social theory The social term of alienation was widely observed by various well-known sociologists such as Durkheim, Weber, Marx, etc. It was Marx who condemned capitalism for producing alienation – the experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness. Dominated by capitalists, workers are nothing more than a commodity, a source of labor, hired and fired as well. Dehumanized by their jobs (especially monotonously, repetitive factory work), workers find little satisfaction and feel unable to improve their situation. Industrial Capitalism alienated workers in four ways: from the act of working, from the products of work, from other workers, and from human potential. It became obvious that the more people put themselves in their labor, the more they loose. Who knows, what kind of labor alienates person more, emotional or physical.
In Hochschild’s book “Managed Heart” an emotion labor and its alienating effects on flight attendants is described. The exhaustion of brains and hard emotional work lead to nothing, hard labor is not being recognized. Quite similarly Marshall Berman in his book speculates on what happens to artists and other intellectual laborers feel under the productive conditions of capitalism. Such conditions leave no opportunity for being creative, for being known and admitted. Both these types of alienation describe the same idea of emotional suffering. Constantly performing on the stage an artist looses its personality. The state that the work of individual artist is not being fully recognized leads to the feelings of personal misery.
The Essay on Marx Alienated Labor Forms Of Alienation
Marx on page 327 of his essay "estranged labor" is describing what to him were the fundamental conditions of labor under capitalism and why he found them detrimental to man. It is an essay about how people experience work. Marx criticizes capitalism by analyzing his theory of alienation. The theme for this essay was how workers in capitalism are alienated from their work. It covers 4 forms of ...
But the difference in these two types of alienation lies in the state that in comparison with other people performing emotional labor artists at least achieve some kind of pleasure from their work. Great contribution to sociology and especially to the studying of capitalistic environment and alienation has been made by two prominent sociologists and anthropologists – Emile Durkheim and Carl Marx. They both studied the rapid social transformation of Europe during nineteenth century, but both did it from various viewpoints. Marx viewed the society as a conflict of classes, and thought that the only way to get out of that constant process of proletariats alienation would be a social revolution. Emile Durkheims great insight was recognizing that society existed beyond ourselves. Society is more than the individuals who compose it; society has a life of it own that stretches beyond our personal experience. Durkheim also pointed out that groups could be held together on two contrasting bases: the sentimental attraction of similarities (mechanical solidarity), such as occurs in friendship groups and among relatives and neighbors, and the organization of complementary differences (organic solidarity), such as occurs in industrial, military, governmental, and other organizations that exist because they have tasks to perform. In his view ethical and social structures were being endangered by the advent of technology and mechanization.
`Durkheim became very famous also due to its theory of division of labor. The division of labor rendered workmen both more alien to one another and more dependent upon one another, since none of them any longer built the whole product by himself. Both Marx and Durkheim worried about the direction society was taking. But Durkheim was more optimistic than Marx. He praised our greater freedom and privacy while hoping we could create the laws for regulating our behavior. Along with the development of society developed the peculiarities of the division of labor. Going far from agricultural to industrial society the division of labor by gender became less important.
The Essay on Making India Knowledge Society
Having maintained steady economic growth over the years, it is time to make India a knowledge society/hub. Comment. When the goal is to excel, expediency is ruled out; when the only course open is merit, mediocrity is out of reckoning; and when the competition is cut-throat, compromise on quality is out of the question. Making India a knowledge society is not a pipe dream but a reality, both ...
As society industrialized, more over, the importance of muscle power declined, giving people even more options and further reducing the extent of gender differences. Famous French philisopher Descartes contirbuted to social theory greatly. Descartes sought to devise a method for reaching the truth. Sciences must be founded on certainty. The human subject: “I” is knowable, conscious. But not even an evil genius could deceive someone into believing falsely that he existed.
“I think, therefore I am” is thus beyond sceptical doubt. He thus invoked scepticism only as a means of reaching certainty. If one could know only that one thinks and exists, human knowledge would be depressingly narrow. So Descartes proceeded to broaden the limits of human knowledge. After showing that all human knowledge depended upon thought or reason, not sensation or imagination, he then proceeded to prove to his own satisfaction that God exists; that the criterion for knowledge is clearness and distinctness; that mind is more easily known than body; that the essence of matter is extension; and that most of his former beliefs are true. A good part of the philosophical reflection on knowledge developed in the twentieth century focuses almost exclusively on scientific knowledge.
