Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 899 )

• Differences in Leadership Qualities Across Professions

  

  My university work involves quite a bit of interaction with leaders in different sectors of society — non-profits, elected officials, community organizations,... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2014 SOCIETY

• A Catalogue of Social Mechanisms

  

  In an earlier post I made an effort at providing the beginnings of an inventory of social mechanisms from several areas of social research. Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Craver on Mechanisms Methodology

  

  Carl Craver and Lindley Darden provide in In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences an extensive treatment of what a mechanisms-based... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Ontology and Methodology

  Part of the dispute between analytical sociology and critical realists comes down to a complicated interplay between ontology and methodology. Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Public Attitudes Towards Market Fundamentalism

  

  Several recent posts have raised the question, what would be needed to move US public policy towards a more equitable treatment of the bottom 75% of American... Read more

  Posted on 08 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Polanyi's Substantive Theory of a Decent Society

  Karl Polanyi is underrated as a theorist of capitalist modernity. Margaret Somers and Fred Block's latest book, The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl... Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Basic Social Institutions and Democratic Equality

  

  We would like to think that it is possible for a society to embody basic institutions that work to preserve and enhance the wellbeing of all members of society... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2014 SOCIETY

• Heterogeneity According to Cartwright

  

  Nancy Cartwright is one of the best philosophers of science around, in many people's opinion. I find her work particularly interesting for the new ways she... Read more

  Posted on 31 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Positive Social Change

  

  The City Year national leadership conference is taking place in Boston this week, celebrating the 25th anniversary of City Year. Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Domain of the Social Sciences

  

  Is the domain of "all social phenomena" a valid subject for scientific study? Is there a place for a purely general sociology, designed to be a theory of the... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Are There Meso-level Social Mechanisms?

  

  It is fairly well accepted that there are social mechanisms underlying various patterns of the social world — free-rider problems, communications networks, etc. Read more

  Posted on 11 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Peggy Somers' Contribution to Realism

  

  Peggy Somers is an important contributor to the active field of sociological theory. And she identifies as a critical realist when it comes to understanding... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Liquid Modernity?

  

  image: Len Stomski, River Flow Zygmunt Bauman advocates for the idea of "liquid modernity" (Liquid Modernity). This view emphasizes the fact of change within... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2014 SOCIETY

• Morphogenesis and Realist Meta-theory

  

  Margaret Archer's contribution to critical realism has been an important part of the recent progress of the field, and her theory of morphogenesis is key to thi... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2014 SOCIETY

• The Big Ideas

  

  image: Luten Baher, MusicianThe deluge of changes that shook Europe around 1800 -- the making of the modern world -- brought with them an explosion of big new... Read more

  Posted on 29 April 2014 SOCIETY

• The Social World

  

  image: Tuileries, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Toledo Museum of Art exibitionIt seems self evident, barely worth remarking, that social outcomes are the result of... Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2014 SOCIETY

• Social Upheaval

  

  image: Monte Carlo simulation of portfolio valueWe sometimes think that there is fundamental stability in the social world, or at least an orderly pattern of... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2014 SOCIETY

• The Near Future

  

  There is a lot going on in America and the world today: climate change, increasing separation between the rich and the non-rich, entrenched poverty in cities,... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2014 SOCIETY

• Historical Sociologists on Critical Realism

  

  Critical realism took its origin within the philosophy discipline, arising at the time that there was profound debate over the adequacy of logical positivism... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2014 SOCIETY

• Naturalizing Causal Powers

  

  Several earlier posts have considered Tuukka Kaidesoja's very interesting recent book, Naturalizing Critical Realist Social Ontology (NCR). Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2014 SOCIETY