scholarly journals Relational Sociology Paradigms

Stan Rzeczy ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 67-94
Author(s):  
Aleksander Manterys

This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s conception, which is part of the tradition of social network research, situates network analyses in the context of connections between culture and symbolic forms and styles. Fuhse’s idea involves a communicative base of relations, and he perceives institutions as spheres of communication that reduce uncertainty and activate roles in the process of communication. François Dépelteau’s approach, which is inspired by Dewey’s pragmatism, recognizes transaction fields as configurations of relations forming interdependency between people. The practices of actors entering transactions within social fields are important, and this makes it possible for an impression of continuity, order, and complexity to be created. Pierpaolo Donati’s relational realism is an attempt to describe the relational dimensions of human actions, while at the same time it is a consistent “relationization” of key social categories, and is also useful in understanding after-modernity. This article emphasizes the fruitfulness of new attempts to demarcate sociological genealogies and to read the classics of relational sociology. The author discusses the creation of new puzzles for sociological theory, the necessity of analysing the ontologies of social life, the phenomena of emergency and agency, and the use of relational theory in regard to categories of the common good and social capital. He encourages multidimensional and multilevel analyses of social reality.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (58) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Janaína Machado STURZA ◽  
Karinne Emanoela Goettems dos SANTOS

RESUMO Objetivo: Este estudo tem como objetivo fomentar a reflexão sobre o atual cenário de conflitos sociais, no qual se encontra a sociedade contemporânea, destacando a importância do acesso à Justiça por meio de um processo civil constitucionalmente adequado, na perspectiva do bem comum. Metodologia: A pesquisa converge para a importância da adaptação dos procedimentos judiciais à realidade social, por meio de um estudo bibliográfico norteado pelo método hipotético dedutivo, apresentando a hermenêutica filosófica gadameriana e as perspectivas de Mauro Cappelletti como principais referenciais teóricos. Resultados: Entender a sociedade a partir de um contexto conflituoso implica assumir uma nova postura diante da complexidade social e da efetivação do necessário processo de transformação na perspectiva de bem comum e, essencialmente, de acesso à Justiça como compromisso. Na órbita do processo civil, esse compromisso torna-se ainda mais evidente com a superveniência do novo Código de Processo. Contribuições: A demonstração de que a efetividade dos direitos fundamentais e a consagração da cidadania perpassam necessariamente por um processo civil constitucionalmente adequado, o qual deve e é capaz de adaptar-se às complexidades da vida social contemporânea.Palavras-chave: bem comum; cidadania; acesso à Justiça; processo constitucionalmente adequado.  ABSTRACT Objective: To encourage reflection on the current scenario of social conflicts in which contemporary society is situated, highlighting the importance of access to Justice by way of a constitutionally adequate civil process in the perspective of the common good. Methodology: The research converges to the importance of adapting judicial procedures to social reality by way of a bibliographic study guided by the hypothetical deductive method, presenting Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics and the perspectives of Mauro Cappelletti as main theoretical references. Results: To understand the society from a conflictual context implies taking a new stance before social complexity and the implementation of the necessary transformation process in the perspective of the common good and, essentially, access to Justice as a commitment. In the orbit of civil proceedings this commitment becomes even more evident upon the supervenience of the new Code of Procedure.Contributions: The demonstration that the effectiveness of fundamental rights and the implementation of citizenship necessarily pass through a constitutionally adequate civil process, which must and is capable of adapting to the complexities of contemporary social life. Keywords: Common good; citizenship; access to Justice; appropriate constitutional process.


