[Etudiante]

Hello, Friends! i am for the first time on this forum and i would like to offer you one new topic. Sociology - it is very useful in our life and in our science practice. can you advice me the most interestig and useful books on sociology?
At the moment i have found interesting book:
http://old.reslib.co...ciology__Vol__2_

this library contents a lot of rare scientific literature...

Etudiante, on 6 December 2011 - 04:06 PM, said:

Hello, Friends! i am for the first time on this forum and i would like to offer you one new topic. Sociology - it is very useful in our life and in our science practice. can you advice me the most interestig and useful books on sociology?
At the moment i have found interesting book:
http://old.reslib.co...ciology__Vol__2_

this library contents a lot of rare scientific literature...

but i am interested in the books on sociology "from the very beginning" and in some spheres of sociology - for example, sociology of the science...
thank you!!

[charles brough]

Etudiante, on 6 December 2011 - 04:08 PM, said:

Hello, Friends! i am for the first time on this forum and i would like to offer you one new topic. Sociology - it is very useful in our life and in our science practice. can you advice me the most interestig and useful books on sociology?
At the moment i have found interesting book:
http://old.reslib.co...ciology__Vol__2_

this library contents a lot of rare scientific literature...but i am interested in the books on sociology "from the very beginning" and in some spheres of sociology - for example, sociology of the science...thank you!!

What do you mean by the "sociology of the science..."? What science? Anyway, sociology is the study of groups, not sciences. If you are interested in the nature, origin, history, etc. of science, why not ask your librarian? And if you are interested in societies and their civilizations rather than groups, sociology is not for you.

[Etudiante]

charles brough, on 7 December 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

What do you mean by the "sociology of the science..."? What science? Anyway, sociology is the study of groups, not sciences. If you are interested in the nature, origin, history, etc. of science, why not ask your librarian? And if you are interested in societies and their civilizations rather than groups, sociology is not for you.

Thank you very much! You have a reason - the term "sociology of science" appears scientific, but is not really understandable. that s why i am interested in real meaning of this term. can somebody explain it?

for the history etc of science - there are a lot of such books in our library...


and you, which books about the sociology, real sociology do you recommend?

[charles brough]

Etudiante, on 12 January 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

Thank you very much! You have a reason - the term "sociology of science" appears scientific, but is not really understandable. that s why i am interested in real meaning of this term. can somebody explain it?

for the history etc of science - there are a lot of such books in our library...
and you, which books about the sociology, real sociology do you recommend?

Well, sociology is the study of groups. Science is the effort to understand what happens in the world and universe. While it is true that some groups are better at science than the others, I find it hard to attach any significant meaning to the"sociology of science" term. This is not unusual. Often meaningless terms and usages appear in sociological papers. These "buzzwords" are regarded as "cool." But we mustn't be too critical of sociologists because they are working in the only field where they are forced to be subjective. You cannot, for example, expect them to come up with anything that reflects on our Christian faith or our secular ideals. So, we hire sociologists to pretend to do science for us. They take on the onus for all the subjective rationalizing so the rest of the scientists don't have to.

If you want to better understand how the rationalizing in sociology and social theory is done, check out "The Last Civilization" at my website URL below. I have twenty-one of them listed and described in the Appendix.

If you want a good education to get a career, why pick a dead end? There is an immense shortage of highly trained graduate engineering experts in chemical, compter, mechanical engineering. Too many students pick a useless "liberal arts" education---thinking it will enable them to think---and end up deep in debt and without a job.

[imatfaal]

Sociology is the study of society - possibly the study of groups of people. I can quite understand what you mean by a sociology of science - or maybe of scientists; one only needs to look how arguments are made and countered here rather than at a religious forum to see that different rules, both explicit and implicit, linguistic and logical - you will easily be able to discern group mores and memes that will form, guide and constrain threads. you might be interested in the discourse analysis of people like Foucault; the Birth of the Asylum has some very interesting, although not necessarily agreeable (!) views on the use of terminology, language, and "the discourse" to mould and constrain understanding of mental illness.

To dismiss it as wantonly as Charles has done above is high-handed and wrong. Whilst sociology might be associated with less than the pure objectivity of some sciences, it does have areas of complete objectivity in its research, and even the areas with a necessary dose of subjectivity are far from useless.

And on the matter of education - do a degree in what you find intellectually interesting, in a subject that inspires, and not in one that you are not naturally inclined to but will pay the bills.

[charles brough]

imatfaal, on 19 January 2012 - 12:10 PM, said:

To dismiss it as wantonly as Charles has done above is high-handed and wrong. Whilst sociology might be associated with less than the pure objectivity of some sciences, it does have areas of complete objectivity in its research, and even the areas with a necessary dose of subjectivity are far from useless.

Yes, I agree that sociologists are scientific, even objective, in studying groups. I said ''sociology'' when I really meant social theorists. In fact, I believe all social scientists gather their data as exactly as they can. What is really at issue is how that data is interpreted. That is where specific subjectivity or rationalizing comes in inorder to avoid conflict with our religious and secular systems or ideals.

[imatfaal]

Social theorists - I can understand your criticism a lot more there; although I don't agree with it because I suppose in some ways much of my work has been in critical theory. Moreover,I would standby my suggestion that discourse analysis can be a very useful tool box with which to understand and elucidate hidden motives and unspoken attitudes. Take a look at most of the religion threads here - especially those that deal with atheism and I am sure that you will discern a use of language, definition, and argument that is bound to constrain the discussion; once the route of a debate is trammelled then some concepts become unsay-able and others become undeniable.

[charles brough]

imatfaal, on 20 January 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

Social theorists - I can understand your criticism a lot more there; although I don't agree with it because I suppose in some ways much of my work has been in critical theory. Moreover,I would standby my suggestion that discourse analysis can be a very useful tool box with which to understand and elucidate hidden motives and unspoken attitudes. Take a look at most of the religion threads here - especially those that deal with atheism and I am sure that you will discern a use of language, definition, and argument that is bound to constrain the discussion; once the route of a debate is trammelled then some concepts become unsay-able and others become undeniable.

My work is social theory also in that it is the way I interpret social science data by working on the foundation described below. But I still regard the field itself as riddled with subjectivity because it does not base its interpretation of the data on this:

We evolved as small-group (hunting/gathering) primates and feel secure only in such groups. Stress builds up as the group size swells beyond what is optimal to us. The only way we have managed to live in larger groups has been to develop (evolve) the ability to use language and speech into ideological systems that were able to bound us into the larger groups. As we perfected the structure of these ideological systems over the tens of thousands of years, we managed to
keep explanding their ability to bind us together this way.


(Incidentally, Alexander Pope is my favorite poet of all time)