Patrick O'Mahony - Böcker

This book provides a critical interpretation of the construction of Irish national identity in the longer perspective of history. Drawing on recent sociological theory, the authors demonstrate how national identity was invented and codified by a nationalist intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century.

This volume explores ethical interpretations of biotechnology and examines whether sufficient consensus exists or is emerging to enable this technology to occupy a stable role in the techno-economic, social and cultural order. The contributors address the nature and prospective implications of biotechnologies for nature, life and social organization and employ a wide range of social theories to evaluate risks and propose responses.

This text provides a critical interpretation of the construction of Irish national identity in the longer perspective of history. Drawing on recent sociological theory, the authors contend that national identity was invented and codified by a nationalist intelligentsia in the late 19th century. The trajectory of this national identity is traced as a process of crisis and contradiction. One of the central arguments is that negative implications of Irish national identity have never been fully explored by social science.

The book examines philosophical and sociological approaches within critical theory and more widely from the vantage point of communicative reason. It seeks to revitalize the sociological dimension of critical theory by advancing a critical sociology of reason. It does so fully in the knowledge that reason is a contentious concept in sociology and other disciplines. Nonetheless, building on Habermas’s original insight, it argues that an extensively modified version of communicative reason is indispensable. This modified approach will draw extensively from Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics and critical cognitive sociology. Such a focus has significant implications for meta-theoretical, theoretical-empirical, and methodological approaches in critical theory, critical sociology, and related disciplines. This book will be of interest to readers in the social sciences, humanities, and philosophy who value the importance of a social theory of a reasonable society for their disciplines and for increasingly essential interdisciplinary activities. The book will also appeal to many in critical theory and beyond who are interested in the cognitive foundations of normative orders, including unjust or pathological as well as actually or potentially just foundations. The book emphasizes both validity and critique within communicative reason and critical theory and accordingly presents a distinctive perspective on critical-reconstructive research.

This book applies social and political theory to the field of environmental politics in Ireland. It offers both a substantive contribution to understanding environmental politics in this country and a test case of the application of theory within the field of environmental scholarship more generally. The essays are integrated by a concern for analysing the relationship between culture, discourse and action in this political field, hence the emphasis on the communicative turn. The book is innovative in offering a sustained application of social and political theory within environmental scholarship as well as in combining theoretical and empirical approaches to advancing environmental scholarship in a particular case. This synergy of theory and substantive analysis is a key feature of the book and offers an important contribution to the environmental literature in the social sciences. The authors apply key developments in the modern social sciences and offer compelling evidence of their value for clarifying the cultural foundations of political action and for its evaluation and critique. Academics in the social sciences and in philosophy, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate, both in Ireland and beyond, will find this book highly rewarding for its multi-faceted application of social and political theories and associated methodologies to the environmental field.

Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be organized into a comprehensive typology which is outlined in the course of this study; post-nationalism and cosmopolitanism are significant innovations in the debate about nation-states and nationalism; and that the new radical nationalisms have become powerful new movements in the global age.

Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be organized into a comprehensive typology which is outlined in the course of this study; post-nationalism and cosmopolitanism are significant innovations in the debate about nation-states and nationalism; and that the new radical nationalisms have become powerful new movements in the global age.

The book examines philosophical and sociological approaches within critical theory and more widely from the vantage point of communicative reason. It seeks to revitalize the sociological dimension of critical theory by advancing a critical sociology of reason. It does so fully in the knowledge that reason is a contentious concept in sociology and other disciplines. Nonetheless, building on Habermas’s original insight, it argues that an extensively modified version of communicative reason is indispensable. This modified approach will draw extensively from Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics and critical cognitive sociology. Such a focus has significant implications for meta-theoretical, theoretical-empirical, and methodological approaches in critical theory, critical sociology, and related disciplines. This book will be of interest to readers in the social sciences, humanities, and philosophy who value the importance of a social theory of a reasonable society for their disciplines and for increasingly essential interdisciplinary activities. The book will also appeal to many in critical theory and beyond who are interested in the cognitive foundations of normative orders, including unjust or pathological as well as actually or potentially just foundations. The book emphasizes both validity and critique within communicative reason and critical theory and accordingly presents a distinctive perspective on critical-reconstructive research.

Normative democratic theory does not lie securely above societal argumentation but is rather part of it. We need to know not just how the public should ideally reason, but how it actually does or could in better foreseeable circumstances. For the health and the necessary extension of democracy, given general societal and cosmopolitan challenges, fundamentally depends on the reasoning capacities of publics. The concept of the public sphere is intrinsic to understanding this process, but it has long been limited by its division into the twin approaches of normative argumentation in democratic theory and empirical-theoretical application in the social sciences. This book aims to go beyond this entrenched divide to show how democratic theory can become empirically applicable and the social sciences normatively relevant. It does this by linking democratic theory to the theory of society and relating both to a cognitive-communicative account of public culture. The book contributes significantly to exchanges within and between sociology, philosophy, cultural and communication studies, political science, and cognate disciplines. It also addresses a long-established concern of critical theory to combine empirical and normative perspectives to advance the goal of a better society.