Showing papers on "Social practice published in 1987"

Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science

Abstract: This lucidly written book examines the social and political significance of the natural sciences through a detailed and original account of science as an interpretive social practice.

discourse genres in a theory of practice

Abstract: In order to analyze language use within a theory of social practice, it is necessary to develop a coherent approach to speech genres. This paper contributes to such an approach, by treating genres as elements of linguistic habitus, consisting of stylistic, thematic, and indexical schemata on which actors improvise in the course of linguistic production. The empirical focus is “official” Maya language documents produced in 16th-century colonial Yucatan. The rise of novel discourse genres in colonial society was part of the emergence of new, hybrid forms of action. [Mesoamerica, Maya, discourse analysis, social practice]

Accounting for accounting: Towards the development of a dialectical view

Abstract: This paper questions the adequacy of current approaches to accounting research. Following a re-examination of the progress made by the interpretive perspective in correcting for many of the shortcomings in the traditional framework, a catalogue of unresolved problems and silences is constructed. It is argued that central to this is the persistent failure adequately to contextualize accounting whilst at the same time treating it as a fully social practice. The second part of the paper is accordingly devoted to the development and illustration of an alternative, fuller, perspective. This, it is claimed, contains the potential to allow a deeper understanding of the linkages between routinized practices and conflicts and the socio-economic contexts in which they are located.

The Politics of Psychoanalysis: An Introduction to Freudian and Post-Freudian Theory

Abstract: Book synopsis: Psychoanalysis has had a profound influence on twentieth-century thought in a wide variety of areas, from psychology and psychiatry to sociology, literature, feminism and politics. Most importantly, it offers insights into the relationship between individual subjectivity and social relations, making it a key discipline for understanding the links between social phenomena and personal experience. Since its first publication in 1987, The Politics of Psychoanalysis has been widely recognised as one of the best introductions to psychoanalytic theory from the point of view of its relevance for social relations. As well as describing Freud's work, it examines the basic assumptions and social implications of a broad spectrum of post-Freudian psychoanalytic thought, especially object relations, Kleinian and Lacanian theory. Feminist and critical psychoanalytic approaches are explored, along with questions of psychoanalytic practice andd its implications for social and personal change. For this second edition, the book has been thoroughly revised, with updated accounts of the theories covered in the first edition, plus new material on contemporary feminist psychoanalytic work and on the engagement of psychoanalysis with postmodernism. The result is a book that combines a lucid introduction to theory with a radical examination of the value of psychoanalysis for therapeutic and social practice.

On self-help in modern society

Abstract: In a modern society, conflict between people is frequently defined as crime and is handled by officials of the state such as police, prosecutors, and judges. It is taken for granted that ordinary citizens must turn to law for help [1]. This mode of social control has several distinctive consequences: it dramatizes the deviant character of an offense, for example [2], and it may escalate hostility between the parties involved [3]. Its patterns of detection and other procedures also affect the nature and distribution of crime itself, making some kinds of conduct in some places more vulnerable to observation and intervention, leaving other kinds in other places relatively immune. Finally, for the offender, law tends to be more stigmatizing and disabling than other social control and so may even render future conformity less likely [4]. If, however, people were to engage in more self-help rather than relying so heavily upon law, that is, if they were to exercise more social control on their own, a different kind of public order would prevail [5]. In the nature of the case, many incidents would effectively be decriminalized, since they would no longer be formally defined and handled as criminal, and beyond this, many patterns of conduct themselves would surely change in response to new risks and opportunities. In this paper, we specify several conditions under which self help flourishes and suggest a number of techniques by which it might be stimulated. Self-help is by no means a new phenomenon. Rather, it is a social practice which has been commonplace in many settings, and which is present to some degree nearly everywhere. It is a quantitative variable, which may be greater in one place and weaker in another. Historically, for instance, the degree of self-help has been highest in primitive societies, in bands and tribes, and has declined progressively with social evolution and the growth of law [6], Within modern societies as well, some groups of people engage significantly in self-help even to the point of organized vigilantism while others are more dependent upon legal control [7]. The same individuals may have recourse to self-help upon some occasions and turn to law upon others [8J. It might also be noted that, like law, self-help has both preventive and remedial aspects, and these vary quantitatively and to some degree independently across social locations. The problem is to isolate the conditions which permit us to predict and explain variation of this kind. Developments in the theory of law and in the theory of altruism, or helping behavior, provide useful perspectives on this topic. The theory of law is relevant since self-help, like other non-legal social control, generally varies inversely with law [9], and what predicts the one may therefore predict the other in a pattern of opposition. The theory of altruism is relevant as well, since the exercise of informal social control by one person on behalf of another, including his or her Donald Black is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia. M.P. Baumgartner is Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

