Lanterna Rally
eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Making the Social World
Author: John Searle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-01-12
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780199745869
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Navigating the Social World
Author: Jeanette L. McAfee
Publisher: Future Horizons
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 9781885477828
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Because of its unique focus on teaching the critical social skills that autistic children lack, this book has been cited by "Library Journal" as "Essential to All Collections."
Decoding the Social World
Author: Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2017-12-22
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 0262037076
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →How data science and the analysis of networks help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences. Social life is full of paradoxes. Our intentional actions often trigger outcomes that we did not intend or even envision. How do we explain those unintended effects and what can we do to regulate them? In Decoding the Social World, Sandra González-Bailón explains how data science and digital traces help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences—offering the solution to a social paradox that has intrigued thinkers for centuries. Communication has always been the force that makes a collection of people more than the sum of individuals, but only now can we explain why: digital technologies have made it possible to parse the information we generate by being social in new, imaginative ways. And yet we must look at that data, González-Bailón argues, through the lens of theories that capture the nature of social life. The technologies we use, in the end, are also a manifestation of the social world we inhabit. González-Bailón discusses how the unpredictability of social life relates to communication networks, social influence, and the unintended effects that derive from individual decisions. She describes how communication generates social dynamics in aggregate (leading to episodes of “collective effervescence”) and discusses the mechanisms that underlie large-scale diffusion, when information and behavior spread “like wildfire.” She applies the theory of networks to illuminate why collective outcomes can differ drastically even when they arise from the same individual actions. By opening the black box of unintended effects, González-Bailón identifies strategies for social intervention and discusses the policy implications—and how data science and evidence-based research embolden critical thinking in a world that is constantly changing.
Our Social World
Author: Jeanne H. Ballantine
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2016-11-30
Total Pages: 665
ISBN-13: 1506362087
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Inspire your students to develop their sociological imaginations in Our Social World. Focused on deep learning rather than memorization, this book encourages readers to analyze, evaluate, and apply information about the social world; to see the connection between the world and personal events from a new perspective; and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. Organized around the "Social World Model”, a conceptual framework used across chapters to see the complex links between various micro- to macro-levels of the social system, students will develop the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of discrete subjects.
Revealing Our Social World
Author: Mark Plume
Publisher:
Published: 2016-08-08
Total Pages: 520
ISBN-13: 9781516554164
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Based on over twenty years of classroom experience, Revealing Our Social World: An Introduction to Sociology is written with the teaching sociologist in mind. Humorous, accessible, and informal, the book introduces non-major students to the basic theories, concepts, and terms of sociology. Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is organized into four sections, the first of which discusses the basics of the sociological perspective and imagination, along with the development of sociology as a discipline. In the second section the material examines how people fit into their social landscapes. This section features topics such as culture, socialization, groups, social institutions, and deviance. The third section addresses various forms of inequality, while the fourth examines the structure of "the daily grind" as it applies to marriage and family, religion, education, politics, and the economy. Each chapter lays out the basic elements of the topic using vivid cross-cultural examples and includes suggested readings, practical activities, and a section titled "There's an App for That." Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is a fresh and engaging text for introductory sociology courses at the undergraduate level. Mark Plume earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Plume has been teaching sociology for more than twenty years and is currently a professor at Reynolds Community College, where he teaches traditional and on-line courses in introductory sociology, marriage and family, and cultural and physical anthropology. Dr. Plume also teaches sex and gender and research methods at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research interests include alcoholic families, gender, and social class. His most recent work examines millennials and their belief in the afterlife. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Plume, his wife, and their miniature schnauzer make their home in central Virginia.
Material Culture in the Social World
Author: Tim Dant
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Published: 1999-08-16
Total Pages: 239
ISBN-13: 0335231314
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"This should become a core text for second year courses in sociology and cultural studies... it synthesizes a vast body of literature and a complex range of debates into a text which is at once accessible, engaging and stimulating... it will lead to students seeing and thinking about the material world in a totally new light and can be used as a way into key theoretical debates." Keith Tester, Professor of Social Theory, University of Portsmouth In what ways do we interact with material things? How do material objects affect the way we relate to each other? What are the connections between material things and social processes like fashion, discourse, art and design? Through wearing clothes, keeping furniture, responding to the ring of the telephone, noticing the signature on a painting, holding a paperweight and in many other ways, we interact with objects in our everyday lives. These are not merely functional relationships with things but are connected to the way we relate to other people and the culture of the particular society we live in - they are social relations. This engaging book draws on established theoretical work, including that of Simmel, Marx, McLuhan, Barthes and Baudrillard as well as a range of contemporary empirical work from many humanities disciplines. It uses ideas drawn from this work to explore a variety of things - from stone cairns to denim jeans, televisions to penis rings, houses to works of art - to understand something of how we live with them.
Cultures and Societies in a Changing World
Author: Wendy Griswold
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-01-10
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 1452289409
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society shapes culture. Through this book, students will gain an understanding of the sociology of culture and explore stories, beliefs, media, ideas, art, religious practices, fashions, and rituals from a sociological perspective. Cultural examples from multiple countries and time periods will broaden students' global understanding. Students will develop a deeper appreciation of culture and society from this text, gleaning insights that will help them overcome cultural misunderstandings, conflicts, and ignorance and that will help equip them to live their professional and personal lives as effective, wise citizens of the world.
Our Social World
Author: Jeanne H. Ballantine
Publisher: Pine Forge Press
Published: 2011-10-26
Total Pages: 561
ISBN-13: 141298727X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this brief text, two leaders of the Teaching Sociology movement encourage students’ development of their sociological imaginations through role-taking. Assuming the role of a child living in poverty in India or of a member of an African tribe, students learn to re-envision their global society. An innovative, integrated framework provides core sociological concepts, while features such as Contributing to Our Social World enable students to “do” public sociology. Our Social World: Condensed Version presents the perspective of students living in the larger global world.
Our Social World
Author: Jeanne H. Ballantine
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2016-11-30
Total Pages: 1446
ISBN-13: 1506362052
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Inspire your students to develop their sociological imaginations in Our Social World. Focused on deep learning rather than memorization, this book encourages readers to analyze, evaluate, and apply information about the social world; to see the connection between the world and personal events from a new perspective; and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. Organized around the "Social World Model”, a conceptual framework used across chapters to see the complex links between various micro- to macro-levels of the social system, students will develop the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of discrete subjects.