Author(s):  
Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo

Migration is a shared condition of all humanity. We have all been strangers in a strange land. All humanity lives today as a result of migration, by themselves or their ancestors. Migration is a matter sometimes of choice, often of need, and always an inalienable right. All helpless people deserve to be helped. Offering such help is a commandment and a blessing shared among all religions. Accordingly, as Pope Francis reminds us, our duties to migrants include “to welcome”, “to protect”, “to promote”, and “to integrate.” National borders are not a result of primary natural law, as aren’t private property and clothes, “because nature did not give [humans] clothes, but art invented them”. National borders depend on social, political and geographical factors. Therefore, faced with current waves of mass migration, in order to establish practices that respond to the common good we need to be guided by three levels of responsibility. The first principle being that “in case of need all things are common”, because “every man is my brother”. This principle is relative to existence or subsistence and conditions other related issues (such as accommodation, food, housing, security, etc.). Secondly, as part of the fundamental rights of people, legal guarantees of primary rights that foster an “organic participation” in the economic and social life of the nation. Access to these economic and social goods, including education and employment, will allow people to develop their own abilities. Thirdly, a deeper sense of integration, reflecting responsibilities related to protecting, examining and developing the values that underpin the deep, stable, unity of a society— and, more fundamentally, create a horizon of public peace, understood as St. Augustine’s "tranquility in order". In particular, with regards to the aforementioned context, policies on migration should be guided by prudence, but prudence must never mean exclusion. On the contrary, governments should evaluate, “with wisdom and foresight, the extent to which their country is in a position, without prejudice to the common good of citizens, to offer a decent life to migrants, especially those truly in need of protection. Strangely enough, the response of most governments in the face of this phenomenon only seems to value the third principle, completely disregarding the first two.


Author(s):  
Paul Spicker

Thinking collectively is a book about the meaning, implications and value of collectivism in social policy. Collectivism is not a single, unitary idea; it covers a wide range of approaches that depend on the importance of groups and organisations in social life. Substantive collectivism is the idea that we live, not as 'individuals', but as the members of social groups, like families, neighbourhoods and communities, and that many of our actions are done together with others in organisations and social institutions. Methodological collectivism looks for explanations and patterns of behaviour not in the actions of individual human beings, but in the actions of groups. Moral collectivism begins from the premise that collective social groups - families, businesses, institutions, governments and countries - are moral agents; that they have rights and responsibilities, that groups as well as individuals can take moral action, and that the morality of their actions can sensibly be assessed in those terms. Collective action is defined, not by what is to be done, but how. The practice of collective action, and the character of provision made, tend in their turn to influence the kinds of things that people want their services to do. Democratic deliberation, voice and empowerment become the expectation and practice of public services; co-operation, working together, sharing and solidarity come to be seen as virtues in themselves. The book makes a case for a collective approach to the common weal, based on society, the common good, solidarity, stewardship, rights, equality and a sense of common enterprise.


Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Chafe

Nearly four centuries of American history have witnessed the evolving conflict between two competing sets of values: a belief that acting on behalf of the common good should guide social and political behavior, and a belief that unfettered individual freedom should dominate political and social life. Tracing this conflict from Puritanism through the American Revolution, the Civil War, the rise of industrialism, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and the conservative revival of the Nixon/Reagan era, the essay reveals this clash of values as pivotal to understanding the narrative of American history, with contemporary political battles crystallizing just how basic this conflict has been.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Māmari Stephens

New Zealand's social security system was born out of a vision of society consistent with a definition of the common good informed by Christian ethics. The past 30 years, in particular, have seen fierce ideological battles fought between the left and right over the extent, coverage, and generosity of the system. Yet a remnant of the vision of the common good remains, whereby individuals can have some access, by virtue of social security, to the sufficient conditions of social life to be free enough to find some level of fulfilment in that life. However, the freedom to be good, as is also required by a broad understanding of the common good, is under threat within New Zealand's social security law. Social security law asserts a vision, and not a coherent one, of what it means to be good in New Zealand society.  Newly minted social obligations in the Social Security Act 1964 go beyond the purposes of the legislation; being unconnected to relieving need, maintaining fiscal prudence, or even seeking paid employment as a means of achieving welfare. These modern moral obligations ensure that beneficiaries' freedom to choose to live life in a way consonant with the common good is frustrated, if not substantially abrogated, striking the wrong balance between the law's protection of individual autonomy and its implementation of social imperatives in pursuit of the common good.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
Giovanni Aditya Arum

