is thus, as he makes clear, a child of the Enlightenment, paying homage to Bacon and Newton but most of all to Condorcet, who trod the same intellectual path (and who came to grief in the Revolution for reasons probably not unrelated to his philosophy). He mourns the triumph at the end of the eighteenth century of revelatory religion fearful of the outcomes of science, and most of all of Romanticism although regrettably overlooking the

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.

It is not accidental that questions of class structure and class consciousness have recently become central concerns of both academic social scientists and Marxists: contemporary reality has promptly disposed of the various announcements of the obsolescence of class conflict made by the former while contemporary turmoil has fractured most shibboleths invoked by the latter. Thus, it may be useful to examine Giddens' recent study which does claim to break new ground. This ambitious book attempts to critically appraise liberal, Marxist and “post-industrial” theories of class, and to make some positive contributions. It contains interesting insights into the differences between some of the “advanced societies,” as well as abundant material contrasting various theories.

The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies

A companion to bioethics , A companion to bioethics , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران

A Companion to Bioethics

Symbolic interactionism is often represented as a perspective which is limited by its restriction to 'micro' aspects of social organization. As such, it is allegedly unable to adequately conceptualize 'macro' phenomena such as social structure, patterns of inequality, and power. Such a view is routinely presented in undergraduate textbooks. This paper contests such a view through a consideration of the concept of power. We argue that the interactionist research tradition does show a fundamental concern with power phenomena, and that a reconsideration of the concept is timely in light of theoretical developments in sociology more generally. An increasing concern with the analysis of culture, the continuing influence of Foucault, the development of feminist perspectives, and the emerging consensus around neo-Weberian thought have all contributed to a renewal of interest in themes long ago explored by interactionists. As examples we suggest that interactionist studies in the fields of deviance and education have been concerned above all with the authoritative imposition of consequential identities, i.e., with the social processes through which power is enacted and institutionalized in real situations. Such developments have led some to argue that interactionism has now been incorporated into the mainstream of sociology. We conclude, however, by arguing that such a view runs the risk of granting to orthodox sociological thought a legitimacy which is analytically unwarranted, and which fails to recognize the alternative theoretical and philosophical foundations of symbolic interactionist thought.

Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power

Intellectual Property Rights, the WTO and Developing Countries: The TRIPS Agreement and Policy Options

Symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, while apparently similar in topic and approach, are radically different sociological perspectives. Garfinkel's notion of a plenum is used to illustrate this difference with regard to their approaches to the concept of interaction. Ethnomethodology's rejection of the concepts of actor and context, and its different treatment of meaning, are contrasted with symbolic interactionism's terms of reference.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.2011.34.3.349

Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology

Aims of the study. The aim of this research was to find out who supports older people at home after discharge from hospital and if sources of support have changed between the 1980s and the 1990s.

Background. More and more older people are being discharged from hospital earlier and this creates additional pressures on families, community health and social services and the independent care sector. The research was concerned with how sources of support may have changed in a 10-year period.

Methods. A comparison is made of two separate nonrandom samples, taken 10 years apart, of older people following discharge from hospital. Interviews were conducted in participants' homes to establish levels of dependence and the source of support given in response to the need for help with personal and domestic activities of daily living.

Results. Although limited by the use of relatively small, nonrandom samples, the research found that proportions needing help with domestic activities were higher than those needing help with personal activities of daily living. Although dependence for help with bathing had declined between the 1980s and 1990s, help was still needed with bathing and dressing. Unmet need for help with bathing remained a problem in the 1990s. A growing role for home helps was identified, especially in personal care (bathing and dressing), where support from district nurses had declined. By the 1990s, home helps were doing less cooking and housework, including heavy laundry. Relatives were doing more of most domestic activities except shopping, which was being carried out by home helps.

Conclusions. The paper concludes by arguing that hospitals should consider if pressures to discharge older people more quickly might hinder the discharge planning process and communication between hospital and community sectors.

Sources of support for older people after discharge from hospital: 10 years on.

Although Blumer asserts that to deny the existence of “structure” in human society is “ridiculous,” just such a denial has commonly been attributed to him. The more conventional mainstream understa...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/20832336

Alex Dennis

Papers

Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power

Intellectual Property Rights, the WTO and Developing Countries: The TRIPS Agreement and Policy Options

Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology

Sources of support for older people after discharge from hospital: 10 years on.

Symbolic Interactionism and the Concept of Social Structure