J. A. Barnes – författare

John Barnes's collection of essays covers a variety of topics in sociology and anthropology, including lineage systems, social networks, colonialism, underlying assumptions of social science, and the significance of time in social analysis. Together they identify the author's particular view of social science: he is primarily interested in 'what really happens'. Rather than revamp articles written with a distinctive set of assumptions to bring them into line with current intellectual fashion, Professor Barnes has chosen to let them stand as they are, products of identifiable theoretical stance and modes of exposition. But introductory notes to each chapter set out the context in which the piece was originally written and draw attention to later publications and events that bear on it. An introduction discusses in detail the author's view of social science as the construction of models rather than a search for social laws, while the final chapter presents a model of the modelling process itself.

John Barnes's collection of essays covers a variety of topics in sociology and anthropology, including lineage systems, social networks, colonialism, underlying assumptions of social science, and the significance of time in social analysis. Together they identify the author's particular view of social science: he is primarily interested in 'what really happens'. Rather than revamp articles written with a distinctive set of assumptions to bring them into line with current intellectual fashion, Professor Barnes has chosen to let them stand as they are, products of identifiable theoretical stance and modes of exposition. But introductory notes to each chapter set out the context in which the piece was originally written and draw attention to later publications and events that bear on it. An introduction discusses in detail the author's view of social science as the construction of models rather than a search for social laws, while the final chapter presents a model of the modelling process itself.

Defining lies as statements that are intended to deceive, this book considers the contexts in which people tell lies, how they are detected and sometimes exposed, and the consequences for the liars themselves, their dupes, and the wider society. The author provides examples from a number of cultures with distinctive religious and ethical traditions, and delineates domains where lying is the norm, domains that are ambiguous and the one domain (science) that requires truthtelling. He refers to experimental studies on children that show how, at an early age, they acquire the capactiy to lie and learn when it is appropriate to do so. He reviews how lying has been evaluated by moralists, examines why we do not regard novels as lies and relates the human capacity to lie to deceit among other animal species. He concludes that although there are, in all societies, good pragmatic reasons for not lying all the time, there are also strong reasons for lying some of the time.