S2 WST C3 complement 当代社会学理论 课件.pptVIP

Human beings as subjects / objects in the social sciences Starting point Society is composed of… … individuals … supra-individual phenomena (social groups, institutions, economic forces, etc.) The supra-individual features of society can only be reproduced and transformed through the actions of individuals Question How do we understand the individuals’ actions? Do choice and free will play a role in these actions? Two opposite perspectives The notion of “subject” supposes that human beings experience genuine freedom and have a capacity to alter the environment despite the constraints posed by prevailing social conditions It is possible to “educate the educator” (Marx) and to shape history through praxis (Gramsci, Sartre) Social scientists have to acknowledge this existence of free choice and integrate it in their research framework Alternatively, one can consider that the “subject” is an illusion and that individuals are not free to decide the course of their practice Human beings’ thoughts, aims and actions are determined by supra-individual phenomena without they being aware of it These phenomena can be economic, political, ideological, etc. Social scientists have to focus on these supra-individual phenomena and they can treat individuals as objects in their research (Lévi-Strauss: “to study men as if they were ants”) Three traditions in social science I) Subjectivism Social reality is essentially “constructed” in people’s minds Objective social phenomena exist objectively only insofar as they are registered subjectively Illustration: authority exists because it is acknowledged as such by those who submit to it Research focuses on processes of perception, interpretation, knowledge-formation, representations, choice Authors: early Sartre, Alfred Schütz 舒茨 (influenced by Husserl 胡塞尔 and phenomenology 现象学), ethnomethodology 民俗学方法论, Erving Goffman 戈夫曼 (sometimes) Three traditions in social science II) Objectivism Social phenomena have an objective existence outsid