Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10823
O. Neurath
This essay by Otto Neurath, titled "Worldview and Marxism," was originally published in 1931, and has been translated for the first time from German by Alan Scott.
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Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10821
Alan Scott
We are publishing two short pieces by Otto Neurath, a key figures in the Vienna Circle of logical empiricists, but also a social scientist close to the milieu of Austro-Marxism: "Bourgeois Marxism. A review essay on Karl Mannheim, Ideologie und Utopie " ( Der Kampf , 1930) and "Worldview and Marxism " ( Der Kampf , 1931). The translations are preceded by the editor's/translator's introduction. Neither piece seems to have been previously translated. The critique of Mannheim will be of particular interest to sociologists as it represents a trenchant response to Ideology and Utopia . For Neurath, Mannheim appropriates Marxist ideas for "bourgeois sociology" and metaphysics. The second piece presents a brief non-technical account of the logical empiricist interpretation of Marxism from which Neurath's critique is launched.
{"title":"Introduction to Otto Neurath’s “Bourgeois Marxism” (1930) and “Worldview and Marxism” (1931)","authors":"Alan Scott","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10821","url":null,"abstract":"We are publishing two short pieces by Otto Neurath, a key figures in the Vienna Circle of logical empiricists, but also a social scientist close to the milieu of Austro-Marxism: \"Bourgeois Marxism. A review essay on Karl Mannheim, Ideologie und Utopie \" ( Der Kampf , 1930) and \"Worldview and Marxism \" ( Der Kampf , 1931). The translations are preceded by the editor's/translator's introduction. Neither piece seems to have been previously translated. The critique of Mannheim will be of particular interest to sociologists as it represents a trenchant response to Ideology and Utopia . For Neurath, Mannheim appropriates Marxist ideas for \"bourgeois sociology\" and metaphysics. The second piece presents a brief non-technical account of the logical empiricist interpretation of Marxism from which Neurath's critique is launched.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"227-234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43035520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10822
O. Neurath
This essay by Otto Neurath, titled "Bourgeois Marxism," is a review essay on Karl Mannheim's Ideologie und Utopie . It was originally published in 1930, and has been translated for the first time from German by Alan Scott.
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Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10839
Gianluca Manzo
In the COVID-19 crisis, compartmental models have been largely used to predict the macroscopic dynamics of infections and deaths and to assess different non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed to contain the microscopic dynamics of person-to-person contagions. Evidence shows that the predictions of these models are affected by high levels of uncertainty. However, the link between predictions and interventions is rarely questioned and a critical scrutiny of the dependency of interventions on model assumptions is missing in public debate. In this article, I have examined the building blocks of compartmental epidemic models so influential in the current crisis. A close look suggests that these models can only lead to one type of intervention, i.e., interventions that indifferently concern large subsets of the population or even the overall population. This is because they look at virus diffusion without modelling the topology of social interactions. Therefore, they cannot assess any targeted interventions that could surgically isolate specific individuals and/or cutting particular person-to-person transmission paths. If complex social networks are seriously considered, more sophisticated interventions can be explored that apply to specific categories or set of individuals with expected collective benefits. In the last section of the article, I sketch a research agenda to promote a new generation of network-driven epidemic models.
{"title":"Complex Social Networks are Missing in the Dominant COVID-19 Epidemic Models","authors":"Gianluca Manzo","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10839","url":null,"abstract":"In the COVID-19 crisis, compartmental models have been largely used to predict the macroscopic dynamics of infections and deaths and to assess different non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed to contain the microscopic dynamics of person-to-person contagions. Evidence shows that the predictions of these models are affected by high levels of uncertainty. However, the link between predictions and interventions is rarely questioned and a critical scrutiny of the dependency of interventions on model assumptions is missing in public debate. In this article, I have examined the building blocks of compartmental epidemic models so influential in the current crisis. A close look suggests that these models can only lead to one type of intervention, i.e., interventions that indifferently concern large subsets of the population or even the overall population. This is because they look at virus diffusion without modelling the topology of social interactions. Therefore, they cannot assess any targeted interventions that could surgically isolate specific individuals and/or cutting particular person-to-person transmission paths. If complex social networks are seriously considered, more sophisticated interventions can be explored that apply to specific categories or set of individuals with expected collective benefits. In the last section of the article, I sketch a research agenda to promote a new generation of network-driven epidemic models.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"31-49"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43607855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.5771/9783748911326-97
E. Esposito
The condition of social isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic makes most of us aware of the value of sociality – which we now lack. But society is not only sociality, and in the current emergency we perceive it as global interconnectedness that makes the crisis spread from one geographical area to another and between different fields of society. The common response to a global emergency is a call for coordination – the idea that we should “tighten up.” In sociology, this reference to unity and coordination is discussed as integration. The paper argues, referring to systems theory, that the problem of our functionally differentiated society is not lack of integration, but rather an excess of integration. When there are difficulties in one area of society, all others are forced to make serious adjustments. In dealing with threats that come from the environment, the opportunities for rationality in society lie in the maintenance and exploitation of differences, not in their elimination. This hypotheses is discussed dealing with integration on three levels: 1) the consequences of the emergency on the relationships between different fields (or functional subsystems) of society: systemic integration ; 2) the effects of the pandemic on the conditions of inclusion and exclusion of individuals in society: social integration ; 3) the spread of the emergency in all regions of the world and the consequences for globalization: geographical integration .
