Social Theory : A Historical Introduction / Alex Callinicos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Callinicos, Alex.

Contributor:

GIC Course Text Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Summary:

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment saw the birth of an era which sought legitimacy not from the past but from the future. No longer would human beings invoke the authority of tradition; instead, modern societies emerging in the West justified themselves by their success at increasing, through the application of scientific knowledge, human control over the world. Ever since this notion of modernity was formulated it has provoked intense debate.

In this wide-ranging historical introduction to social theory, Alex Callinicos explores the controversies over modernity and examines the connections between social theory and modern philosophy, political economy and evolutionary biology. He offers clear and accessible treatments of the thought of Montesquieu, Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Maistre, Gobineau, Darwin, Spencer, Kautsky, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Freud, Lukacs, Gramsci, Heidegger, Keynes, Hayek, Parsons, the Frankfurt School, Levi-Strauss, Althusser, Foucault, Habermas and Bourdieu, and concludes by surveying the state of contemporary social thought.

A remarkably comprehensive and lucid primer, Social Theory is essential reading for students of politics, sociology and social and political thought.

Contents:

1 The Enlightenment 10

1.1 Prehistory 10

1.2 The concept of modernity 13

1.3 A moral science 15

1.4 The development of social theory 20

1.5 Inner strains 25

2 Hegel 39

2.1 Reconciling modernity 39

2.2 The labour of the negative 47

2.3 The debate over modernity 54

3 Liberals and Reactionaries 57

3.1 Post-Revolutionary debates 57

3.2 Agonistic liberalism: Tocqueville and Mill 67

3.3 Providence and race: Maistre and Gobineau 72

4 Marx 78

4.1 The adventures of the dialectic 78

4.2 History and capitalism 84

4.3 Class struggle and revolution 92

5 Life and Power 100

5.1 Evolution before and after Darwin 100

5.2 Two evolutionists: Spencer and Kautsky 108

5.3 Nature as the will to power: Nietzsche 115

6 Durkheim 123

6.1 Social evolution and scientific objectivity 123

6.2 Society as a moral reality 133

6.3 Meaning and belief 139

7 Weber 146

7.1 Prussian agriculture and the German state 146

7.2 Science and the warring gods 153

7.3 History and rationalization 159

7.4 Liberal imperialism and democratic politics 170

8 The Illusions of Progress 179

8.1 The strange death of liberal Europe 179

8.2 Objectivity and estrangement: Simmel 182

8.3 The self dissected: Freud 187

8.4 Memories of underdevelopment: Russian intellectuals and capitalism 193

9 Revolution and Counter-Revolution 202

9.1 Hegelian Marxism: Lukacs and Gramsci 202

9.2 Heidegger and the conservative revolution 214

10 The Golden Age 227

10.1 Theorists of capitalism: Keynes and Hayek 227

10.2 Functionalist sociology: Talcott Parsons 237

10.3 Despairing critique: the Frankfurt School 245

11 Crack-Up? 258

11.1 The 1960s and after 258

11.2 Structure and subject: Levi-Strauss and Althusser 265

11.3 Nietzsche's revenge: Foucault and post-structuralism 274

11.4 Carrying on the tradition: Habermas and Bourdieu 282.

ISBN:

9780814715949