Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order / Alan Sica.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sica, Alan, 1949- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Irrationalism (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (325 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1988]

Summary:

Despite immediate appearances, this book is not primarily a hermeneutical exercise in which the superiority of one interpretation of canonical texts is championed against others. Its origin lies elsewhere, near the overlap of history, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and social theory of the usual kind. Weber, Pareto, Freud, W. I. Thomas, Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, and many others of similar stature long ago wondered and wrote much about the interplay between societal rationalization and individual rationality, between collective furor and private psychopathology--in short, about the strange and worrisome union of "character and social structure" (to recall Gerth and Mills). Pondering the history of social thought in this century can lead to the unpleasant realization that such large-scale questions slipped away, especially from sociologists, sometime before World War II. Or, if not entirely lost, they were so transformed in range and rhetoric that a gap opened between contemporary theorizing and its European background. Perhaps this partly explains Weber's continuing appeal. By dealing with him, one might again broach topics long at odds with "social science" of the last forty years.--From the Preface This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Rationality and Irrationality in Modern Thought

The Problem: Weber Versus Pareto on Irrationality

Rationality" and Modem Philosophy

Weber's Ambivalence

Current Social Theory and Irrationality

Social Thought, Politics, and Irrationality

The Politics of the Irrational

Irrationality in Social Action

Addendum on Clarification of Concepts

2. Toward a Hermeneutic of Weber

Limits of Contemporary Theorizing

Current Standards of Criticism as Applied to Weber

Weber as Scholar

Weber's Thought and Mannheim's Weltanschauungslehre

The Aesthetic Dimension to Social Theory: Whitehead, Simmel, and Others

Retrieving Weltanschauungen

Notes Toward a Hermeneutic of Weber

Pre-Hermeneutical" Concerns: Scholarship Past and Present

Lessons of Classical and Contemporary Hermeneutics

Addendum: A Note on the Gadamer-Habermas Debate

3. Weber's Aporia: Irrationality and Social Action

Bibliographical Prologue

Early Works (1889-1897)

Recovery, and Early Methodological Essays

Interlude: Practical Limits to Adequate Hermeneutics

A Note on Scholarly Response to Weber's Terminology

4. The Middle Period

Roscher and "Objectivity

The Protestant Ethic

Knies and Irrationality

Logic in the Cultural Sciences

Recapitulation

5. Mature Works

Kategorienlehre

Zwischenbetrachtungen and Religious Rejections of the World

Economy and Society

6. Irrationality in Social Life Reconsidered

The Unacknowledged Dialogue of Weber and Pareto

A Curtain of Incomprehension: Pareto and Contemporary Thought

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-520-37884-9

OCLC:

1443483836