Human agents and social structures

Häftad, Engelska, 2010

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Beskrivning

The structure/agency debate has been among the central issues in recent discussions of social theory. It has been widely assumed that the key theoretical task is to find a link between social structures and acting human beings – to reconcile the macro with the micro, society and the individual.The contributors to this book reject this solution to the problem. For them, both the concept of ‘society’ as an entity and the freely-acting ‘individual’ are theoretical fiction. Rather, the immediate task of the social sciences is to take the social world seriously, to understand the ways in which that world emerges dynamically from, and exerts influence on, the interactions of real people in real situations.This timely collection is not intended as an even-handed review of the debate, but as a deliberately polemical intervention which aims to highlight some of the ways in which its central terms have been misconceived.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2010-05-03
Mått:156 x 234 x 10 mm
Vikt:277 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:192
Förlag:Manchester University Press
ISBN:9780719081729

Utforska kategorier

Sociologi inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

Peter J. Martin is a former Head of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Alex Dennis is Lecturer in the Sociology of Deviance at the University of Salford

Recensioner i media

"this book outlines structure and agency as a key to understanding the mechanisms of ontology within social science. Prominent social scientists including Giddens and Archer have suggested that the ‘Structure-Agency’ question is the most important theoretical issue within the human sciences. In dealing with the structure and agency debate, it has been argued, and in my own opinion, it should be recognised as central to the way we study politics and the social sciences in particular."(Ciara Flynn, University College Cork, Irish Journal of Sociology, 2014)

Innehållsförteckning

1. Introduction: the opposition of structure and agency – Peter J. Martin and Alex DennisPART ONE2. The structure problem in the context of structure and agency controversies – Wes Sharrock and Graham Button3. On the retreat from collective concepts in sociology – Peter J. Martin4. Structure and agency as the products of dynamic social processes: Marx and modern social theory – Alex DennisPART TWO5. The two Habermases – Anthony King6. Pierre Bourdieu: from the model of reality to the reality of the model – Richard Jenkins7. The production and reproduction of social order: is structuration a solution? – Wes Sharrock8. On the reception of Foucault – Allison Cavanagh and Alex DennisPART THREE9. Beyond social structure – Richard Jenkins10. Two kinds of social theory: the myth and reality of social existence – Anthony KingBibliographyIndex