THE HUNGRY, CROWDED, COMPETITIVE WORLD: Albert O. Hirschman, Clifford Geertz, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso conversation. Archive

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-34

By the middle of the 1970s, Albert O. Hirschman’s bias for hopefulness was under siege. Gloom pervaded the social sciences. And the real world gave ample justification to those who preferred to analyze failure and futility. By then, Hirschman had left Harvard University and had joined Clifford Geertz in the creation of a School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, one which would resist the quantifying and formalizing turns in American social sciences. There, the pair would become a formidable intellectual team.

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 251-261
Author(s):  
Richard C. Rockwell

This essay sets forth the thesis that social reporting in the United States has suffered from an excess of modesty among social scientists. This modesty might be traceable to an incomplete model of scientific advance. one that has an aversion to engagement with the real world. The prospects for social reporting in the United States would be brighter if reasonable allowances were to be made for the probable scientific yield of the social reporting enterprise itself. This yield could support and improve not only social reporting but also many unrelated aspects of the social sciences.


1995 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis C. Duling

This article explores marginality theory as it was first proposed in  the social sciences, that is related to persons caught between two competing cultures (Park; Stonequist), and, then, as it was developed in sociology as related to the poor (Germani) and in anthropology as it was related to involuntary marginality and voluntary marginality (Victor Turner). It then examines a (normative scheme' in antiquity that creates involuntary marginality at the macrosocial level, namely, Lenski's social stratification model in an agrarian society, and indicates how Matthean language might fit with a sample inventory  of socioreligious roles. Next, it examines some (normative schemes' in  antiquity for voluntary margi-nality at the microsocial level, namely, groups, and examines how the Matthean gospel would fit based on indications of factions and leaders. The article ,shows that the author of the Gospel of Matthew has an ideology of (voluntary marginality', but his gospel includes some hope for (involuntary  marginals' in  the  real world, though it is somewhat tempered. It also suggests that the writer of the Gospel is a (marginal man', especially in the sense defined by the early theorists (Park; Stone-quist).


2021 ◽  
pp. 170-195
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse

The book ends by calling for a new kind of science of the social, one that recognizes the immense challenges posed by the sheer complexity of sociocultural phenomena and the fact that our evolved psychology is not well designed to grasp, let alone address, those challenges. Nevetheless, we live in a time when the potential rewards of transdisciplinary collaboration are richer than they have ever been before. This chapter describes some of the main hurdles to achieving that potential and discusses how these might be overcome. The very enterprise of social science is inherently unnatural, given our uniquely human evolved psychology, and this may explain why the study of the social has proven harder to get off the ground, in comparison with many other life sciences. The resulting lack of consensus on basic matters of epistemology and method has contributed to the creation of theoretical and methodological divisions in the social sciences in the alternate guises of the ‘two cultures problem’ and the ‘silo effect’. The solutions proposed here advocate new forms of problem-centred transdisciplinary research based on the kinds of cross-cultural collaborative programmes described in detail throughout the book.


1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-490
Author(s):  
Ebtihaj Al-A‘ali

This paper comprises three major sections. The first section discussesmodem social assumptions concerning the existence of human beings andtheir societies. It also explains the impact of these assumptions on organizationaltheory. The second section explores Islamic assumptions concerningthese same two elements and explains a major attribute of Islamicorganizations. The third section compares the above-mentioned assumptions of modem social science to those of Islam and illustrates thatknowledge-transfer creates its own organizational and social problems.Modern Social Science Assumptions: HumanExistence and SocietyIn reviewing the modem science of human existence and society,Burrell and Morgan (1979) state that the relevant assumptions in this areacan be viewed in the light of two strands of thought: nominalism andrealism. Nominalism indicates that no real world structure exists outsideof the individual’s concepts, ideas, and thoughts. This implies that realityis constructed by individuals and leads them to experience multiple realities(Lincoln and Guba 1985). Societies and external existants to individualsare merely names perceived individually (Taylor and Bodgon1979). Societies, therefore, consist of individuals who have real existenceand, without them, there would be no societies (Behechti and Bahonar1990). According to nominalism, knowledge about multiple realities isgathered from individuals themselves ...