{"title":"Systemic Integration and the Need for De-Integration in Pandemic Times","authors":"E. Esposito","doi":"10.5771/9783748911326-97","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748911326-97","url":null,"abstract":"The condition of social isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic makes most of us aware of the value of sociality – which we now lack. But society is not only sociality, and in the current emergency we perceive it as global interconnectedness that makes the crisis spread from one geographical area to another and between different fields of society. The common response to a global emergency is a call for coordination – the idea that we should “tighten up.” In sociology, this reference to unity and coordination is discussed as integration. The paper argues, referring to systems theory, that the problem of our functionally differentiated society is not lack of integration, but rather an excess of integration. When there are difficulties in one area of society, all others are forced to make serious adjustments. In dealing with threats that come from the environment, the opportunities for rationality in society lie in the maintenance and exploitation of differences, not in their elimination. This hypotheses is discussed dealing with integration on three levels: 1) the consequences of the emergency on the relationships between different fields (or functional subsystems) of society: systemic integration ; 2) the effects of the pandemic on the conditions of inclusion and exclusion of individuals in society: social integration ; 3) the spread of the emergency in all regions of the world and the consequences for globalization: geographical integration .","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"3-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47106141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10820
F. Squazzoni
This comment on the essay “The Empirical Investigation of Non-Linear Dynamics in the Social World. Ontology, Methodology and Data”, by Graham Room, focuses on the challenge of understanding institutional change in complex social systems. It discusses the evolutionary foundations of Room’s “Contingent Historical Model” by questioning the bio-social divide on selection mechanisms. It concentrates on Room’s concept of temporalities of institutional change and discusses the role of noise.
{"title":"Times, Noise and Institutional Complexity. A Comment on Graham Room’s Essay on the “Contingent Historical Model” of Social Dynamics","authors":"F. Squazzoni","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10820","url":null,"abstract":"This comment on the essay “The Empirical Investigation of Non-Linear Dynamics in the Social World. Ontology, Methodology and Data”, by Graham Room, focuses on the challenge of understanding institutional change in complex social systems. It discusses the evolutionary foundations of Room’s “Contingent Historical Model” by questioning the bio-social divide on selection mechanisms. It concentrates on Room’s concept of temporalities of institutional change and discusses the role of noise.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"195-199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47349736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/9727
F. Bianchi
This article surveys a field of empirical social research linking economic exchange relations to the generation of interpersonal bonds of solidarity. This issue is particularly interesting for both social sciences and current societies because of the increasing global integration of markets and spatial mobility. Experimental research in Social Exchange Theory has provided mixed evidence on how various structural properties of exchange relations generate solidarity. Findings suggest that risk is key to generate trust between exchange partners, which is linked to feelings of solidarity. This casts doubts on the positive effect of economic exchange on solidarity, as actual market-based transactions mainly rely on assurance structures to reduce risk and prevent opportunism. However, further developments suggest that solidarity can be indirectly generated by economic exchange ties framed by loose agreements. This opens up opportunities for new empirical research to study economic exchange and solidarity in actual social systems. Furthermore, negative consequences of the link between economic exchange and solidarity are discussed, such as centralization and segregation.
{"title":"Making Bonds of Solidarity from Economic Exchange. A Review Essay","authors":"F. Bianchi","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/9727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/9727","url":null,"abstract":"This article surveys a field of empirical social research linking economic exchange relations to the generation of interpersonal bonds of solidarity. This issue is particularly interesting for both social sciences and current societies because of the increasing global integration of markets and spatial mobility. Experimental research in Social Exchange Theory has provided mixed evidence on how various structural properties of exchange relations generate solidarity. Findings suggest that risk is key to generate trust between exchange partners, which is linked to feelings of solidarity. This casts doubts on the positive effect of economic exchange on solidarity, as actual market-based transactions mainly rely on assurance structures to reduce risk and prevent opportunism. However, further developments suggest that solidarity can be indirectly generated by economic exchange ties framed by loose agreements. This opens up opportunities for new empirical research to study economic exchange and solidarity in actual social systems. Furthermore, negative consequences of the link between economic exchange and solidarity are discussed, such as centralization and segregation.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"207-225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45679593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10443
Gernot Grabher, Jonas König
Digital platforms disrupt – not just incumbent industries, but also academic imaginations about the future course of capitalism. While some scholars envision the next great transformation towards the ultimate marketization, others anticipate a post-capitalism based on digitally revitalized notions of community and reciprocity. Starting from this controversy, the article advances a Polanyian perspective to push beyond the ostensibly antagonistic dynamics of more or less market. More specifically, the emergence of digital platforms is perceived from the angle of three key drivers that propelled the great transformation towards marketization: technology, science, state. While the break-through of marketization, in Polanyi’s view, was prompted by the steam engine, the emergence of platforms is driven by the digital infrastructures of cloud computing, big data and algorithms; and while markets were scientifically legitimized by economics, platforms deploy network theories that, through their far-reaching application, perform social reality. Just like markets, however, platforms are nothing natural, but are objects of ongoing political contestations that forge the embedding of the platform economy into the regulatory framework of society.
