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For Sociology : Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today
For Sociology Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today Author:Alvin W. Gouldner In 'For Sociology' Professor Alvin Gouldner critiques 'The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology.' In the title essay, 'For Sociology,' and in 'The Politics of Mind' he formulates his ideas for resolving the 'crisis' of Western sociology and suggests a fresh new direction. One such direction is Marxism, and in an important group of essays on the re... more »lation between Marxist thought and sociology, Gouldner extends the dialogue between the two. In the final essay, 'The Two Marxisms,' published here for the first time, he tentatively explores the direction that a Marxist critique of Marxism might take.
The work also includes his classic articles, 'Anti-Minotaur' and 'Sociological Partisan,' in their complete and unabridged form; his pioneering critiques of functional theory as represented esp. by the work of Talcott Parsons; his continuing probes into the origins of Western social theory.
CONTENTS: CRITIQUES OF SOCIOLOGY 1) Anti-Minotaur: The myth of a value-free sociology 2) The sociologist as partisan: Sociology and the welfare state 3) Remembrance and renewal in sociology 4) The politics of the mind 5) For sociology
BACKGROUNDS TO SOCIOLOGY: 6) Some observations on systematic theory, 1945-55 7) Reciprocity and autonomy in functional theory 8) The norm of reciprocity 9) The importance of something for nothing 10) Personal reality, social theory and the tragic dimension in science 11) Romanticism and Classicism: Deep structures in social science
MARXISMS AND SOCIOLOGY 12) Emile Durkheim and the critique of socialism 13) Sociology and Marxism 14) The Red guard 15) Comments on 'History and Class Consciousness' 16) The two Marxisms« less