The Social World as Will and Idea: Schopenhauer's Influence upon Durkheim's Thought

1988 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 674-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stjepan G. Mestrovic
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Nature Perception ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Unity Of Knowledge

The starting-point for this analysis is a remark made by André Lalande, that Durkheim was so enamoured with Schopenhauer's philosophy that his students nicknamed him ‘Schopen’. The intellectual context shared by Schopenhauer and Durkheim is explored, especially with regard to the opposition between the id-like ‘will’ and the mind. Schopenhauer's influence upon Durkheim's contemporaries is examined briefly. Then, this new context for apprehending Durkheim's thought is applied to selected problems in Durkheimian scholarship, problems that have to do with the dualism of human nature, perception, the unconscious and the unity of knowledge relative to the object-subject debate. The implications for sociological theory are also discussed.

Introduction: Mrs. A. and Dev Satya Nand

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Sarah Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Woman ◽  
Social World ◽  
New Method ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
Dream Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind

In the middle of World War II and at the end of colonial rule, a young woman in Punjab met with family friend Dev Satya Nand as a willing participant in his new method of dream analysis. This chapter introduces Mrs. A., Satya Nand, and the outlines of the case, which began with a discussion of bringing “Hindu Socialism” to Indian peasants and turned into an exploration of love, sexuality, ambition, and life after marriage. The case appeared early in the career of Satya Nand, a prolific but little remembered figure in twentieth-century Indian psychiatry, who theorized complex connections between the mind and the social world, casting the psyche as an organic vehicle for ethical imagination. This introduction also introduces Draupadi, Shakuntala, and Ahalya, central mythic figures who entered Mrs. A.’s musings and Satya Nand’s science. It asks what it means to begin a conversation about ethics from elsewhere than the usual sources in European myth and philosophy, and wonders at how we might consider this narrative in and beyond its place and time, Punjab on the eve of Partition, considering what it demands of us as readers of and alongside Mrs. A., an anonymous yet intimate voice.

Epistemology, social inquiry and quantum theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Monk-Turner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Social World ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Physics

PurposeThis work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.Design/methodology/approachInsights from quantum mechanics are explored especially as they relate to method, measurement and what is knowable. An argument is made that how social scientists, particularly sociologists, understand the nature of “reality out there” and describe the social world may be challenged by quantum ideas. The benefits of utilized mixed methods, considering quantum insights, cannot be overstated.FindingsIt is the proposition of this work that insights from modern physics alter the understanding of the world “out there.” Wheeler suggested that the most profound implication from modern physics is that “there is no out there” (1982; see also Baggott, 1992). Grappling with how modern physics may alter understanding in the social sciences will be difficult; however, that does not mean the task should not be undertaken (see Goswami, 1993). A starting point for the social sciences may be relinquishing an old mechanistic science that depends on the establishment of an objective, empirically based, verifiable reality. Mechanistic science demands “one true reality – a clear-cut reality on which everyone can agree…. Mechanistic science is by definition reductionistic…it has had to try to reduce complexity to oversimplification and process to statis. This creates an illusionary world…that has little or nothing to do with the complexity of the process of the reality of creation as we know, experience, and participate in it” (Goswami, 1993, pp. 64, 66).Research limitations/implicationsMany physicists have popularized quantum ideas for others interested in contemplating the implications of modern physics. Because of the difficulty in conceiving of quantum ideas, the meaning of the quantum in popular culture is far removed from the parent discipline. Thus, the culture has been shaped by the rhetoric and ideas surrounding the basic quantum mathematical formulas. And, over time, as quantum ideas have come to be part of the popular culture, even the link to the popularized literature in physics is lost. Rather, quantum ideas may be viewed as cultural formations that take on a life of their own.Practical implicationsThe work allows a critique of positivist method and provides insight on how to frame qualitative methodology in a new way.Social implicationsThe work utilizes popularized ideas in quantum theory: the preeminent theory that describes all matter. Little work in sociology utilizes this perspective in understanding research methods.Originality/valueQuantum insights have rarely been explored in highlighting limitations in positivism. The current work aims to build on quantum insights and how these may help us better understand the social world around us.

