Emancipation and History: The Return of Social Theory

Copyright

Contents

List of Tables

Introduction

1 Vicissitudes and Possibilities of Critical Theory Today

Defining Critical Theory

Contemporary Modernity

Renewing Critique

2 Global Modernity: Levels of Analysis and Conceptual Strategies

Introduction

Levels of Analysis

Descriptions

Middle-range Analytical Concepts

General Analytical Concepts

A Trend-concept: Secularization

Conclusion

3 Existential Social Questions, Developmental Trends and Modernity

The Problem

Existential Social Questions

Existential Questions, Developmental Trends and Modernizing Moves

Final Words

4 History, Sociology and Modernity

Introduction

Historical Sociology and Sociological Theory

Theory and Mechanisms

Conclusion

5 Realism, Trend-concepts and the Modern State

Introduction

Beyond Empiricism (and Critical Realism)

The Modern State and Modern Society

Collective Subjectivity, Mechanisms, Modernization

Final Words

6 Family, Modernization and Sociological Theory

Two Intertwined Themes

Globalization and Modernization

The Family, the ‘Dimensions’ of Social Life and the ‘Existential Questions’

Conclusion

7 The Basic Forms of Social Interaction

Introduction

Principles of Organization, Mechanisms of Coordination

Principles of Antagonism, Mechanisms of Opposition

Coordination, Antagonism

Interactive Inclinations

Bases of Justification

Conclusion

8 The Imaginary and Politics in Modernity: The Trajectory of Peronism

Introduction

Theoretical Background

Historical Peronism

The Argentina of Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner

The Imaginary and Politics in Modernity

9 Critical Social Theory and Developmental Trends, Emancipation and Late Communism

Introduction

Capitalism, Accumulation and Communism

Contemporary Alternatives

Tasks of Critical Theory – or Late Twentieth Century Communism

References

Index