In principle justice touches the human nature as social animal. The discourse of justice has become an important theme in social and political philosophy all the times. St. Thomas Aquinas is one of the philosophers who pays much attention on this theme. In Summa Theologiae, he spent a lot of pages to explain justice as one of the cardinal virtues. Inspired by Aristotle, he defined justice as “a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will.” This essay wants to explain the discourse of justice according to St. Thomas Aquinas and to compare it with the concept of justice in fifth principle of Pancasila. The writter uses the relevancy study to get the convergency idea between two different ideas of justice. This essay will explore both concept of justice by St. Thomas Aquinas and Pancasila perspective. There are at least some convergency ideas between those two. But the pressure point is the concept of bonum commune. Pancasila as the Philosophische Grondslag of Indonesia as like as St. Thomas Aquinas’ idea of justice emphasizes the common good (bonum commune) as the very end of Indonesia nation. Reflecting on these convergency ideas, we can find some relevant discourses concerning justice in socio-political life of Indonesian people, i.e: law, politic, and religion.  In the end of this essay, the writer gives a critical thought to the tendency of the liberalism pathology in social life


1994 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
John Covaleskie

This response to Coulson's recent EPAA piece, "Human Life, Human Organizations, and Education," argues that Coulson is wrong about "human nature," social life, and the effects of unregulated capitalist markets. On these grounds, it is argued that his call to remove education from the public sphere should be rejected. The point is that education is certainly beneficial to individuals who receive it, but to think of education as purely a private and personal good properly distributed through the market is seriously to misconstrue the meaning of education. We should not care to be the sort of people who do so.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taras DOBKO ◽  

This article examines philosophical assumptions of whether and how happiness could become a goal of political action and standard for assessing government’s performance. It is argued that solidarity and care for the common good require the political economy of citizenship balanced with affirmation of the dignity of the human person in the form of basic human rights. The rule of law and fair procedures should be complemented with the concern for character development into citizenship and mature civic commitment. This unfolds both in faith-based and secular attempts to imagine and measure human development in terms beyond GDP index and economic statistics. To succeed these attempts must be based on an adequate anthropology, draw their strength from a sound moral source and inspire mature ethical agency. Catholic social thought conceives of integral human development as a way of envisaging social arrangements that foster flourishing of the whole person and each person. It is based on the vision of the human being as an image of God and draws its energy from the idea of “good society” in which respect for the dignity of the human person and care for the common good of all people are central to political and social life. KEY WORDS: Integral human development, common good, dignity, good society, human rights, social progress


2018 ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
Sergiy   Prysukhin

The article by S. Prysukhin “The Principle of Subsidiarity: Lessons from the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church” analyzes the achievements of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, represented by the works of Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, John Paul II, revealing the meaningful characteristics of the concept of “the principle of subsidiarity”, its role and meaning in the system of Christian values. The principle of subsidiarity makes possible such relationships in social life, when the community of higher order does not interfere in the internal life of the community of the lower order, taking over the proper functions of that function; for the common good it gives it when necessary support and assistance, thereby coordinating its interaction with other social structures. The principle of subsidiarity guides social practice to the promotion of the common good in the human community. The spread and application of the principle of subsidiarity opposes the danger of "nationalization" of society and the most terrible manifestations of collectivism, restricts the absoluteization of power, bureaucratization of state and socio-cultural structures, becoming one of the guarantors of respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens of their country.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Shinohara ◽  
Melody Yiu

The strong and rapid urban growth of China in the past decades was largely realised through territorial expansion and essentially building cities from the ground up, a condition known as a ‘developmental city’. Many expanding Chinese cities are developmental in character with imported types in vast quantity that are becoming the new dominant types. As outward expansion began to decline in recent years, the focus of development is returning to the city centre,with the risk of large-scaleerasure of existing urban fabric along with its history and social life. This paper explores the possibilities for inner-city regeneration through evaluation of current architecture types in the urbanised Chinese city centre of Ningbo, and the potential to engage in the developmental future. Typology is utilised as a tool of investigation to reveal the evolution of the idea of the city over time.Theaimistopoint towards an urban vision of the common good with a new collective form, which can then respond to the inevitable developmental forces through a theoretical position for regeneration rooted in urban social life.


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