A. K. Saran’s Sociology: Towards a Critique of Modernist Mode in Social Sciences

In the academic world of Indian Sociology, the deeply philosophical orientation of A. K. Saran’s approach, together with the masterly approaches developed by Radha Kamal Mukerjee and D. P. Mukerjee, each in his own distinct way came to be known as the trait of the Lucknow School, which made the great contribution of making traditional values not as the object of the study but as the frame of reference for sociological study and analysis. Saran, in this academic endeavour, appears to be influenced by the great philosophers like Rene Guenon, A. K. Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, Micro Pallis and Titus Burckhardt. These philosophers, though concerned with the crises of modern civilisation, were primarily remained engaged in the enunciation and interpretation of the traditional doctrines at the abstract doctrinal level. But Saran as a professional sociologist remained busy throughout his life in expounding and examining theories and ideologies, problems and problematic, conflicts and contradictions and norms, values and institutions of modern societies and welfarism. Saran took on the negative side of the task, that is, the critique of modernity as his vocation, whose unique logic-dialectical-philosophical method became his trademark. Through this article, I take an opportunity to make today’s academic world familiar with some of the significant contributions of Saran.

The Important Contribution of Social Knowledge to International Development

This essay will reflect on how the contribution of sociology and anthropology enrich the practice of economic development and broader sustainable development aimed at reducing poverty. It decribes the context and reasons why in the early 1970s the World Bank decided to create the first in-house position of a professional sociologist within its central staff. From a tentative experiment starting at the individual scale, a process emerged that built a strong and respected community of development sociologists and anthropologists that has become influential in the World Bank. They produced enduring changes in the Bank’s thinking, policies, operations, and ethics. They brought a distinct body of social knowledge and methods that they practiced and advocated both in-house and internationally. Under their call for Putting People First, they substantially broadened the Bank’s development paradigm.

Philanthropic behaviour and motives

Even though philanthropy tends to be considered a sociological theme rather than an economic one, it poses a number of questions that challenge economists as well. We chose to address the following: How can economists contribute to the theories related to philanthropy? We examine some terms that are used in public economics theory and use them to explore the issues of philanthropy like Samaritan’s Dilemma, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and the Free-Rider Problem, which we consider to be interesting and inspiring (Stone, 2008). We have to find and identify the social values of donors and volunteers rather than their economic values, because economists are not fully able to explain empathy, altruism, and helpful behaviour using traditional economic principles (Rutherford, 2008). The theoretical frame is supported by relevant empirical data. Before starting a large-scale survey, we decided to conduct smaller pre-research probes into people’s attitudes towards altruism, philanthropy, and giving. Even though our sample was not fully representative, the responses that we collected generated interesting findings about people’s views and attitudes. The first wave of data was collected between February and April 2009; the second wave between February and April 2010.Because of this pilot research mission and because of the budget restriction too, the non-representative sample of 823 respondents has been used; students of our Public Economics study programme were used as interviewers. They have also obtained a proper training of the professional sociologist. Students utilized the face to face interviewing method; non-standardized questions were immediately recorded into the reply form. Questions were divided into three groups with typical characteristics. The first one focuses on personal (individual) motives for financial donating (only financial gifts for non-profit organizations). Second part examines the attitudes of individual towards the non-profit sector and its transparency, while the third part analyses the profile of particular groups of donors, which are stratified according to selected characteristics as age, field of activity, income level, etc.This paper deals with the second group of questions. Because of the limited representativeness of the sample, the data are not linked to other observed socio-demographic characteristics and indicators (although we have collected them).Currently we are working on similar, but fundamentally extended and representative survey. In this paper presented preliminary research should serve basically as a reference for identifying dominant donor strategies, motives and attitudes.

How to Succeed at Being Blind

Offers practical advice and information to people who are becoming blind, who have recently become blind, and for others who know or work with blind persons. Based on the author's experience as he himself lost his sight and, as a professional sociologist, gained invaluable help from his knowledge of research.