Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Chapter One A Culture of Thought – The Bifurcation of Nature
- Chapter Two Introducing Whitehead's Philosophy – The Lure of Whitehead
- Chapter Three ‘A Thorough-Going Realism’ – Whitehead On Cause and Conformation
- Chapter Four The Value of Existence
- Chapter Five Societies, the Social and Subjectivity
- Chapter Six Language and the Body – From Signification to Symbolism
- Chapter Seven This Nature Which Is Not One
- Chapter Eight Capitalism, Process and Abstraction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Five - Societies, the Social and Subjectivity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Chapter One A Culture of Thought – The Bifurcation of Nature
- Chapter Two Introducing Whitehead's Philosophy – The Lure of Whitehead
- Chapter Three ‘A Thorough-Going Realism’ – Whitehead On Cause and Conformation
- Chapter Four The Value of Existence
- Chapter Five Societies, the Social and Subjectivity
- Chapter Six Language and the Body – From Signification to Symbolism
- Chapter Seven This Nature Which Is Not One
- Chapter Eight Capitalism, Process and Abstraction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Sociology studies society; social theory analyses the social. These seemingly straight-forward statements mask a nest of conceptual and practical difficulties. The extent, dynamic and locale of societies have proved problematic. The status of the social, indeed its very existence, has proved hard to pin down. Such questions are well-rehearsed nowadays and are often presented in terms of “the end of the social?” Proponents of such a thesis adopt a range of positions and have variously argued that new forms of globalized, networked, complex, mobile societies have emerged which bear little resemblance to the stable nationstates which social theory has tended to assume (e.g. Castells 2000, Urry 2000) and upon which it was originally predicated. Others have questioned whether the concept of the social was ever adequate to describe the development and existence of the modern world (e.g. Latour 1993b). It has also been suggested that the social was always some kind of a simulacrum (Baudrillard 1983). Another slant has been offered by those who argue that the notion of the social was itself some kind of a historical, discursive, if not social, construction (e.g. Rose 1996). Some of the major concerns which animate such debates over the status of society and the social are evident in the following:
While our political, professional, moral and cultural authorities still speak happily of “society”, the very meaning and ethical salience of this term is under question as “society” is perceived as dissociated into a variety of ethical and cultural communities with incompatible allegiances and incommensurable obligations.
(Rose 1996, 353)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A. N. Whitehead and Social TheoryTracing a Culture of Thought, pp. 79 - 104Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011