Towards an Immature Sociology

1998 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
Theoretical Interpretation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Sociology Of Childhood

Sociological theory displays a tendency to depict the social world in terms of completed ‘beings’. The social, thus depicted, is a world of powers to ‘finish’ (such as the power granted to convention to provide for social order), and finished products (such as agents and ethical points-of-view). As sociologists of childhood have attempted to bring children into sociological focus in their own right, the disciplinary concern with the ‘complete’ has required that children be attributed the properties assumed more normally to belong to adults. The sociology of childhood has thus preserved the privilege of the complete and the mature over the incomplete and the immature. In this paper the key sociological issues of convention, agency and ethics are given a theoretical interpretation that makes them fit for understanding childhood. The ability of convention to complete social order is questioned. Agency is portrayed as the emergent property of networks of dependency rather than the possession of individuals. An alternative to the ethics of ‘positions’ is offered in the form of an ethics of ‘motion’. Where extant sociologies of childhood have brought children into the ‘finished’ world of sociological theory, this paper uses childhood's ontological ambiguity to open the door onto an unfinished social world.

Arabic Folk Linguistics

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasir Suleiman
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Folk Linguistics ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Arabic Sociolinguistics ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Classical Arabic

This article addresses some long-standing issues in Arabic sociolinguistics. The starting point is the concept of diglossia, which has become the port of entry for any discussion of the semiliquid language situation in the Arabic-speaking world. It first outlines the most abiding criticisms against diglossia and then offers thoughts on these as a prelude to discussing Arabic folk linguistics. It is argued that a folk linguistic perspective should be incorporated in studying Arabic in the social world. This perspective is important in developing an insider understanding of the language that may be at odds with the findings of modern linguistics. To aid the process of developing this perspective, the article adopts the terminology and conceptual frameworks Arabic speakers use in describing their language situation wherever possible—hence, the choice of fusha and ‘ammiyya instead of any of their translations into English, including Classical Arabic and vernacular, which Haeri uses.

scholarly journals „Wenn ich es nicht tue, dann macht's ein anderer“ – Subjektwerdungen und Verantwortung

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-124
Author(s):  
Klaus Geiselhart ◽  
Tobias Häberer
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Autonomous Action ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind

Abstract. Poststructuralist theory focuses largely on describing how and why subjects reproduce the social conditions they have internalised. This is a deconstruction of the central idea of the Enlightenment, the human capacity for autonomous action. At the same time, however, it also denies all individuals any responsibility and ultimately leads criticism into a crisis. Pragmatist philosophy offers the possibility of determining the role of the mind in processes of becoming a subject without abandoning the achievements of the poststructuralist concept of subjectification. The concept of transaction describes how actors constitute each other as subjects within social situations. The relationships that arise through such processes depend, among other things, on the personalities of those people involved. Accordingly, it is possible to identify the responsibility of individuals to govern their social relations and personality development. Since these aspects can only be determined in localised individual cases, this offers a particularly suitable starting point for geographical critic.

scholarly journals The Mind of the Political and Social Animal

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nerijus Stasiulis
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Mind

In this article I present the outline of Filosofija. Sociogija 30(3) the articles of which I see as mainly centering around the issue of Man as placed and interacting within social, cultural and political contexts. However, the discussion of the social or political is generally nourished by metaphysical or epistemological issues or insights. The human mind deals with the fundamental questions concerning human nature, the existence or the metaphysical structure of the world, the status of cognition in general and science/ technology in particular. The articles merge into a choir signalling the inescapably social and political mode of our consciousness.

The Concept of the Link in Psychoanalytic Therapy

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Scharff
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Social World ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Couple And Family Therapy ◽  
Psychoanalytic Treatment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Language Literature

The concept of the link (el vinculo), first developed in the Spanish language literature by Pichon-Rivière more than fifty years ago, describes an interactive bond between people that includes interactive and unconscious elements. It is organised by the unconscious of each participant and, in turn, contributes to the unconscious organisation of the participants. The horizontal axis of links joins each person to the family and the social world. The vertical axis joins the person to previous generations, the next generation, and to history. Psychoanalytic treatment that takes the link into account can gain perspective on what joins each person to the generations, their families, communities, and the current social world. Pichon-Rivière saw, therefore, the importance of conducting psychotherapy not only with individuals, but also with families. This paper summarises ideas about the link, and compares it to ideas that have evolved separately in the English-language literature on object relations, and suggests that the link is a concept that can enrich our understanding of unconscious interaction and its effect on personality organisation in individual and in conjoint therapies. An example drawn from couple and family therapy illustrates ideas about links and their role in couple and family treatment.

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