Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Ten Years of Understanding Society

  

  This month marks the tenth anniversary of Understanding Society. The blog now includes 1,176 posts on topics in the philosophy of social science, the... Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2017 SOCIETY

• Social Science and Policy

  

  One of the important reasons that we value scientific knowledge is the possibility that it will allow us to intervene in the world to solve problems that we car... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2017 SOCIETY

• Small Farmers in Indian Agriculture

  

  Agriculture remains the primary source of income for India's population, and the majority of India's farmers subsist on small farms, less than two hectares (fiv... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2017 SOCIETY

• How to Think About Social Identities

  

  What is involved in having a national or racial or sexual identity? What do we mean when we say that a person has a Canadian or a Haitian identity? Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2017 SOCIETY

• Intergenerational Social Mobility

  

  A crucial part of social cohesion is the prospect of social mobility across generations. A social order in which individuals are stuck in their social position... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2017 SOCIETY

• Social Consciousness and Critical Realism

  

  Critical realism proposes an approach to the social world that pays particular attention to objective and material features of the social realm -- property... Read more

  Posted on 08 October 2017 SOCIETY

• Community Resilience

  

  We know what is meant by saying that a physical system is resilient: for a given range of shocks, the system has the ability to recover its structural integrity. Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2017 SOCIETY

• Refinements of Social Functionalism

  

  Robert Merton is one of the most sophisticated exponents of a qualified functionalism in sociology (Social Theory and Social Structure). He finds that earlier... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2017 SOCIETY

• Sustaining a Philosophy Research Community

  

  The European Network for Philosophy of Social Science (ENPOSS) completed its annual conference in Krakow last week. It was a stimulating and productive... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2017 SOCIETY

• Experiencing the Holocaust

  

  When we think we know about an historical event -- the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Jim Crow years in America -- generally what we know is a... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2017 SOCIETY

• Worker-owned Enterprises as a Social Solution

  

  image: Mondragon headquarters, Arrasate-Mondragon, SpainConsider some of the most intractable problems we face in contemporary society: rising inequalities... Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2017 SOCIETY

• Responding to Hate

  

  The Southern Poverty Law Center documents that hate groups and hate-based mobilization are on the rise in the United States (link, link). Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2017 SOCIETY

• Erik Olin Wright on Real Utopias

  

  Erik Olin Wright is one of the genuinely important contributors to a progressive sociology in the United States. He was one of the first wave of social... Read more

  Posted on 04 September 2017 SOCIETY

• New Thinking About Causal Mechanisms

  

  Anyone interested in the topic of causal mechanisms will be interested in the appearance of Stuart Glennan and Phyllis Illari's The Routledge Handbook of... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2017 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Dave Elder-Vass

  

  [Dave Elder-Vass accepted my invitation to write a response to my discussion of moral realism. (link). Elder-Vass is Reader in sociology at Loughborough... Read more

  Posted on 22 August 2017 SOCIETY

• Moral Progress and Critical Realism

  

  Critical realists share a rejection of the fact-value distinction as a fundamental criterion of scientific rationality -- and rightly so (link). Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2017 SOCIETY

• Time for a Critical-realist Epistemology

  

  The critical realism network in North America is currently convened in Montreal in a three-day intensive workshop (link). In attendance are many of the... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2017 SOCIETY

• The Guardian Drops the Ball ...

  

  The Guardian posted a short documentary video on the city where I live, Dearborn, Michigan (link). The video is, frankly, a careless, sensationalized, and... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2017 SOCIETY

• First Generation Anti-positivism: Wellmer

  

  In Critical Theory Of Society (1969) Albrecht Wellmer announced a critique of positivist assumptions in the study of society. Proceeding from the perspective... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2017 SOCIETY

• Dynamics of Medieval Cities

  

  Cities provide a good illustration of the ontology of the theory of assemblage (link). Many forms of association, production, logistics, governance, and... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2017 SOCIETY