Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge

Book details for Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge

Series: Current Perspectives in Social Theory v. 23

Contributor(s): Jennifer M. Lehmann (editor),

Format: Hardback, 234 x 156 x 22mm , 376 pp, black & white illustrations

Publication date: 01 Oct 2005

Imprint: JAI Press Inc.

ISBN: 9780762312368

Price: £68.95

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Synopsis

This volume discusses, and manifests, three interrelated perspectives in social theory. First, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is theoretical: there are alternative perspectives, or theories, about any phenomenon. Second, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge is political: these alternative perspectives are contested, as they are related to different groups with different interests. Third, that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is social: alternative perspectives have alternative social causes and alternative social effects.

Contents

Part I: Before and Beneath other Conflicts: Fourth World Social Theory. About that Bering Strait Land Bridge Bridge ...A Study in the Falsity of "Scientific Truth". Part II: A Contemporary Argument "For Social Theory". For Social Theory: Alvin Gouldner's Last Project and Beyond. Part III: Contemporary Conflicts Over Social Policy Argued in Social Theory. The Mayberry Machiavellians in Power: A Critical Analysis of the Bush Administration through a Synthesis of Machiavelli, Goffman, and Foucault. Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques of Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic Income. Part IV: Religion, Morality, Ethics? In Modernity, Postmodernity? The Conceptual Common Denominator Between Bellah, Giddens and Habermas and its Significance. Reconstructing Zygmunt Bauman's Postmodern Sociology of Morality. Beyond Negative Rights: Living without Certainty, Social Change and the Possibility of Postmodern Ethics.