American and European Forms of Social Theory reflecting Social Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Per Cornell ◽  
Fredrik Fahlander

In this paper we propose an operative social theory that eliminates the need for a pre-defined regional context or spatio-temporal social entities like social system, culture, society or ethnic group. The archaeological object in a microarchaeological approach is not a closed and homogeneous social totality, but rather the structurating practices, the regulative actions operating in a field ofhumans and things. In order to address these issues more systematically, we discuss social action, materialities and the constitution of archaeological evidence. Sartre's concept of serial action implies that materialities and social agency are integrated elements in the structuration process. We suggest that such patterns of action can be partially retrieved from the fragmented material evidence studied by the archaeologist.


1963 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 425
Author(s):  
Walter Simon ◽  
Hans L. Zetterberg

The Monist ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Megill ◽  

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Bongaerts

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen des Artikels wird versucht, die Plausibiliät und Fruchtbarkeit des sogenannten Practice Turn in Social Theory in theorievergleichender Methode zu prüfen. Die Abgrenzbarkeit der für praxistheoretische Ansätze als konstitutiv angenommenen Merkmale von den ‚klassischen Theorieangeboten‘ der Soziologie dient dabei als Kriterium, um beurteilen zu können, inwiefern der practice turn tatsächlich eine neue Perspektive auf soziale Wirklichkeit wirft und somit als ein neues Paradigma oder zumindest als alternatives Theorieangebot angenommen werden kann. Zu diesem Zweck werden in einem ersten Schritt die Grundelemente der praxistheoretischen Perspektive rekonstruiert, um sie in einem zweiten Schritt kritisch im Rekurs auf soziologische Theorieangebote zu diskutieren, von denen die Praxistheorien dezidiert abgegrenzt werden (z. B. Durkheim, Weber, Schütz, Parsons, Luhmann usw.). In einem dritten Schritt wird vor dem Hintergrund von Bourdieus Theorie der Praxis auf ein Manko des praxistheoretischen Diskurses der letzten Jahre hingewiesen. Die Kritik hilft im abschließenden vierten Schritt dabei, einige Intuitionen der praxistheoretischen Perspektive für eine systematische Theoriebildung fruchtbar zu machen, die skizzenhaft umrissen wird und nicht den Praxis-, sondern einen (nicht-behavioristischen) Verhaltensbegriff in den Blick rückt.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shove ◽  
Gordon Walker

Energy has an ambivalent status in social theory, variously figuring as a driver or an outcome of social and institutional change, or as something that is woven into the fabric of society itself. In this article the authors consider the underlying models on which different approaches depend. One common strategy is to view energy as a resource base, the management and organization of which depends on various intersecting systems: political, economic and technological. This is not the only route to take. The authors develop an alternative approach, viewing energy supply and energy demand as part of the ongoing reproduction of bundles and complexes of social practice. In articulating and comparing these two positions they show how social-theoretical commitments influence the ways in which problems like those of reducing carbon emissions are framed and addressed. Whereas theories of practice highlight basic questions about what energy is for, these issues are routinely and perhaps necessarily obscured by those who see energy as an abstract resource that structures or that is structured by a range of interlocking social systems.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Zhok

AbstractThe notion of social practice and a family of notions akin to it play an essential role in contemporary philosophical reflection, with particular reference to the conceptualisation of historical processes. Stephen Turner's book A Social Theory of Practices (1994) has provided a major challenge to this family of notions, and our purpose is to outline a grounding account of the notion of social practice in the form of an answer to Turner's criticisms. We try to answer three questions: first, if it is necessary to grant a tacit dimension to transmittable habits; second, if and how a tacit dimension of "meaning" could be intersubjectively transmitted; third, what is the possible role of rationality in changing social practices. Our discussion moves from Wittgenstein's argument on rule-following; in its wake we try to examine the nature of habits as a basis for rules and discuss their temporal sedimentation, inertia and modes of intersubjective transmission. In conclusion we support the idea that social practices must rely on a tacit dimension, that their tacit dimension does not represent a hindrance to intersubjective transmission, and that the possible dogmatism of social practices is not due to their "hidden" side, but to their explicit quasi-rational side.


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