Sociological theory / Abhijit Kundu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kundu, Abhijit.

Series:

Always learning.

Always learning

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 v.) : ill.

Edition:

1st edition

Place of Publication:

New Delhi, India : Pearson, 2011.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Sociological Theory is an attempt to trace the development of sociological theory from the classical to the modern period. A comprehensive and balanced introduction, it studies all the important thinkers chronologically so that the students can locate the continuity as well as the discontinuity of thoughts and themes. A concise formative background of every thinker is outlined in the text to entice the reader to take a deeper plunge into the theories. The introductory chapter tries to sketch the broad outlines of the classical sociological theories whereas the concluding chapter examines the thematic shifts and the inter-linkage between all the theories from the classical to contemporary period. All chapters are pedagogically rich with glossary, keywords and discussion points. The language is lucid and comprehensible and the treatment of the text is such that it develops an appreciation for the subject.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction: Origins of Sociological Theory

From Speculative to Definitive

Age of Enlightenment

The Revolutions

Organic Analogy and Evolutionism

Basic Ideas of Sociological Theory

Key Words

Glossary

Discussion Points

Chapter 2: Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-83)

A Biographical Sketch

Materialist Conception of History

Against Crude Materialism

Dialectics

Laws of Dialectics

Metaphors of Base and Superstructure

Stages of History

A Pre-Class System or A Stage of Primitive Communism

Asiatic Societies

Ancient Society

Feudal Society

Capitalist Society

Theory of Capitalism

Commodity

Labour Theory of Value

Commodity Fetishism

Surplus Value

Accumulation Process

Crisis of Capitalism

Summary

Chapter 3: Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Social and Intellectual Influences

Method of Study

Rules for Sociological Study

Explanation, Causality and Comparative Method

Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

Conscience Collective: Crime and Punishment

Abnormal Forms of Division of Labour

Sociology of Suicide

Typology of Suicide

Egoistic Suicide

Altruistic Suicide

Anomic Suicide

Chapter 4: Max Weber (1864-1920)

Intellectual Background

Method of Sociology

Verstehen Sociology

Value-Freedom (Werturteilsfreiheit)

Understanding Explanation (Vertehendes Erklaren)

Social Action

Ideal Types

Rationality

Role of Ideas in History

Spirit of Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic

Chapter 5: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)

Social and Intellectual Influence.

Society in Equilibrium

Non-logical Action

Elite Theory: Circulation of Elites

Chapter 6: Functional School of Thought

Intellectual Influences on Functionalism

Herbert Spencer

Emile Durkheim

The Anthropological Tradition

Talcott Parsons

Social Action Theory

System Analysis

Functional Requisites

Pattern Variables

Functional Imperatives

Robert King Merton (1910-2003)

Critique of Orthodox Functionalism

Theories of the Middle Range

An Alternative Paradigm for Functional Analysis

Chapter 7: Conflict Theory

Karl Marx

Max Weber

George Simmel

Lewis Coser (1913-2003)

Functional-conflict Theory

Beyond Organismic Analogy

C. Wright Mills (1916-62)

Social and Intellectual Influence

Power

Intellectual Craftsmanship

Ralph Dahrendorf

Against the Equilibrium Model

Imperatively Coordinated Associations and Conflict

Chapter 8: Symbolic Interactionism

Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929)

Looking-glass Self

George Herbert Mead: A Brief Biography and Influences

The Social

The Mind

The Self

Development of the Self: 'I' and 'Me'

Social Experience and the Act

Herbert Blumer (1900-87)

Symbolic Interactionism as a Perspective

Erving Goffman (1922-82)

A Brief Biographical Sketch

Stable Self-Image

Technique of Dramaturgy

Chapter 9: Social Exchange Theory

Intellectual Roots

George C. Homans (1910-89)

A Biographical Sketch and Intellectual Influences

Human Behaviour in Homan's Scheme

Success Proposition

Stimulus Proposition

Peter Blau (1918-2002).

A Brief Biographical Sketch

Sociological Theory and Social Exchange

Group Formation and Cohesion

Complex Organization and Bureaucracy

Chapter 10: Phenomenology and Ethnomethodology

Edmund Husserl

A Biographical Sketch and Influences

Early Phenomenology: Facts and Essences

Phenomenological Method

Alfred Schutz (1899-1959)

Biography and Influences

Beyond Weber's notion of social action

Peter Ludwig Berger (1929-)

Social Reality: A Form of Consciousness

Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011)

A Biographical Sketch And Influences

Problem of Order

Tools of Ethnomethodology

Chapter 11: Critical Theory

Intellectual and Social Background

Culture Industry

Georg Lukacs (1885-1971)

Max Harkheimer and Theodor Adorno

Short Biographies

Critique of Science and Reason

Adorno on Culture

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)

Critical Theory

Alienating Technology

Jurgen Habermas (1929)

Critique of Culture and Communicative Action

On Rationality

Chapter 12: Post-modern Theory and Post-structural Sociology

Daniel Bell's Post-industrial Society

Post-modern Theory

Basic Themes in Post-modern Thought

Michel Foucault (1926-84)

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-98)

Knowledge and Post-modern Condition

Zygmunt Bauman (1925- )

Modernity and Ambivalence

Jean Baudrillard (1929- 2007)

Post-modernity and the Age of Simulation

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

Symbolic Capital

Habitus and Practice

Chapter 13: Conclusion.

Individual and Society

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from title page (Safari, viewed Nov. 5, 2014).

ISBN:

9788131797587

8131797589

OCLC:

895206404