|
10817ce
|
When the image of Nelson Mandela may be more familiar to us than the face of our next-door neighbour, something has changed in the nature of our everyday experience.
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
f510439
|
sociological research is part of a continuous 'two-way' process between sociologists and the subjects they study.
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
12c2d87
|
All so-called 'quantitative' data, when scrutinized, turn out to be composites of 'qualitative' - i.e., contextually located and indexical - interpretations produced by situated researchers, coders, government officials and others. The
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
7c75a06
|
Theories in the natural sciences which have been replaced by others which do the same job better are of no interest to the current practice of science. This cannot be the case where those theories have helped to constitute what they interpret or explicate. The
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
6ea26d4
|
The formulation of critical theory is not an option; theories and findings in the social sciences are likely to have practical (and political) consequences regardless of whether or not the sociological observer or policy-maker decides that they can be 'applied' to a given practical issue.
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
ad3394f
|
Suppose, by way of illustration, we isolate a relation between technological change and patterns of managerial organization in business firms. The expanding use of microchip technology, let us say, might be shown to be associated with a partial dissolution of more rigid forms of hierarchical authority. The 'social force' involved here is not like a force of nature. Causal generalizations in the social sciences always presume a typical 'mix'..
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |
|
6fdaa4d
|
Old Conservatism, at least in its more principled forms, is, as has been aptly said, the 'other God that failed' alongside Communism and radical socialism.4
|
|
|
Anthony Giddens |