The Gospel and Social Practice according to 1 Corinthians

Abstract: Paul's thought forms a unity of a very peculiar kind. It certainly has a single focus: Christ, but this fact is not in itself sufficient to bring the many disparate elements in his thought together to form the unity that it manifestly has. Nor is that unity that of a system. The search for a Pauline ‘system’ of beliefs (δόγματα) with clearly defined relations between them is in vain – and even more so is the attempt to find a single formula supposed to express the whole of his thought. The immense diversity of his thinking should never be forgotten.

Good Reasoning: A Reconsideration Drawn from Experience with Philosophy for Children

Abstract: Introduction: Six years as a trainer of teachers in the Philosophy for Children Program as affected my thinking in a number of ways. One major way, which I choose to dwell upon here, pertains to my thinking about what it is that makes up good reasoning in practice and how that might best be learned. I wish to argue that good reasoning is best understood not as a set of isolatable skills, attained and possessed by an individual, but as a social practice, specifically: a virtue or set of virtues, learned and practiced in community with others.

'Abortion pill' RU 486: ethics, rhetoric, and social practice.

Abstract: RU 486, an experimental drug to terminate early pregnancy, raises again the fundamental questions about the status of the early embryo: What are the morally relevant similarities and differences among contraception, early abortion and late abortion? And how does language affect both our social practices and attitudes concerning those social practices?

Environmentalism and education

Abstract: In this paper we examine the tension between the development of an holistic understanding of the diverse relations linking people and environments and the dominant, technocratic orientation of tertiary environmental studies programs. Different ideologies of environmentalism are seen to be reflected in specific modes of research, education and social practice. We describe how the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash University has worked with these tensions. We have sought in the GSES to incorporate a more interdisciplinary, critical environmentalism that may promote a movement towards a more sustainable, equitable and enriching society.

The Self-Relation, Narcissism and the Gospel of Grace

Abstract: If it is the case, as John Macmurray suggests, that ‘any way of life implies a philosophy’, or further, that ‘there is a necessary relation between philosophy and social practice’, then an essential dimension of the task of the philosophical theologian must be to engage with the philosophy inherent in and underlying the social practice manifest in the society in which he or she operates. This would imply that the theologian should work in cooperation and in dialogue with the sociologist. But it is clear from theological literature that this course rarely appeals to the theologian who would rather not risk the charge of being unequally yoked with those inhabiting other domains or of deserting his academic or spiritual ‘kingdom’ in pursuit of what is often seen to be the fashionable or the popular!

The concept of social practice and modes of ideology critique in schools

Abstract: (1987). THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL PRACTICE AND MODES OF IDEOLOGY CRITIQUE IN SCHOOLS. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 37-54.

MCDM and Strategic Development for Beijing

Abstract: The study on regional development strategy may be comprehended as the all process look ahead and behind, know system itself and know its environment, strive for ideal objective, select optimal policy for action. The main features of study are: 1. the development strategy is concerned with interrelation between people, affair and material, it serves some social collectives. And its result has to be proved and implemented by social collectives and individuals in the social practice. Therefore the one of the keys in studying development strategy is the participation by leaders and the high combination of both the wisdom of decision makers and the intelligence of the brain trusters. 2. the study of development strategy is concerned with many uncertain factors. The basis for our development of the strategy is provided by the past and present situations and informations, the correctness and sufficiency of which are quite uncertain, furthermore our development strategy will concern with the future, but the forecasting of the future again will involve in the uncertain factors. Therefore the process of developing a strategy must be adopted in the changeable conditions between the system itself and its environment.