{"title":"Disruption, Embedded. A Polanyian Framing of the Platform Economy","authors":"Gernot Grabher, Jonas König","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10443","url":null,"abstract":"Digital platforms disrupt – not just incumbent industries, but also academic imaginations about the future course of capitalism. While some scholars envision the next great transformation towards the ultimate marketization, others anticipate a post-capitalism based on digitally revitalized notions of community and reciprocity. Starting from this controversy, the article advances a Polanyian perspective to push beyond the ostensibly antagonistic dynamics of more or less market. More specifically, the emergence of digital platforms is perceived from the angle of three key drivers that propelled the great transformation towards marketization: technology, science, state. While the break-through of marketization, in Polanyi’s view, was prompted by the steam engine, the emergence of platforms is driven by the digital infrastructures of cloud computing, big data and algorithms; and while markets were scientifically legitimized by economics, platforms deploy network theories that, through their far-reaching application, perform social reality. Just like markets, however, platforms are nothing natural, but are objects of ongoing political contestations that forge the embedding of the platform economy into the regulatory framework of society.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"95-118"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42955409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10842
Gil Eyal
This essay draws on Mary Douglas' theory of institutional styles of thinking to analyze the debate about how and when the Coronavirus crisis can be brought to an end. The dominant approach, I show, frames the problem in utilitarian terms, akin to what is known among philosophers as "the trolley problem." I point out the pitfalls of this framing and contrast it with a counter-frame taken from the Judeo-Christian tradition of pastoral leadership. The lacunae of this institutional style of thinking are pointed out as well, in order to develop the critical distance necessary for a reasoned intervention in the crisis.
{"title":"Beware the Trolley Zealots","authors":"Gil Eyal","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10842","url":null,"abstract":"This essay draws on Mary Douglas' theory of institutional styles of thinking to analyze the debate about how and when the Coronavirus crisis can be brought to an end. The dominant approach, I show, frames the problem in utilitarian terms, akin to what is known among philosophers as \"the trolley problem.\" I point out the pitfalls of this framing and contrast it with a counter-frame taken from the Judeo-Christian tradition of pastoral leadership. The lacunae of this institutional style of thinking are pointed out as well, in order to develop the critical distance necessary for a reasoned intervention in the crisis.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"21-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43069614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-20DOI: 10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10836
Vincenzo Romania
Social distance is a central issue in the institutional communication about COVID-19. The expression has often been improperly used as a synonym for physical distance. In this article, I will compare how international agencies have used the concept in their documents with Erving Goffman's sociological theory on social distance. The Canadian sociologist is, in fact, the author who has explored the sociological aspects of social distance most deeply. In the third section, summarising Goffman's work, I will try to define a possible research agenda to be developed in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. Finally, I will analyse some elements of social change already visible in various parts of the world. The aim is to understand how COVID-19 could transform some social and ritual aspects of interpersonal distance. The main hypothesis is that in the immediate aftermath of this pandemic crisis, we will live in a period of moral inter-reign, in which we will experience a form of interactional anomie. This concept is also aimed at integrating the already rich Goffmanian theory on the interaction order, from a perspective that takes in account both the classic Durkheimian concept of anomie connected to dramatic social change and the Parsonsian theory of double contingency . I still do not know how long the pandemic will last and how many further quarantine periods will occur in the future. This is therefore more an exercise in sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 1959) than a sound, grounded theory.
{"title":"Interactional Anomie? Imaging Social Distance after COVID-19: A Goffmanian Perspective","authors":"Vincenzo Romania","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10836","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/10836","url":null,"abstract":"Social distance is a central issue in the institutional communication about COVID-19. The expression has often been improperly used as a synonym for physical distance. In this article, I will compare how international agencies have used the concept in their documents with Erving Goffman's sociological theory on social distance. The Canadian sociologist is, in fact, the author who has explored the sociological aspects of social distance most deeply. In the third section, summarising Goffman's work, I will try to define a possible research agenda to be developed in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. Finally, I will analyse some elements of social change already visible in various parts of the world. The aim is to understand how COVID-19 could transform some social and ritual aspects of interpersonal distance. The main hypothesis is that in the immediate aftermath of this pandemic crisis, we will live in a period of moral inter-reign, in which we will experience a form of interactional anomie. This concept is also aimed at integrating the already rich Goffmanian theory on the interaction order, from a perspective that takes in account both the classic Durkheimian concept of anomie connected to dramatic social change and the Parsonsian theory of double contingency . I still do not know how long the pandemic will last and how many further quarantine periods will occur in the future. This is therefore more an exercise in sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 1959) than a sound, grounded theory.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"51-66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45222582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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