This book offers a collection of contributions on medieval, early modern, and contemporary perspectives on social ontology. Since the 1990s, social ontology has emerged as a vibrant research area in contemporary analytical philosophy. Questions concerning the nature and properties of social groups, institutions, facts, and objects like money and marriage, have been thoroughly discussed. However, the historical perspective has been largely neglected. One of the central aims of this volume is to show that relevant views on social ontology can be found in medieval and early modern philosophy (ca. 1200-1700 C.E.), when, for example, the ontological status of money, law, and the sacraments was hotly debated. We see, furthermore, diverging positions between Aristotelian-inspired authors, who resort to a more naturalistic view of the emergence of the social realm, and authors like Olivi and Ockham, who emphasize the role of human free will and contractualist agreements. This book is the very first to address historical and contemporary social ontologies. Both historians of philosophy and philosophers will benefit from this juxtaposition, which fosters a better understanding of historical positions and approaches by using today’s conceptual and analytical tools, and allows the contemporary debate to gain new perspectives by confronting its own medieval and early modern history.

This ground-breaking and multi-disciplinary volume brings together a distinguished team of leading thinkers, to discuss issues surrounding and informing social science.

There are few more important philosophers at work today than John Searle, a creative and contentious thinker who has shaped the way we think about mind and language. Now he offers a profound understanding of how we create a social reality--a reality of money, property, governments, marriages, stock markets and cocktail parties. The paradox he addresses in Making the Social World is that these facts only exist because we think they exist and yet they have an objective existence. Continuing a line of investigation begun in his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality, Searle identifies the precise role of language in the creation of all "institutional facts." His aim is to show how mind, language and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how a single linguistic operation, repeated over and over, is used to create and maintain the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle then applies the account to show how it relates to human rationality, the freedom of the will, the nature of political power and the existence of universal human rights. In the course of his explication, he asks whether robots can have institutions, why the threat of force so often lies behind institutions, and he denies that there can be such a thing as a "state of nature" for language-using human beings.

Social Theory in the Real World is concerned with illustrating the practical benefits of social theory. Many students find it hard to relate the real insights provided by social theory to their real life experiences, and many lecturers struggle to demonstrate the relevance of social theory to everyday life. This book offers an accessible, non-patronizing solution to the problem, demonstrating that social theory need not be remote and obscure, but if used in imaginative ways, it can be indispensable in challenging our common sense perceptions and understandings. The book identifies the key themes of contemporary social theory: mass society, postindustrialism, consumerism, postmodernism, McDonaldization, risk and globa

This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

The most successful social research text to have been published in a generation has been updated and revised in this new Sixth Edition! This innovative, up-to-date, and popular text makes research come alive through research stories that illustrate the methods presented in each chapter, with hands-on exercises to help students learn by doing. Author Russell K. Schutt helps readers connect technique and substance, understand research methods as an integrated whole, appreciate the value of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and make ethical research decisions.New to the Sixth Edition:Updates and Revisions: Research examples have been updated throughout the text, with many that have been added from international researchers. All end-of-chapter exercise sets have been updated. Techniques for searching and reviewing the literature and Web sites have been updated and more guidance is provided on writing the literature review. In addition, many chapters have been streamlined and reorganized for greater clarity, including those on measurement and causation and research design.Secondary Data Analysis and Content Analysis: A new chapter introduces the logic and limitations of secondary data analysis, available data sources, procedures for using ICPSR datasets, the Human Relations Area Files, and more information on content analysis.Qualitative Data Analysis: New sections have been added on conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, case-oriented understanding, and visual sociology. A special section on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis introduces the HyperRESEARCH software that accompanies the text.Theories and Philosophies for Research: A revised and streamlined chapter uses international research on immigration and ethnic conflict to illustrate functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism and to contrast positivist and interpretivist research philosophies. Unique among methods texts, this chapter emphasizes the importance of social theory and research philosophy as a foundation for social research.Research Ethics: New sections have been added in some chapters and the discussion of the role of the IRB in the third chapter has been expanded.Accompanied by High-Quality Ancillaries!Instructors' Resource CD-ROM: provides test questions, PowerPoint slides for lectures, suggested assignments, and a review of course organization options.Student Study Site at www.pineforge.com//isw5: includes journal articles, flash cards for practicing terminology, online quizzes, and much more!Now with interactive exercises on the study site (from the student CD) - for easier access and use by studentsStudent Resources CD: bundled with the book, contains wide-ranging data sets and interactive exercises to help students master concepts and techniques.HyperRESEARCH software: includes software for qualitative data analysis.

Using Mixed Methods offers an innovative approach to social and educational research. The author sets out the case for research from an holistic perspective, integrating different methods, different data and overall research strategies. This book shows how to use an integrated methodology that meets the needs of the postgraduate researcher who wants to challenge the traditional paradigmatic view of research. The author explores: - The FraIM and its application to social and educational research - The contexts of research - Different methods of data collection - Types of data and their natural integration within the research process This book is for final year undergraduate and postgraduate students on social science and education courses. David Plowright is a lecturer in the Centre for Educational Studies at the University of Hull.

"This book offers a new look at the latest research and critical issues within the field of information systems by creating solid theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical findings of social developments"--

Psychology, the study of mind and behaviour, has developed as a unique discipline in its brief history. Whether as it currently takes place, or how it has been conducted over the past 140 years or so since it became recognized as a separate field of study, there has been constant debate on its identity as a science. Psychology in Historical Context: Theories and Debates examines this debate by tracing the emergence of Psychology from parent disciplines, such as philosophy and physiology, and analyzes key topics such as: the nature of science, itself a much misunderstood human activity often equated with natural science; the nature of the scientific method, and the relationship between data gathering and generalization; the nature of certainty and objectivity, and their relevance to understanding the kind of scientific discipline Psychology is today. This engaging overview, written by renowned author Richard Gross, is an accessible account of the main conceptual themes and historical developments. Covering the core fields of individual differences, cognitive, social, and developmental psychology, as well as evolutionary and biopsychology, it will enable readers to understand how key ideas and theories have had impacts across a range of topics. This is the only concise textbook to give students a thorough grounding in the major conceptual ideas within the field, as well as the key figures whose ideas have helped to shape it.