H.T. Wilson - Böcker

First published in 1977 The American Ideology presents an analysis of the ways in which Americans and the most advanced capitalist countries think about science, technology, and organization. In particular, the author describes it as an anti-sociological essay set within the broader area between sociology and philosophy as functionally legitimate disciplines within the academic division of labour.The ‘American ideology’ seems to revolve around the concepts of rationality and domination; the tension between these concepts is central to the work of Hegel, Marx, Weber, and the Frankfurt School. The author argues in particular that the social sciences are unavoidably a part of the problem expressed through this tension and not a neutral means of observing and resolving it from a distance. This book is an essential read for students and scholars of sociology, political science, and political philosophy.

First published in 1977 The American Ideology presents an analysis of the ways in which Americans and the most advanced capitalist countries think about science, technology, and organization. In particular, the author describes it as an anti-sociological essay set within the broader area between sociology and philosophy as functionally legitimate disciplines within the academic division of labour.The ‘American ideology’ seems to revolve around the concepts of rationality and domination; the tension between these concepts is central to the work of Hegel, Marx, Weber, and the Frankfurt School. The author argues in particular that the social sciences are unavoidably a part of the problem expressed through this tension and not a neutral means of observing and resolving it from a distance. This book is an essential read for students and scholars of sociology, political science, and political philosophy.

First published in 1984 Tradition and Innovation by viewing Western civilization as a culture, puts the common perspectives of our major Western institutions in bolder relief. The author shows how the institutionalization of central modes of Western rationality-found in capitalism, industrialization, science, science - based technology, bureaucracy, the rule of law, the social and behavioral sciences-has created a culturally and historically unique form of collective life: advanced industrial society. Indicative of this development is the nature and meaning of the so-called innovative society itself, where rationality is increasingly seen to repose in institutions and organized structures rather than in individuals. Professor Wilson argues that this rationality is becoming traditionalized as a central artifact of our form of life, one which believes in the independent existence of the ‘facts of life’. This is borne out by the increasing autonomy of what professor Wilson calls ‘disembodied disciplined observation’, determined as it is to annihilate contemplation and reflection in its effort to reconstitute practice in its own image. This is an interesting read for students of sociology, political science, public administration, and social science in general.

First published in 1984 Tradition and Innovation by viewing Western civilization as a culture, puts the common perspectives of our major Western institutions in bolder relief. The author shows how the institutionalization of central modes of Western rationality-found in capitalism, industrialization, science, science - based technology, bureaucracy, the rule of law, the social and behavioral sciences-has created a culturally and historically unique form of collective life: advanced industrial society. Indicative of this development is the nature and meaning of the so-called innovative society itself, where rationality is increasingly seen to repose in institutions and organized structures rather than in individuals. Professor Wilson argues that this rationality is becoming traditionalized as a central artifact of our form of life, one which believes in the independent existence of the ‘facts of life’. This is borne out by the increasing autonomy of what professor Wilson calls ‘disembodied disciplined observation’, determined as it is to annihilate contemplation and reflection in its effort to reconstitute practice in its own image. This is an interesting read for students of sociology, political science, public administration, and social science in general.

This book, first published in 1991, demonstrates that Marx is the legitimate founder of what was to become the critical theory of society. It argues that in order to justify a new conception of humans as collective, cultural and historical beings, Marx undertook a radical critique of the theoretical/analytical method of his predecessors and his contemporaries in political economy, philosophy and the natural sciences. While elements of the methods of some of these thinkers – most conspicuously from the work of Aristotle, Kant and Hegel – were present in Marx’s thought, he achieved a new synthesis of procedural, epistemological and ontological methods.