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This book explores the contours of a transformational sociology which seeks to reconsider the horizons of sociological imagination. It questions accepted modernist assumptions such as the equation of society and nation-state, the dualism of individual and society and that of ontology and epistemology. Arguing that contemporary sociology suffers from what Ulrich Beck calls the Nato-like fire power of western sociology, it argues that sociology has to open itself to transcivilizational dialogues and planetary conversations about self, culture and society. The book also challenges scholars to go beyond a privileging of the post-traditional telos of modernist sociology and puts forward a foundational interrogation of modernist sociology. It underscores the limitations of established conventions of sociology and considering an alternative sociology based upon Confucian vision and practice of self-transformation. This collection offers a way to go beyond dominant structures of modern sociology and contemporary dominant ways of thinking about and doing sociology helping us cultivate a transdisciplinary sociology.
List of contents
Beyond Sociology: An Introduction and an Invitation.- The Concept of Society: Beyond the Socio-Centric and Atman-Centric Predicament.- Beyond Sociology: Cultivating an Ontological Epistemology of Participation.- Deep Sociology.- Inferential Dialectics: On Dialectical Reasoning in Critical Social Science and the Sociocultural World.- Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action: From Discourse Ethics to Spiritual Transformations.- Beyond Sociology: Mysticism and Society.- Confucian Self-Transformation as an Alternative Sociology: Meaningful Action vs. Performance with Differential Profoundity.- Structure, Agency and Victimization: On the Ethics of Scientific Writing.- With and Beyond Plurality of Standpoints: Sociology and the Sadhana of Multi-Valued Logic and Living.
About the author
Ananta Kumar Giri is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has taught and done research at universities in India and abroad, including Aalborg University in Denmark, the University of Kentucky, USA, the University of Freiburg & Humboldt University, Germany and Jagiellonian University in Poland. His research focuses on social movements and cultural change, creativity and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories of self, culture and society, and creative streams in education, philosophy and literature.
Summary
This book explores the contours of a transformational sociology which seeks to reconsider the horizons of sociological imagination. It questions accepted modernist assumptions such as the equation of society and nation-state, the dualism of individual and society and that of ontology and epistemology. Arguing that contemporary sociology suffers from what Ulrich Beck calls the Nato-like fire power of western sociology, it argues that sociology has to open itself to transcivilizational dialogues and planetary conversations about self, culture and society. The book also challenges scholars to go beyond a privileging of the post-traditional telos of modernist sociology and puts forward a foundational interrogation of modernist sociology. It underscores the limitations of established conventions of sociology and considering an alternative sociology based upon Confucian vision and practice of self-transformation. This collection offers a way to go beyond dominant structures of modern sociology and contemporary dominant ways of thinking about and doing sociology helping us cultivate a transdisciplinary sociology.
