Social Theory and Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Liquid Modernity ◽  
Practical Difficulty ◽  
Sociological Explanation

Students of religious groups or activities are often pressed to provide an appropriate theoretical background for their work. The practical difficulty is that much social theory is actually philosophy with little empirical basis. This chapter considers the merits of four different sorts of social theory: normative theory that tells us what is good and bad; zeitgeist metaphors that capture the nature of modernity with some eye-catching word or phrase (for example, Baumann’s ‘liquid modernity’); agenda-setters (such as feminism or postcolonial theory) that want new questions asked in new ways; and sociological explanation grounded in reasonable extrapolations from empirical research. The drawbacks to the first three are identified as a way of advertising the virtues of the last type of theory.

Media Ethics, Moral Controversies, and the Sociology of Critique

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hove
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Media Ethics ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
Descriptive Framework ◽  
Normative Justification

Abstract Communication scholars have begun to investigate various links between empirical research and normative theory. In that vein, this article explores how Boltanski and Thévenot’s sociology of critique can enhance our empirical and normative understanding of controversies in media ethics. The sociology of critique and its justification model provide a comprehensive descriptive framework for studying practices of moral evaluation and the social goods at stake in them. First, I discuss some prevailing approaches in media ethics. Second, I explicate how the sociology of critique defines situations of normative justification and supplies a model of their basic requirements. Third, I show how this model can be used to analyze the social background of a media ethics controversy. Last, I suggest how the descriptive approach of the sociology of critique can identify conditions in morally pluralistic social settings that pose challenges to normative theories.

Reactionaries of the lectern: Universalism, anti-empiricism and corporatism in Austrian (and German) social theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-305
Author(s):  
Alan Scott ◽  
Silvia Rief
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Manifestation

This article discusses one early manifestation of a recurring theme in social theory and sociology: the relationship between general (‘universal’ or ‘grand’) theory and empirical research. For the early critical theorists, empiricism and positivism were associated with technocratic domination. However, there was one place where the opposite view prevailed: science and empiricism were viewed as forces of social and political progress and speculative social theory as a force of reaction. That place was Red Vienna of the 1920s and early 1930s. We examine how this view came to be widespread among Austro-Marxists, empirical researchers and some members of the Vienna Circle. It focuses on the arguments and institutional power of their opponents: reactionary, universalistic and corporatist social theorists. The debate between Catholic corporatist theory and its empiricist critics is located not merely in Vienna but also within wider debates in the German-speaking world. Finally, we seek to link these lesser-known positions to more familiar strands of social thought, namely, those associated with Weber and, more briefly, Durkheim and Elias.

scholarly journals Fear and retrotopia – Critical reflections on the rise of defensive emotions in liquid modernity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 94-124
Author(s):  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Sociology Of Emotions ◽  
Liquid Modernity ◽  
Collective Emotions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Times ◽  
Contemporary Study

This article critically addresses the contemporary study of what is called 'defensive emotions' such as fear and nostalgia among a number of social theorists. While it may be true that the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia (here framed by the phrase of 'retrotopia') may indeed be on the rise in Western liberal democracies, it is also important to be wary of taking the literature on the matter as a sign that fear and nostalgia actually permeate all levels of culture and everyday life. The article starts out with some reflections on the sociology of emotions and shows how the early interest in emotions (theoretical and empirical) among a small group of sociologists is today supplemented with the rise of a critical social theory using collective emotions as a lens for conducting a critical analysis of the times. Then the article in turn deals with the contemporary interest within varuious quarters of the social sciences with describing, analysing and diagnosing the rise of what is here called 'defensive emotions' – emotions that express and symbolize a society under attack and emotions that are mostly interpreted as negative signs of the times. This is followed by some reflections on the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia/retrotopia respectively. The article is concluded with a discussion of how we may understand and assess this relatively new interest in defensive emotions.