2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Kertzer

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Robert Segal

The social sciences do threaten theology/religious studies even when they do not challenge either the reality of God or the reality of belief in the reality of God. The entries in RPP ignore this threat in the name of some wished-for harmony. The entries neither recognize nor refute the challenge of social science to theology/religious studies. They do, then, stand antithetically both to those whom I call "religionists" and to many theologians, for whom there is nothing but a challenge.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Yunis

Pasambahan a Minangkabau society how to speak, the speech full of philosophy which delivery indirectly. This turned out to be complicated understood by some people who did not understand the pasambahan. In the present study, the authors sought to express the values of the philosophy contained in pasambahan as how to speak the traditional Minang community. As time goes, these traditions are disappearing from everyday society, for it needs a way to preserve it back. Pariaman is one area that has always practiced this tradition. In this study, the authors attempted to peel pasambahan text in a manner which according to the author deconstruction approach is one approach that is very controversial in the social sciences today. The process of data analysis by using some theories of social science (eclectic). Among the pragmatic theory and semiotics. The method used in the form of qualitative observation, the authors go directly spaciousness and interact with competent informants. From the discussion, the authors found ten diplomatic elementscontained in tradition and pasamabahan text. These elements in them, '' opener, apology, positioning/element of certainty, stringsattached, request (permission), receipt, delivery destination, contracts/agreements/agreements, offers, and resolver ''.


1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Abul Fadl

The need for a relevant and instrumental body of knowledge that can secure the taskof historical reconstruction in Muslim societies originally inspired the da’wa for the Islamizationof knowledge. The immediate targets for this da’wa were the social sciences for obvious reasons.Their field directly impinges on the organization of human societies and as such carries intothe area of human value and belief systems. The fact that such a body of knowledge alreadyexisted and that the norms for its disciplined pursuit were assumed in the dominant practiceconfronted Muslim scholars with the context for addressing the issues at stake. How relevantwas current social science to Muslim needs and aspirations? Could it, in its present formand emphasis, provide Muslims with the framework for operationalizing their values in theirhistorical present? How instrumental is it in shaping the social foundations vital for the Muslimfuture? Is instrumentality the only criteria for such evaluations? In seeking to answer thesequestions the seeds are sown for a new orientation in the social sciences. This orientationrepresents the legitimate claims and aspirations of a long silent/silenced world culture.In locating the activities of Muslim social scientists today it is important to distinguishbetween two currents. The first is in its formative stages as it sets out to rediscover the worldfrom the perspective of a recovered sense of identity and in terms of its renewed culturalaffinities. Its preoccupations are those of the Muslim revival. The other current is constitutedof the remnants of an earlier generation of modernizers who still retain a faith in the universalityof Western values. Demoralized by the revival, as much as by their own cultural alientation,they seek to deploy their reserves of scholarship and logistics to recover lost ground. Bymodifying their strategy and revalorizing the legacy they hope that, as culture-brokers, theymight be more effective where others have failed. They seek to pre-empt the cultural revivalby appropriating its symbols and reinterpreting the Islamic legacy to make it more tractableto modernity. They blame Orientalism for its inherent fixations and strive to redress its selfimposedlimitations. Their efforts may frequently intersect with those of the Islamizing current,but should clearly not be confused with them. For all the tireless ingenuity, these effortsare more conspicuous for their industry than for their originality. Between the new breadof renovationists and the old guard of ‘modernizers’, the future of an Islamic Social Scienceclearly lies with the efforts of the former.Within the Islamizing current it is possible to distinguish three principal trends. The firstopts for a radical perspective and takes its stand on epistemological grounds. It questionsthe compatibility of the current social sciences on account of their rootedness in the paradigmof the European Enlightenment and its attendant naturalistic and positivist biases. Consistencedemands a concerted e€fort to generate alternative paradigms for a new social science fromIslamic epistemologies. In contrast, the second trend opts for a more pragmatic approachwhich assumes that it is possible to interact within the existing framework of the disciplinesafter adapting them to Islamic values. The problem with modern sciene is ethical, notepistemological, and by recasting it accordingly, it is possible to benefit from its strengthsand curtail its derogatory consequences. The third trend focuses on the Muslim scholar, rather ...


Author(s):  
Е.Н. Юдина

интернет-пространство стало частью реального мира современных студентов. В наши дни особенно актуальна проблема активизации использования интернета как дополнительного ресурса в образовательном процессе. В статье приводятся результаты небольшого социологического исследования, посвященного использованию интернета в преподавании социологических дисциплин. Internet space has become a part of the real world of modern students. The problem of increasing the use of the Internet as an additional resource in the educational process is now particularly topical. The article contains the results of a small sociological study on the use of the Internet in teaching sociological disciplines.


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