Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 160

1 ‘Any scientific sociology must strive to be positivist.’ Why do most sociologists disagree with this statement? Can a non-positivist sociology still be ‘scientific’?

2 Marx argued that class conflict would lead to revolution and the end of capitalism. How have later neo-Marxists explained the failure of the working class to fulfil its ‘historic role’?

3 What is a social fact according to Emile Durkheim? Provide some examples. How has the concept of social facts been criticized from other sociological perspectives?

4 Outline Max Weber’s ‘Protestant ethic’ thesis, focusing on the role of religion in the origins of capitalism. What, if anything, does this thesis tell us about the character of twenty-first-century capitalism?

5 What is symbolic about ‘symbolic interactionism’? List some of the main differences between phenomenology and ethnomethodology.

6 Explain what Elias means by human figurations. Provide some real-world examples of figurations.

7 According to Giddens, what constitutes the ‘duality of structure’? Provide some examples which illustrate this idea.

8 How did feminist theorists criticize malestream sociology? In what ways has sociology changed following such criticisms? Why do some people still insist that sociology has not fully integrated the concept of gender into the discipline?

9 Discuss the proposition that the prefix ‘post-’ in postcolonial, postmodern and poststructuralist theories implies a critique of mainstream perspectives but puts nothing constructive in their place. What evidence is there that the postmodern idea that the age of modernity is over is simply wrong?

10 Following Ulrich Beck, what is a ‘manufactured risk’? Provide some examples. What is meant by a risk society? Do we live in risk societies today?

11 Should we abandon the classical sociological theories of Durkheim, Marx and Weber as unsuitable for the twenty-first century? Which aspects of their work, if any, remain relevant today, and what might they still help us to understand?