Understanding Firms’ Customer Satisfaction Information Usage

2005 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil A. Morgan ◽  
Eugene W. Anderson ◽  
Vikas Mittal
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Business Performance ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Information Usage ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Depth Interviews

Despite theoretical and empirical research linking a firm's business performance to the satisfaction of its customers, knowledge of how firms collect and use customer satisfaction information is limited. The authors investigate firms’ customer satisfaction information usage (CSIU) by drawing on in-depth interviews, a focus group of managers, and the existing literature. They identify key characteristics of the major processes involved in firms’ CSIU and compare the CSIU practices revealed in their fieldwork with widely held normative theory prescriptions. They also identify variations in CSIU among the firms in the fieldwork and uncover factors that may help explain the observed differences.

Emotional availability (EA): Theoretical background, empirical research using the EA Scales, and clinical applications

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeynep Biringen ◽  
Della Derscheid ◽  
Nicole Vliegen ◽  
Lia Closson ◽  
M. Ann Easterbrooks
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Emotional Availability ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Clinical Applications

The critical social theory of the Frankfurt School, and the ‘social turn’ in IR

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Weber
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Juergen Habermas ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Social

Critical theory in the Frankfurt School mould has made various inroads into IR theorising, and provided many a stimulus to attempts at redressing the ‘positivist’ imbalance in the discipline. Many of the conceptual offerings of the Frankfurt School perspective have received critical attention in IR theory debates, and while these are still ongoing, the purpose of this discussion is not to attempt to contribute by furthering either methodological interests, or politico-philosophical inquiry. Instead, I focus on the near omission of the social-theoretic aspect of the work especially of Juergen Habermas. I argue that a more in-depth exploration of critical social theory has considerable potential in the context of the ‘social turn’ in IR theory. The lack of attention to this potential is arguably due in part to the importance of Habermas' contribution to cosmopolitan normative theory, and the status held by the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate as a key site of critical IR debate for many years throughout the 1990s. The productivity of the Habermasian conception of the discourse theory of morality within this set of concerns has been obvious, and continues.

Sociology as Practical Philosophy and Moral Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Vandenberghe
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Moral Science ◽  
Sociological Tradition ◽  
Norms And Values

The philosophical assumptions that organize moral sociology as practical philosophy are the outcome of a secular quest to investigate the principles, norms and values behind the constitution of society. As a protracted response to the whole utilitarian-atomistic-individualistic tradition that systematically deemphasizes the constitutive role that morality plays in the structuration of self and society, the sociological tradition has continued, by its own means, the tradition of moral and practical philosophy in theoretically informed empirical research of social practices. Going back to classic moral philosophy, I want to show in this article how social theory is involved in the quest for ‘the good life with and for the others in just institutions’ (Ricoeur).

scholarly journals Some Reflections on Manuel Castells’ Book "Networks of Outrage and Hope. Social Movements in the Internet Age".

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 775-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
The Media ◽  
Manuel Castells ◽  
The Relationship

This paper provides critical reflections on Manuel Castells’ (2012) book Networks of Outrage and Hope. Social Movements in the Internet Age that analyses the “nature and perspectives of networked social movements” (p. 4) and gives special focus to the role of “social media” in movements that emerged in 2011 in Tunisia, Iceland, Egypt, Spain and the United States. I situate Castells’ book in an intellectual discourse that focuses on the political implications of social media and that has involved Clay Shirky, Malcolm Gladwell and Evgeny Morozov. The article also discusses the role of social theory and empirical research in Castells’ book, presents as an alternative a theoretical model of the relationship between social movements and the media, discusses the implications that some empirical data that focus on social media in the Egyptian revolution and the Occupy Wall Street movement have for Castells’ approach, discusses how Castells positions himself towards capitalism and compares his explanation of the crisis and his political views to David Harvey’s approach. Section overview: 1. Introduction 2. Social Media and Politics: A Controversy between Clay Shirky, Malcolm Gladwell and Evgeny Morozov 3. Castells on Social Media in the Context of Protests and Revolutions: The Dimension of Social Theory 4. Social Theory Recovered: A Model of the Relationship between Social Movements and the Media 5. Castells on Social Media in the Context of Protests and Revolutions: The Dimension of Empirical Research 6. Manuel Castells and David Harvey: The Question of Political Struggle - For or against Capitalism? 7. Conclusion

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