Showing papers on "Social practice published in 1976"

Social Learning: A Model for Policy Research

Abstract: This paper examines the question “Why are the results of policy research not used more widely than they appear to be?” The fault is seen to lie in the incompatibility of social contexts for research—the separate and clashing worlds of government and academia. A social practice model of experimental learning is proposed as an alternative to current research styles. The difficulty remains, however, how to apply successfully the results of learning obtained in one experiment to other situations, and how new learning can be made more generally effective. Conditions for resolving this problem are identified as (1) a commitment on the part of the policymaking institution to the idea of social experimentation, practice, and learning as the principal methods for public intervention; (2) the formation of central services in support of local experiments; and (3) expansion of lateral channels of communication for the diffusion of new experiences and learning among the multiple experiments themselves.

The crisis of medicine or the antimedicine crisis

Abstract: In this lecture, Professor Michel Foucault makes an in-depth study of the problems currently afflicting medical institutions and the medical practice. He deals with the thesis set forth by Ivan Illich in his book Medical Nemesis--The expropriation of Health, as well as the 1942 Beveridge Plan, but goes even further back in history to discover the origin of the medical crisis common throughout the world--back to the XVIII century roots of the social practice of medicine. He also describes the phases through which medical activity has passed from then until now and deals with what he calls the political economy of medicine. Finally, he reaches the conclusion that what matters is not so much the present crisis of medicine, which he considers to be a false concept, but the discipline's historical model dating from the XVIII century and serving to determine to what extent it can be modified.

Interpersonal Comparison of Utilities

Abstract: The exclusion of interpersonal comparisons of utility from formal decision theory stems partly from methodological, partly from ideological considerations. The former are grounded in the circumstance that empirically based definitions of utility lead, in general, to the determination of utilities of individuals on at most an interval scale. In some formulations only ordinally defined utilities are assumed. Logical considerations are grounded in an explicit or implicit reluctance to admit a social welfare function into economic or political theory. Social practice, however, is almost always based on at least implicit interpersonal comparison of utilities. Also laboratory experiments in decision making in situations with conflicts of interests typically reveal or suggest interdependence of different actors’ preferences for outcomes. It is argued that models based on a recognition of interpersonal comparisons should be incorporated into formal and applied decision theory.

Ideology and deviance

Abstract: The work herein is essentially an exploration into social theory. This theoretical re-search was precipitated by my dissatisfaction with a semiological analysis of the press reporting of political demonstrations, which I worked on for 6 months in 1973. My critique of that analysis is presented in chapter five. A more fundamental driving force was my concern with the importance of dominant ideology. I soon discovered that Marxian analysis has tended to neglect ideology as an objective force in social history. The thesis constantly refers itself to the need for historical research on the social origins, forms and functions of ideology. Initially, I was attempting to establish a satisfactory paradigm in the sociology of deviance. Extant theories proved to be inadequate and Hirst’s critique offered little. However, I found that Hirst implicitly reconceptualised deviance in a way that corresponded with my own nascent ideas; as a form of ideological formation. The search for a theory of ideology and a theory of deviance thus became doubly important. Hence, the thesis has three main objects: (a.) the concept of deviance, (b) the concept of ideology, and (c) a theorised reading of ideologies in discursive materials. I have concluded that the essence of deviance is as a social censure (a type of ideological formation reflecting collisions in class practices), that ideology is, in Marxian analysis, the structure of consciousness, and that one can only rationally read an ideology from a discursive text when one has a theory of its specificity and of the forms of appearance of its referent. In the process of the investigation I was forced to try to re-think the major concepts of science, class, dominant ideology, law, crime and social practice, and to develop the new concept of the ideological formation. The work can be seen as a prolegomenon to an historical analysis of political ideologies.

Some Theses Concerning the Application of Mathematical System Theory in the Social Sciences

Abstract: Current research in this field is in a rather paradoxical situation. On the one hand there is quite a lot of technical publications which boldly apply existing models of mathematical system theory to diverse problems of social research and social practice. On the other hand comparatively little research work is dedicated to the scientific foundation of this model building. There is an evident need for a more systematic analysis of the fundamental possibilities and limitations of mathematical system theory as a research instrument of the social sciences.