scholarly journals Towards an Emotionally Conscious Social Theory

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benet Davetian
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
New Evidence

This article attempts to contribute to the on-going discussion regarding the ‘future of sociology and social theory’ by suggesting that classical and contemporary social theories have yet to provide satisfactory accounts of the emotional components of human society. Following a discussion of how emotions have been downplayed in classical and contemporary theory, evidence is presented in support of a sociology that would include the study of emotions as part of broader studies of the social. A central proposition of this article is that the harmonization of studies of ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ realities would facilitate the development of a systems theory that neither excludes diversity nor minimizes the immutable emotional needs of individuals and their social systems. In support of the above argument, the author presents some new evidence pointing to the primacy of the human emotions across cultural boundaries.

scholarly journals The intersection between systems theory and grounded theory: the emergence of the grounded systems observer

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Barry Gibson ◽  
Jane Gregory ◽  
Peter G Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Systems Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

The aim of this paper is to outline how a theoretical intersection between systems theory and grounded theory could be articulated. The paper proceeds by marking that the important difference between systems theory and grounded theory is primarily reflected in the distinction between a revision of social theory on the one hand and the generation of theory for the social world on the other. It then explores figures of thought in philosophy that relate closely to aspects of Luhmann’s theory of social systems. An effectual intersection, an operational intersection, an intersection based on the concept of primary redundancy and a global/transcendental intersection between systems theory and grounded theory are proposed. The paper then goes on to briefly outline several methodological consequences of the intersection for a grounded systems methodology. It concludes by discussing the sort of knowledge for the social world that is likely to emerge from this mode of observation.

A Group Awaiting Death: The Social Systems Perspective on a Naturally Occurring Group Situation

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Starker ◽  
Joan E. Starker
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Task Structure ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Situation ◽  
Imminent Death

The decline and imminent death of an individual in a hospital's intensive care unit led to the creation of a transient group composed of family and friends. The dynamics of this tragic group are explored using the concepts provided by Social Systems theory. Ambiguity of the task structure and its inherent frustrations, fluidity of leadership and power, and failure of a utopian defense are all discussed as contributors to subsequent dissension and splitting. The social systems perspective provides a useful tool for understanding this naturally occurring group situation.

scholarly journals Quantum and systems theory in world society: Not brothers and sisters but relatives still?

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 434-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Albert ◽  
Felix Maximilian Bathon
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Social World ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Entire World ◽  
And Function

This article provides a sympathetic, yet also somewhat critical, engagement with the notion of ‘quantizing’ by exploring substantive overlaps between quantum and systems theory. It is based on the observation that while quantum theory is ‘non-classical’ in its entire world-view, there is a danger that when it comes to the social world it is simply laid on a world-view of that world, which remains at its core ‘classical’. This situation calls for engaging quantum with existing non-classical social theories. Resemblances between quantum and systems theory are obviously given through similarities around the concepts of observation and meaning, whose status and function in both bodies of theory is explored. We then probe the degree to which obvious analogies in fact could be read as overlaps and similarities that could be put to complementary analytical use: in a sense, we argue that systems theory ‘does’ quantum theory, and vice versa. The article concludes with some vistas of this discussion for the field of international relations.

Determinants of family meetings in private family businesses

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akif Cicek ◽  
Rüveyda Kelleci ◽  
Pieter Vandekerkhof
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Family Firms ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Social Systems Theory ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Family Governance ◽  
Family Meetings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family

PurposeFamily governance mechanisms serve to govern and strengthen relations between the family and the business, as well as the relationships between the members of the business family itself. However, despite agreement on the importance of adopting family governance structures, explicit research on the determinants of family governance mechanisms is currently missing. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to uncover the determinants of family meetings. In order to do so, the social systems theory is used to unravel several determining factors of this crucial form of family governance mechanisms in private family firms.Design/methodology/approachThe authors perform a qualitative study by conducting semi-structured interviews in eight Belgian private family firms in order to discover the antecedents of the implementation of family meetings. The authors use a pattern-matching technique as an analytical strategy.FindingsThe findings of the study highlight the importance of “soft,” relational, qualitative issues as antecedents of family meetings as opposed to previous research on family governance, which predominantly focused on “hard,” quantitative measures (e.g. family ownership). The findings of the study also provide novel insights into the origins of the family component (i.e. family meetings) of family business governance.Originality/valueWhile the current literature has only focused on describing the different types of family governance and their positive consequences for the family firm, the authors take a step back to explain why family meetings, as a form of family governance, are adopted in the first place. Second, the authors demonstrate the instrumentality of the social systems theory in understanding the family's needs that necessitate the implementation of family governance mechanisms.

