Suchergebnisse

Review: Geertz, Clifford. 2005. Kultūrų interpretavimas. Straipsnių rinktinė. Vilnius: Baltos lankos.

Review: Motesquieu, Charles. 2004. Apie įstatymų dvasią. Vilnius: Mintis.

Review: 1. Sverdiolas, Arūnas. 2002. Būti ar klausti. Hermeneutinės filosofijos studijos – 1. Vilnius: Strofa. 2. Sverdiolas, Arūnas. 2003. Būti ar klausti. Hermeneutinės filosofijos studijos – 2. Vilnius: Strofa.

Contrary to the popular definition of qualitative research as "the new mode" of cognition we can see qualitative methods as having at its essence the concepts of hermeneutics, pragmatism, and radical microsociology. The focus of this article is on the historical roots of qualitative method and the methodological tension created by the foundational and discoursive terminology. The goal of this paper is to discuss and suggest a need for sociology to more thoroughly integrate microsociological insights into its theory and practice. It is from this point of view that we must consider the contemporary "demise" of empiricism and make explicit some substantive connections between the new ways of cognition, i. e. qualitative methods, "post-" insights, and "radical" microsociological trends. Within the larger context of sociology as an academic discipline, a growing breach now exist between the proponents of a so-called quantitative epistemology and those who have identified themselves as qualitative researchers. The transformation of recent methodology has been accompanied by a proliferation of qualitative techniques of research. Its focus shifts from foundational attempts to the discoursive, contextual, and indexical problems. Supposing that the two ways of cognition are based on different sociological traditions and methodological justifications leads to asking the question posed to us by the dualist context of latter-day sociological inquiry: what are the roots of qualitative research? This paper begins by arguing that progress towards a fully articulated sociological practice must proceed now from a historically focused analysis of different methodological ideas. The themes and the principles of the classic methodological works of these traditions reveal the plausibility of the claim that the incorporation of their content is central for recent methodology. The main argument of this article is that the highlighting and criticizing particular arguments relevant to the debate between the quantitative sociologists and the critics of quantitative researches leads to a better understanding of the radical transformation of the contemporary critical sociological thought. From the critical point of view the main task is to ensure the proceeding potency to make sociological discourse negotiable.

Review: Latour, Bruno. 2004. Mes niekada nebuvome modernūs. Simetrinės antropologijos esė. Vilnius: ALK / Homo liber.

Review: Rubavičius, Vytautas. 2003. Postmodernusis diskursas:
filosofinė hermeneutika, dekonstrukcija, menas. Vilnius: kultūros, filosofijos ir meno institutas.

This article discusses the technocratic collision of sociology. Sociology is a discipline with a strong commitment to tradition of positivism. On the one hand, sociology has developed on the premises of scientific methodology, making it the technical imperative of social investigation, using it to ground her cumulative knowledge claims. It was the fascination with the apparently relentless success of positivistic sociology that prompted the empiricist knowledge to dislodge other forms of knowledge.
On the other hand, the turn of latter-day sociological inquiry, as compared with the traditional attempt to apply the standarts of positivism, shows that under the new historical and practical perspective the sociology undergoes a discursive reframing. The argument here is that the limits of sociology as a discipline stem mainly from reductive methodological attempts. The growing interest in culture of science provides an interesting pluralist perspective. The better understanding of diverse theoretical and empirical approaches can provide the base for the creation of new reflexive sociological trends.

Review: Kuhn, Thomas S. 2003. Mokslo revoliucijų struktūra. Vilnius: Pradai.

Review: Norkus, Zenonas. 2003. Max Weber ir racionalus pasirinkimas. Vilnius: Margi raštai.

This essay is an excerpt from the forthcoming book - Critical Discourse in Sociology. Between Positivism and Postmodernism. The essay deals with the dilemmas of relativism. The sociological concept of relativity of last decades was formulated as the integral part of sociological inquiry, aimed at the methodological complexity and some critical character of sociological thought. The intellectual transformation of recent sociology has been accompanied by a proliferation of alternative theories and concepts. Given the acute understanding of socially determined and arbitrary character of knowledge, the new sociological identity is being shaped by the pluralist context of latter-day sociological inquiry. This essay attempts an appraisal of differences in alternative modes of knowledge by exploring critically its various thematic features. As sociology's ongoing internal struggles continue, it is appropriate to ask whether the multidimensional approach is able to employ its own relativistic elements and maybe analytic techniques in the process of keeping itself more useful to the social sciences. It is possible to identify some postmodern trends in contemporary sociology that are becoming quite diverse internally. It is clear, however, that sociologists attach a little deal of significance to these differentiating changes as one of the crucial criteria of the arrival of new and the more complex forms of theorizing. Sociologists devote also too little attention to the relationship between contemporary social transformations and the restructuring some basic concepts in sociology. Furthermore, the current debates on relativism in sociology do not account for the fact that "postmodernism", as a distinct and multiparadigmatic intellectual activity, is unequally distributed throughout the history of the social sciences.
The paper examines the problematic relationship between positivistic and postmodern sociology, using the recent development of the social sciences in Lithuania as a case study and discussing the alternative models of sociology and their implications for intellectual reflexivity and critical reconstruction in social sciences. The dilemmas of relativism are clear in Lithuanian social scientists's treatment of what they calls "postmodernism". The aim of this essay is to explore the dual relations between the positivistic and postmodern trends in sociology by specifying the historical aspects of its contemporary development. As a consequence of one-sided, undifferentiating understanding of postmodernism, the more narrow, monist and "purist" concept of science is shaped. The central thesis is that pursuit of a "pure" science model restricts the potentiality of sociological enterprise. The paper argues specifically for the differentiation of the concept of postmodernism and suggests a need for sociology to more thoroughly integrate postmodern insights into its theory and practice while highlighting such key aspects of the sociological tradition as the need to ground its discoursive forms in dialogical, conventional and communicative attempts. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate and make explicit some positive connections between explanatory and discursive forms of sociology examined from the perspective of critical social theory.

Review: Kasatkina, Natalija; Leončikas, Tadas. 2003. Lietuvos etninių grupių adaptacija: kontekstas ir eiga. Vilnius: Eugrimas.

Review: Habermas, Jürgen. 2002. Modernybės filosofinis diskursas. Vilnius: Alma littera.

Review: Matulionis, Arvydas Virgilijus. 2002. Sociologija.
Vilnius: Homo Liber.

Review: Radžvilas, Vytautas. 2001. Moderniosios socialinės teorijos apmatai. Įvadinių paskaitų kursas TSPMI bakalaurams. Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla.

This article critically examines the notion of representation by specifying the critical aspects of its contemporary development. The concept of "representation" most forcefully advanced by Durkheim has formed the basis for a kind of the social science that stresses the "naturalistica objectivity and externality of so called social facts. The unique and external character of what Durkheim terms reality sui generis is equivalent of Parsons' concem with what he called the "emergent properties" of social systems. The turn of latter-day sociological inquiry shows that under the new perspective the sociology undergoes a radical reframing of "representationalism". As the self-sufficient social facts or the reality sui generis is treated with distrust, the emphasis is laid upon contextual, pragmatic aspects of an academic activity. The relationship between text and reality is reformulated and Challenges the representationalist paradigm prevalent in sociology. Furthermore, the narrative approach forces us to explore our understanding of the moral origins of sociological theory.