Transcending Modernity with Relational Thinking

• Main Author: Donati, Pierpaolo (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2021
• Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology
• Subjects: after-modernity; critical realism; modernity; relational thinking; relational thought; Simmel; social relations; social transformation; trans-modern; western modernity
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

Summary

This book explores the ways in which social relations are profoundly changing modern society, arguing that, constituting a reality of their own, social relations will ultimately lead to a new form of society: an aftermodern or relational society. Drawing on the thought of Simmel, it extends the idea that society consists essentially of social relations, in order to make sense of the operation of dichotomous forces in society and to examine the emergence of a "third" in the morphogenetic processes. Through a realist and critical relational sociology, which allows for the fact that human beings are both internal and external to social relations, and therefore to society, the author shows how we are moving towards a new, trans-modern society - one that calls into question the guiding ideas of Western modernity, such as the notion of linear progression, that science and technology are the decisive factors of human development, and that culture can entirely supplant nature. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, social theorists, economists, political scientists, and social philosophers with interests in relational thought, critical realism, and social transformation.

Physical Description

1 electronic resource (262 p.)

ISBN

9781003146698
9781000382679
9780367705138
9780367705121

Access

Open Access