Can social systems theory be used for immanent critique?

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei Procyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Social Systems Theory ◽  
Immanent Critique

Two trends have emerged in recent work from the Frankfurt School: the first involves a reconsideration of immanent critique’s basic commitments and viability for critical social theory, while the second involves an effort to introduce temporal considerations for social interaction into critical theorizing to help make sense of the phenomenon of social acceleration. This article contributes to these ongoing discussions by investigating whether social systems theory, in which temporal relations play a primary role, can be integrated with immanent critique. If such a synthesis were successful, it would promise to unify two distinct forms of social theorizing that have often been taken to be orthogonal or incommensurate since the debate between Luhmann and Habermas in the 1970s. The investigation proceeds in three parts: first, the article delineates immanent critique’s conditions of success; second, using these conditions, it identifies potential points of contact between social systems theorizing and immanent critical forms of analysis, while exemplifying these commonalities via a case study; finally, the article argues that, although immanent critique is not a strict method of analysis or investigation, its success conditions preclude social systems theory on the grounds that the latter approach cannot anchor itself within the context of analysis in the way ‘immanent critique’ requires.

Major Social Theories of Aging and their Implications for Counseling Concepts and Practice

1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. S. Fry
Keyword(s):  
Role Theory ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Theories Of Aging ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Disengagement Theory ◽  
Counseling Psychologists

The article discusses the counseling implications and applications of a number of social theories of aging. It explores the effects of some of the rather distinct perspectives on aging that have emerged, beginning with the conceptualizations, research studies, and criticisms of disengagement theory, activity theory, and role theory, leading up to continuity theory and the liberation perspective. The social theory approaches to aging and the resulting empirical studies examined here have affinities with some of the existing perspectives of counseling concepts and counseling practice. The focus is on counseling perspectives aimed at helping elderly individuals maintain a satisfactory state of psychological well-being. Particular attention is given to the reciprocal influences among social systems, individual resources, and counselor effects in helping elderly clients cope with differential demands, internal pressures, and external constraints of the social environment. An integrative framework proposing conceptual links among individual resources, social resources, and life satisfactions in old age is presented. The discussion is devoted to persuading counseling psychologists and mental health practitioners that individuals age differently and by differing processes. The issues of heterogeneity in the aging processes, the modifiability of these processes, and choices in constructing alternative futures for older persons make it possible for counseling researchers and counseling psychologists to consider aging individuals as synergistic products of ecological, biological, psychosocial, and cultural factors.

scholarly journals Distributed artificial intelligence, diversity and information literacy

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kåhre
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Strong Artificial Intelligence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Symbolic Ai

