I'm quite comfortable reading history and political economy but I've realised I know fuck all about the above. I'm not necessarily looking for 'easy' reads but things that'll introduce me to the relevant concepts as well historical debates and that. A pretty vague and open request but hopefully some of you can come up with something.
Can anybody recommend me some philosophy / sociology / critical theory
- Thread starter caleb
- Start date
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
kenny history of western philosophy
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
For sociology I'd start with something basic and wide-ranging such as "Sociology for Dummies", which although it's supposedly "for dummies", gives a firm foundation of what sociology is and can be about. I'd also read something like Runciman's "The Social Animal", which provides an illustration of how "we" interact with one another in society.
What sort of stuff have you read? Marx, Gramsci, Pannekoek?
A Short History of Modern Philosophy by Roger Scruton is a good concise guide. Always keep in mind his Tory bias though.
Dillinger4 would be a good person to ask.
I ought to read that.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
I've been reading a fair amount of social theory recently, mainly critical realist stuff. Good critical realists like Andrew Sayer are well aware of debates raging at different theoretical poles and write about them well. They're also quite interdisciplinary, and the skilled writers are able to do this in their overviews of debates at a fairly abstract level by demonstrating the importance of philosophy to good social science. I'd really recommend Sayer's 'Realism and Social Science'.
Nicos Mouzelis' 'Sociological Theory - What Went Wrong?' is another work that covers a very broad area of sociology / social science, bringing in most of the 'greats' of post WW2 sociology, and looking at key issues like structure / agency and so on. Dense but rewarding.
Nicos Mouzelis' 'Sociological Theory - What Went Wrong?' is another work that covers a very broad area of sociology / social science, bringing in most of the 'greats' of post WW2 sociology, and looking at key issues like structure / agency and so on. Dense but rewarding.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
One good way in would be Darrow Schecter's "History of the left from Marx to the present: theoretical perspectives" - don't share all the judgements but a good intro to general critical theory debates and political context
for philosophy Simon Critchley's "Continental Philosophy: A very short introduction" would be a decent place to begin
for philosophy Simon Critchley's "Continental Philosophy: A very short introduction" would be a decent place to begin
I found this good on continental philosophy: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1557868808.html
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
another vote for 'distinction' and i'll raise you 'from max weber': download here https://archive.org/details/frommaxweberessa00webe
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
TBF though, Bourdieu may be a bit "dense", unless you're prepared for it.
The other two are both good recommendations, though. Nice one!
Dr. Furface
One small step for me
Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is a great intro to most of the main philosophers up to and including Marx and Nietzsche and is especially useful for the ancient Greeks, notably Plato and Aristotle (both essential reading).
Calhoun et al - 'Contemporary Sociological Theory' might be a good one. It's a collection of writings from the standard canon, so you have Mills, Giddens, Bourdieu, Foucault, Bauman etc all in there.
It would be easier to get an understanding of Foucault or Bourdieu from this collection than jumping into their main works, which are very dense and abstractly written.
There is a 'Classical Sociological Theory' book too by the same publisher. I don't own that one but I guess it is the same setup but with Marx, Weber, Durkheim and other foundational theorists like that.
It would be easier to get an understanding of Foucault or Bourdieu from this collection than jumping into their main works, which are very dense and abstractly written.
There is a 'Classical Sociological Theory' book too by the same publisher. I don't own that one but I guess it is the same setup but with Marx, Weber, Durkheim and other foundational theorists like that.
Eric Hoffer - The passionate state of mind, and The True believer. Best sociologist ever, imho. Also hugely enjoyable and well written (no long words but still manages to be high brow and groundbreaking)
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Riklet
procrastinación
really interesting reads from when i was studying sociology...
Modernity and the Holocaust and Thinking Sociologically (great intro) - Zygmunt Bauman
The History of Sexuality vol 1 & Discipline and Punish - Foucault
The Presentation of the Self in Everyday life - E Goffman
and what about...
The condition of the working class in England 1844 - Engels
On Liberty - J Stuart Mill
Modernity and the Holocaust and Thinking Sociologically (great intro) - Zygmunt Bauman
The History of Sexuality vol 1 & Discipline and Punish - Foucault
The Presentation of the Self in Everyday life - E Goffman
and what about...
The condition of the working class in England 1844 - Engels
On Liberty - J Stuart Mill
Alain de Botton? I hope not. Consolations of Philosophy was rubbish. Does he get any bettter?
I thought Simon Critichley was bad too. Both of them. All that secular religion nonsense.
Alain Badiou would be better. At least Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder hasn't been mentioned yet.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Caleb, I'm not quite sure what you're after here. Can you sort of narrow it down?
Riklet
procrastinación
What's wrong with Sophie's world? Great book that, for younger people studying philosophy or just generally people interested.
You might even get more out of that than going straight into Bertrand Russel on western philosophy! Oh heavens forbid, reading bloody Plato. What a ball ache.
You might even get more out of that than going straight into Bertrand Russel on western philosophy! Oh heavens forbid, reading bloody Plato. What a ball ache.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
de Botton has a horribly-supercilious writing style. His newspaper and magazine articles piss me off enough that I've never been tempted to read his books.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Although at least "Spohie's World" got some people interested in philosophy (going by the up-tick in sales of "intro to philosophy" books in the wake of Gaarder's book) who might not otherwise have come to the subject.
Rusche and Kirchheimer's 'Punishment and Social Structure' would be good too. A structuralist Marxist account of punishment, which Foucault's post-structuralist account marks a departure from.
I'll see references to people like Lucien Goldmann or Gillian Rose, for two examples, and not have a clue what they're on about. Both in terms of the langauge and concepts used, and their historical contexts (don't really know anything about Luckaks or Adorno or whatever, or Hegel and Kant before that). So something that'll ease me into being about to understand this sort of thing.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I think what you are interested in could be (loosely) grouped into critical theory or continental philosophy.
I think the best place to start might be some of the general introductions to philosophy that people have mentioned in this thread. A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny was mentioned by pickmans, and that is a very good place to start. Dr Furface mentioned A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. You will find that useful, but it doesn't deal with any modern or contemporary philosophers (I can't remember who it ends with, someone like Henri Bergson?).
Also useful to you at this point would be some dictionaries. Penguin publish a Dictionary of Philosophy, and for the kind of people you mention, like Lukacs or Adorno, there is also a Dictionary of Critical Theory. These are not comprehensive, but they will be useful next time somebody mentions a term you don't know or understand. You can flick to the entry and get a basic idea of what it is about.
Also useful to you is Squashed Philosophers. This is condensed (and in some cases extremely condensed) versions of a philosophical texts. It has a condensed version of many of the texts you might need to read. There is an entire canon of philosophical texts, but I don't think they are massively necessary unless you are an actual student of philosophy. You don't need to read and make notes on every single page of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, for example. You just need a general idea. Often this comes by a kind of osmosis, the more you read about one thing, the more you will pick up about how it relates to something else. It is all about making connections.
Squashed Philosophers is a condensed version of the works of many philosophers, and it useful for a general idea, but not really beyond that. Another website that you might find really useful is The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This is a bit like wikipedia, except it is curated by academics rather than members of the general public. The articles on there go into a lot of depth and deal with the complexities and subtleties of a philosophers thought.
It all depends how far you want to go with it all, though. There is no way you are going to understand Kant or Hegel without a proper understanding of most of western philosophy. There is just too much going on there.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
Also excellent is Alan Norrie's Crime, Reason and History.
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