Human agents and social structures - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719081726 ISBN 13: 9780719081729

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2010

Synopsis

The structure/agency debate has been among the central issues in recent discussions of social theory. It has been widely assumed that the key theoretical task is to find a link between social structures and acting human beings – to reconcile the macro with the micro, society and the individual.

The contributors to this book reject this solution to the problem. For them, both the concept of ‘society’ as an entity and the freely-acting ‘individual’ are theoretical fiction. Rather, the immediate task of the social sciences is to take the social world seriously, to understand the ways in which that world emerges dynamically from, and exerts influence on, the interactions of real people in real situations.

This timely collection is not intended as an even-handed review of the debate, but as a deliberately polemical intervention which aims to highlight some of the ways in which its central terms have been misconceived.

About this title

About the Author

Peter J. Martin is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester.

From the Back Cover

The structure/agency debate has been among the central issues in recent discussions of social theory. It has been widely assumed that the key theoretical task is to find a link between social structures and acting human beings – to reconcile the macro with the micro, society and the individual.

The contributors to this book reject this solution to the problem. For them, both the concept of ‘society’ as an entity and the freely-acting ‘individual’ are theoretical fiction. Rather, the immediate task of the social sciences is to take the social world seriously, to understand the ways in which that world emerges dynamically from, and exerts influence on, the interactions of real people in real situations.

This timely collection is not intended as an even-handed review of the debate, but as a deliberately polemical intervention which aims to highlight some of the ways in which its central terms have been misconceived.

From the Inside Flap

The structure/agency debate has been among the central issues in recent discussions of social theory. It has been widely assumed that the key theoretical task is to find a link between social structures and acting human beings to reconcile the macro with the micro, society and the individual.The contributors to this book reject this solution to the problem. For them, both the concept of society as an entity and the freely-acting individual are theoretical fiction. Rather, the immediate task of the social sciences is to take the social world seriously, to understand the ways in which that world emerges dynamically from, and exerts influence on, the interactions of real people in real situations.This timely collection is not intended as an even-handed review of the debate, but as a deliberately polemical intervention which aims to highlight some of the ways in which its central terms have been misconceived.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719081726
• ISBN 13: 9780719081729
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Martin Peter J., Denis Alex