Atheism as a belief does not have to present intellectual credentials within academia. Yet to hold beliefs means giving reasons for doing so, ones which may be found wanting. Instead, atheism is the automatic default setting within the academic world. Conversely, religious belief confronts a double standard. Religious believers are not permitted to make truth claims but are instead forced to present their beliefs as part of one language game amongst many. Religious truth claims are expected to satisfy empiricist criteria of evidence but when they fail, as they must, religious belief...
Atheism as a belief does not have to present intellectual credentials within academia. Yet to hold beliefs means giving reasons for doing so, ones whi...
A central question of social theory is: How do society's objective features influence its members to reproduce or transform society through their actions? This volume examines how objective social conditioning is mediated by the subjective reflexivity of individuals. On the basis of a series of in-depth interviews, Margaret Archer identifies the mediatory mechanism as "internal conversations" that are expressed in forms governing agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility, and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change.
A central question of social theory is: How do society's objective features influence its members to reproduce or transform society through their acti...
This is a revised edition of Margaret Archer's Culture and Agency (CUP, 1988), a seminal contribution to social theory and the case for the role of culture in sociological thought. Described as "a timely and sophisticated treatment," the book showed that the "problems" of culture and agency and structure and agency could be solved using the same analytical framework. The revised edition contextualizes the argument in 1990s sociology and links it to Professor Archer's latest book, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (CUP, 1995).
This is a revised edition of Margaret Archer's Culture and Agency (CUP, 1988), a seminal contribution to social theory and the case for the role of cu...
The human subject is under threat from postmodernist thinking that has declared the "Death of God" and the "Death of Man." This book is a revindication of the concept of humanity, rejecting contemporary social theory that seeks to diminish human properties and powers. Archer argues that being human depends on an interaction with the real world in which practice takes primacy over language in the emergence of human self-consciousness, thought, emotionality and personal identity--all of which are prior to, and more basic than, our acquisition of a social identity.
The human subject is under threat from postmodernist thinking that has declared the "Death of God" and the "Death of Man." This book is a revindicatio...
