Book reviews and notices : BRYAN S. TURNER, The body and society: Explorations in social theory. London: Sage Publications, 1996. Second edition (Theory, culture and society series). xiv + 254 pp. Figs., table, refs., index. £40.00 (hardback)/£13.95 (paperback): KATHY DAVIS, ed., Embodied practices: Feminist perspectives on the body. London: Sage Publications, 1997. x + 210 pp. Notes, refs., index. £40.00 (hardback)/£13.99 (paperback)

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 452-455
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Thapan

This exciting new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the contemporary state of the field. The editors’ introduction and forty-five essays cover feminist critical engagements with philosophy and adjacent scholarly fields, as well as feminist approaches to current debates and crises across the world. Authors cover topics ranging from the ways in which feminist philosophy attends to other systems of oppression, and the gendered, racialized, and classed assumptions embedded in philosophical concepts, to feminist perspectives on prominent subfields of philosophy. The first section contains chapters that explore feminist philosophical engagement with mainstream and marginalized histories and traditions, while the second section parses feminist philosophy’s contributions to with numerous philosophical subfields, for example metaphysics and bioethics. A third section explores what feminist philosophy can illuminate about crucial moral and political issues of identity, gender, the body, autonomy, prisons, among numerous others. The Handbook concludes with the field’s engagement with other theories and movements, including trans studies, queer theory, critical race, theory, postcolonial theory, and decolonial theory. The volume provides a rigorous but accessible resource for students and scholars who are interested in feminist philosophy, and how feminist philosophers situate their work in relation to the philosophical mainstream and other disciplines. Above all it aims to showcase the rich diversity of subject matter, approach, and method among feminist philosophers.


1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Janssen ◽  
Theo Verheggen

By studying Dürkheim through a Schopenhauerian lens, the one-sidedly cognitivist and functionalist reception of his social theory can be balanced. Durkheim explicitly rejected such monistic interpretations. His dialectical approach was always aimed at an essentially dualistic perception of man and society, wherein the lower pole, the individual, is central. In Durkheim's symbol theory, this position leads to two kinds of symbols: those that are bound to the human body, here called “this and that” symbols, and those people can choose freely, here called “this for that” symbols. This twofold symbol theory can already be found in medieval philosophy (e.g. Dante Alighieri) as well as in the work of Paul Ricoeur. For Durkheim the human person is the symbol par excellence. By implication the rituals in which the person is (re)constructed, that is the rites of passage, should be central. The interpretation here opens up new perspectives for a more psychological interpretation of Durkheim's sociology.


Author(s):  
Steve Case ◽  
Phil Johnson ◽  
David Manlow ◽  
Roger Smith ◽  
Kate Williams

This chapter examines a range of criminological perspectives which are collectively known as critical criminology, with particular emphasis on labelling perspectives, Marxist inspired critical theories, and feminist perspectives. It begins with an overview of the four main ideas of positivism (in either its biological, psychological, or sociological forms): determinism, scientism, consensus, and treatment/rehabilitation. It then considers the philosophical and political arguments that underpin critical criminologies, along with the different foundational strands within critical criminology. It also discusses the importance of the ideas of social construction, power and power relations to critical criminology, as well as the problems of ‘deviance’ and its interpretation and control. Finally, it explores the development of critical criminology in Britain, the rise of the ‘new’ criminology, Taylor et al's (1973) notion of a ‘fully social theory’ of crime and deviance, and the issue of violence in relation to gender.


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