OBSAH
časopisu Teorie vědy 4/2005



Miloslav Petrusek:
Deziluze z pokroku jako „ stav ducha“
(Historickosociologický náčrt problematiky)                  5
Sharon Hays:
Konstruování ústřední role kultury – a
dekonstruování sociologie?                             29
John Holmwood:
Radikální sociologie: co z ní zbylo?                         49
Jan Balon:
Projekt veřejné sociologie – cesta ven z krize
oborové sociologie?                                 73
Hans-Herbert Kögler:
Uznání a diference:
moc perspektiv v interpretativním dialogu                     99
Charles E. Rosenberg:
Patologie pokroku: představa civilizace jako rizika            131




Vydání monotématického čísla Kultura a pokrok bylo podpořeno Vzdělávací nadací Jana Husa v rámci grantového projektu Cursus Innovati 0201/NIF I „Teoretická sociologie”.











DEZILUZE Z POKROKU JAKO „ STAV DUCHA“
(Historickosociologický náčrt problematiky)
Miloslav Petrusek

Disillusion from Progress as a „State of Mind“
Abstract

This article reflects the idea of progress in its historical, psychological and sociological context. It uses the incentives of influential thinkers of the past to present now widely discredited concept of progress as a means with which we can attain deep insights into the nature of our past and present. Contemporary thinking in social sciences often pretends that the critique of the idea of progress is its invention. This article suggests that if we ever want to understand what role the idea of progress played and is able to play even now, why its significance declined and why it has been replaced with conceptions, theories and various utopian and fantastic ideologies on the one hand, and naively apocalyptic visions on the other, we have to search in the past if we want to reconstruct historical and sociological meaning and relevance of this idea.


KONSTRUOVÁNÍ ÚSTŘEDNÍ ROLE KULTURY – A
DEKONSTRUOVÁNÍ SOCIOLOGIE?
Sharon Hays

Constructing the Centrality of Culture – and Deconstructing Sociology?
Abstract

This article discusses the interrelationship between sociology of culture and cultural studies. It argues for more widespread engagement with cultural studies. The author suggests that this trend in studies of culture represents the single most interesting movement within the academy, which should be at the center of public curiosity and debate. To ignore it or simply criticize it from afar is to ignore the opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue, a fuller elaboration of the social construction of meaning, and the possibility of a widespread recognition of the centrality f culture. To ignore it is also to bypass the possibility of bringing studies of class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality from the periphery to the core of knowledge production. The reasons why sociologists tend to avoid taking up the banner of cultural studies are also at the center of interest.








RADIKALNI SOCIOLOGIE: CO Z NI ZBYLO?
John Holmwood

Radical Sociology: What´s Left?
Abstract

The centrality of power to social relationship and, thus as an explanatory category, to sociological theory, is one of the dominant themes of contemporary sociology. This sensibility is of relatively recent origin, deriving from criticisms, in the 1960s and since, of what was held to be the „orthodox consensus“ of professional sociology, to which was counterposed a series „of radical alternatives“. Several decades on, and the mood of hope and optimism among radical theorists has faded. This has a lot to do with changed social and political circumstances, but I shall suggest it is also to do with the character of the radical project itself. By seeking to make power all-pervasive, the specific, but limited, utility of the category has been lost such that power becomes continuous with the normal operation of any system of social relationships. Radical theorists try to avoid the potentially nihilistic and fatalistic consequences of the position by affirming „resistance“ as positive but, at the same time, any positive judgement about the outcome of resistance is withheld precisely because the normal operation of any system - including any „new“ system - is understood to entail power. In this way the issue of power is effectively removed from judgements about different social arrangements. Since differentiation among social arrangements must be central to any wider public relevance that sociological argument might have, the consequence is the alienation of sociological argument from public debate, which is the opposite of what „radical“ theorists had sought to achieve. On a more positive fiate, I shall conclude by arguing that a „non-radical“ sociology can serve critical and public purposes more effectively.

PROJEKT VEREJNE SOCIOLOGIE – CESTA VEN Z KRIZE
OBOROVE SOCIOLOGIE?
Jan Balon

The Project of Public Sociology – A Way Out of the Crisis of Disciplinary Sociology?
Abstract

This article reflects the idea of public sociology, as advocated and popularised by Michael Burawoy. His project of morally and politically informed social inquiry has been widely discussed and generally accepted as a new statement of the role, means and goals of sociology. Burawoy in his presidential address to the American Sociological Association presented 11 programmatic theses culminating in an appeal addressed to sociologists asking them to transform their attitude towards the world they study. This article concentrates on three aspects of the promoted project: differentiation of sociology into four types, periodization of the history of sociology, and his challenge calling the social scientists to public engagement. Burawoy´s idea of public sociology is confronted both with old and new conceptions of morally and politically informed sociology (Gouldner, Seidman, the rhetorical turn in social sciences and humanities, postmodern social theory). His normative vision of the role of sociology is brought into context of the discussions of the possible limits of the public role, which the social scientists would play, if they internalised Burawoy´s instructions.

UZNÁNÍ  A  DIFERENCE:
MOC  PERSPEKTIV  V  INTERPRETATIVNÍM  DIALOGU
Hans-Herbert Kögler

Recognition and Difference:
The Power of Perspectives in Interpretative Dialogue
Abstract

Confronted with vast cultural differences mediated by social power relations, the human and social sciences face a major challenge: How can one adequately recognize a differently situated human agent, given that all interpretation is grounded in culturally local, partially implicit, and socially shaped background assumptions? Based on the hermeneutic premise that understanding is grounded in the interpreter’s background and identity, the article develops an argument how the recognition of difference is possible in interpretive dialogue. According to our view, epistemic and ethical recognition of the other can be achieved if the linguistic potential for reflexive perspective-taking is taken into account and unleashed in interpretation. Proceeding through constructive criticism, we first show with Said’s analysis of Orientalism how power-defined symbolic perspectives can distort the hermeneutic recognition of the other. Yet we also show how Said himself fails to develop the possible position of a new hermeneutic attitude toward cultural difference. We then turn to Levinas’ radical recognition of otherness since it forcefully undercuts an essentializing or objectifying attitude toward human agency. However, Levinas fails to integrate the recognition of the other with the concrete linguistically mediated self-understanding of socially situated agents. This forces us to suggest, in the third and final section, a new approach. We show that an epistemically and ethically adequate understanding of the other – which includes the normative constraint of an interpretive orientation at the self-understanding of the other – can be grounded in the linguistically mediated competence for interpretive perspective-taking.


PATOLOGIE POKROKU: PŘEDSTAVA CIVILIZACE JAKO RIZIKA
Charles E. Rosenberg

Pathologies of Progress: The Idea of Civilisation as Risk
Abstract

In Pathologies of Progress: The Idea of Civilisation as Risk, Charles E. Rosenberg describes both the similarities and differences between mid-nineteenth and late-twentieth-century widespread expressions of change-oriented cultural angst. He presents some of the nineteenth-century versions of such ventures into didactic cultural pathology; traces their conceptual descendants into the twentieth century; and then in conclusion specifies a number of elements that have made this narrative so tenaciously plausible over time.