My proposal is based on my doctoral dissertation On the Shoulders of AI-technology : Sociology of Knowledge and Strong Artificial Intelligence which I succesfully defended on May 29th 2009. E-published http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12588&postid=1389611 The dissertation is concerned with Sociology’s stance in the debate on Strong Artificial Intelligence,.i.e. AI-systems that is able to shape knowledge on their own. There is a need for sociologists to realize the difference between two approaches to constructing AI systems: Symbolic AI (or Classic AI) and Connectionistic AI in a distributed model – DAI. Sociological literature shows a largely critical attitude towards Symbolic AI, an attitude that is justified. The main theme of the dissertation is that DAI is not only compatible with Sociology’s approach to what is social, but also constitutes an apt model of how a social system functions. This is consolidated with help from german sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. A lot of sociologists criticize AI because they think that diversity is important and can only be comprehended in informal circumstances that only humans interacting together can handle. They mean that social intelligence is needed to make something out of diversity and informalism. Luhmann´s systems theory gives the opposite perspective. It tells us that it is social systems that communicate and produce new knowledge structures out of contincency. Psychological systems, i.e. humans, can only think within the circumstances the social system offer. In that way human thoughts are bound by formalism. Diversity is constructed when the social systems interact with complexity in their environments. They reduce the complexity and try to present it as meaningful diversity. Today when most of academic literature is electronically stored and is accessible through the Internet from al over the world, DAI can help social systems to observe and reduce complexity in this global dimension. It is pointed out that human consciousness is limited in handling this global dimension. Therefore is it reasonable to argue that DAI in at least this dimension has a stronger intelligence than humans have. I will argue that Luhmann´s social theory and DAI give a god model to analyze the conditions for diversity in the Internet society. Further, the discussion about strong AI gives a lot of opportunities to discuss what sort of information literacy is needed and it also gives some perspective to discuss the concept of IL I have observed that the concept has evolved from something that coined some formal capacities, to something that has to do with a capacity to observe informal relations. That discussion can easily be compared to a parallel discussion within the debate about strong AI.

scholarly journals Social and Material Status of Teachers from The Perspective of Teacher Education Students

2021 ◽  
pp. 257-270
Author(s):  
Filduza Prušević Sadović ◽  
Sefedin Šehović
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
Teacher Education Faculty ◽  
Developed World

The social status and position of teachers have changed throughout history and is conditioned by the development of human society. In the developed world, the teacher is a highly positioned member of society, part of the intellectual elite and a positive model of behavior. We are witnesses that the period of media development, the inflow of information, the collapse of previous value systems, led to a change in the evaluation and position of teachers in Serbia and the surrounding countries. Teachers are experiencing one of the most difficult periods. They are usually poorly paid, insufficiently valued, unmotivated. The paper describes positive examples of the attitude of social systems in the world towards teachers, where teachers are still part of the elite and where, thanks to a positive and encouraging attitude towards educators, societies experience prosperity in economic, cultural, material and other aspects of development. In this way, the assumption is confirmed that a society that invests in education and teaching staff, is profitable in the long run and has positive results in development. Also, the paper presents the results of research conducted by surveying students of the Teacher Education Faculty in Belgrade, in which we wanted to find out the attitudes, motives, and views of students about the position of teachers in society, and the projections of their future occupation. The results of the research show that students are motivated to work as teachers and that they like working with children and young people, but at the same time, they are aware of the unfavorable position of teachers in society and hope that this position can be improved by raising to make the public aware of the importance of teaching at the earliest age of students and stricter criteria when enrolling and selecting future teachers at faculties and schools.

scholarly journals Political praxis, social analysis and western modernization: a theoretical-political route for critical social theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-173
Author(s):  
Leno Francisco Danner ◽  
Fernando Danner
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Erich Fromm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Praxis ◽  
Critical Social

This paper criticizes the emphasis placed by contemporary social theory and political philosophy on institutionalism as the basis for the understanding, legitimation and changing of institutions, or social systems, and society as a whole. The more impactful characteristic of institutionalism is its technical-logical structuring, based on an impartial, neutral and formal proceduralism that autonomizes social systems in relation to political praxis and social normativity, depoliticizing these social systems. Here, they are no longer depoliticized, but assume political centrality as the fundamental social subjects of the legitimation and evolution of institutions and society. The paper’s central argument is that it is necessary to re-politicize the institutions and the social subjects or social classes in order to ground and streamline a direct political praxis and the civil society’s social-political subjects as the basis for framing and legitimizing the current process of Western modernization. Recovering the politicity and the carnality of institutions, of social classes and of the evolution of society, is the fundamental task for a contemporary critical social theory that faces the strong institutionalism based on systemic theory. Such politicization is the unforgettable teaching of Karl Marx and Erich Fromm: the institutions have political content and political subjects, they are the result of social struggles for hegemony between opposed social classes which are political. Now, such politicity-carnality must be unveiled and used for an emancipatory democratic political praxis as the route for social analysis and political change, in opposition to the technical-logical understanding both of the institutions and of the social subjects.

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