We can mention the works of two authors, namely Popper and Kuhn, given all the implications they had for subsequent studies. The main debate established between the two thinkers lies in the importance that social and historical conditions must have in shaping scientific knowledge. In his paper Epistemology without Knowing Subject”, which has inspired the title of our work, Popper claims that, when analysing the products of human knowledge, it is not the production processes but the products themselves what has to be studied. Therefore, there is no point talking about a knowing subject; it is necessary to get past the subjectivist philosophy that since Descartes and the classic empiricism has focused on the description of the subjects cognitive processes. On the other side, it is well known that Kuhn sees social and historical factors as playing a fundamental role in the construction of knowledge by the scientific community. This author opened a whole trend of sciences social studies. And it is among the so-called post-Kuhn approaches where the feminist epistemology is usually included.
The Essay on Is Social Science Scientific
Is Social Science Scientific? Sociology is undoubtedly a logical science; it has the characteristics that other sciences have, its own theories that can be proved, as well as having systematic theories and laws. John Maynard Keynes refuted the many statements made by Auguste Comte and Friedrich Engels, simply he described social sciences as "illogical" and "dull." Thus, without providing any ...
In the following paragraphs, we would like to introduce some of the problems of feminist epistemology, namely the issue of subjectivity in both a restricted sense, when applied to knowledge and science, and in a broader one, when understood as a political subject. We would like to emphasise the basic role of the idea of situation, from which a good part of the contemporary feminist debate arises. The feminist movement has made a great effort to unveil the silenced work developed by women through history. Two main strategies were used to do it. On the one hand, an effort was made to value what has been traditionally seen as culturally characteristic of women, that is, to revalue the female world. On the other hand, the feminism has shown the way in which many women were hushed up by the official history, when they succeeded in entering a field that was not seen as their own.
Both approaches intertwined very often, and this search of women sometimes requires to question the changes appeared in traditionally well-settled discourses on the basis of the perspective they have as women. Among these women-recovering genealogical works devoted to construct an alternative memory, those related to the scientific scope stand out. The thought about women in the history of science lead to a parallel analysis of the reason for their scarce representation in it, and to a revision of the androcentrist biases that might be found in a science developed without women. It is clear that these three research programs, as Harding terms them, have themselves considerable importance. However, their theses also played an important role in the construction of a new research program, which had an even more revolutionary goal, namely that of questioning the very conceptual framework within which scientific knowledge and the studies on this knowledge are developed. These thoughts, analyses and proposals came to be known as feminist epistemology, which is the term normally used to include all the studies on knowledge, mainly scientific knowledge, that are developed from feminist parameters. Like Collins Hartsock is concerned with the development of theory in response to current concerns and within feminist communities dealing in representation and social change.
The Essay on Wave Feminist Feminists Women Fighting
"Would you describe yourself a feminist?" I was recently asked. Yes, was my knee-jerk reaction to the above question. I am a FEMINIST (in caps, no less. ) I went to an all-women's college, I support reproductive rights and signed petitions to protect Roe v. Wade as the decision approached its 30 th anniversary, I believe that women deserve respect, that women's lives have value independent of men, ...
Two central contentions shape this collection of essays: “theory plays an important part in political action for social change. The second is that political theorists must respond to and concentrate their energies on problems of political action, most fruitfully as these problems emerge in the context of efforts for social change.” (p.7) For Hartsock, two central themes of theory and political action are power and its relationship to epistemology. In the present postmodernist/poststructuralist context, questions of systematic relations of power become even more central and important; Hartsock contends that a focus on multiple subjectivities can divert attention from “sustained axes of domination”, particularly when situated against the present “triumph of the market” both ideologically and materially. Choice is cast in terms of consumerism, and democracy becomes another commodity. As a result of these theoretical concerns, Hartsock is interested in the relationship between epistemology and power, particularly in terms of knowledge relations, methodologies, alternative epistemologies, theories of knowledge and their interaction with material conditions here would point out Marx’s linking of structural and ideological relations).
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Bibliography:
Sociology, Robert J. Maceonis Hochschild – “Managed Heart” Nancy Hartsock – “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism” Descartes – The Philosophical works of Descartes” Patricia Hill Collins “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment”.
