"The Archæology of Knowledge" by Michel Foucaul,1969

He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley.
Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality.
His work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse has been widely discussed.
In the 1960s Foucault was associated with Structuralism, a movement from which he distanced himself.
Foucault also rejected the post-structuralist and postmodernist labels to which he was often later attributed, preferring to classify his thought as a critical history of modernity rooted in Kant.

Foucault is particularly influenced by the work of Nietzsche; his "genealogy of knowledge" is a direct allusion to Nietzsche's genealogy of morals. In a late interview he definitively stated: "I am a Nietzschean."

In 2007 Foucault was listed as the most cited intellectual in the humanities by The Times Higher Education Guide.
One of Foucault's main arguments is that the construct of language, seemingly neutral "knowledge" and "institutions" who disseminate, can be used to disempower, discriminate, intimidate and tacitly oppress "minorities" and others regarded as "different" to the norm.
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Published in 1969, this volume was Foucault's main excursion into methodology, written as an appendix of sorts to Les Mots et les choses.
It makes references to Anglo-American analytical philosophy, particularly speech act theory.
Foucault directs his analysis toward
-the "statement" (énoncé),
-the basic unit of discourse.

"Statement" has a very special meaning in the Archaeology:
it denotes that which makes propositions, utterances, or speech acts meaningful.

In contrast to classic structuralists, Foucault does not believe that the meaning of semantic elements is determined prior to their articulation.
In this understanding, statements themselves are not propositions, utterances, or speech acts.
Rather, statements constitute a network of rules establishing what is meaningful, and these rules are the preconditions for propositions, utterances, or speech acts to have meaning.
However, statements are also 'events', because, like other rules, they appear at some time. Depending on whether or not it complies with these rules of meaning, a grammatically correct sentence may still lack meaning and, inversely, a grammatically incorrect sentence may still be meaningful.

Statements depend on the conditions in which they emerge and exist within a field of discourse; the meaning of a statement is reliant on the succession of statements that precede and follow it.
Foucault aims his analysis towards a huge organised dispersion of statements, called discursive formations. Foucault reiterates that the analysis he is outlining is only one possible procedure, and that he is not seeking to displace other ways of analysing discourse or render them as invalid.

According to Dreyfus and Rabinow, Foucault not only brackets out issues of truth (cf. Husserl), he also brackets out issues of meaning.
Rather than looking for a deeper meaning underneath discourse or looking for the source of meaning in some transcendental subject, Foucault analyzes the discursive and practical conditions for the existence of truth and meaning.

In order to show the principles of meaning and truth production in various discursive formations he details how truth claims emerge during various epochs on the basis of what was actually said and written during these periods of time.

He particularly describes the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the 20th century. He strives to avoid all interpretation and to depart from the goals of hermeneutics. This does not mean that Foucault denounces truth and meaning, but just that truth and meaning depend on the historical discursive and practical means of truth and meaning production. For instance, although they were radically different during Enlightenment as opposed to Modernity, there were indeed meaning, truth and correct treatment of madness during both epochs (Madness and Civilization).

This posture allows Foucault to denounce a priori concepts of the nature of the human subject and focus on the role of discursive practices in constituting subjectivity.
Dispensing with finding a deeper meaning behind discourse appears to lead Foucault toward structuralism. However, whereas structuralists search for homogeneity in a discursive entity, Foucault focuses on differences.
Instead of asking what constitutes the specificity of European thought he asks what constitutes the differences developed within it and over time.

Therefore, as a historical method, he refuses to examine statements outside of their historical context: the discursive formation.

The meaning of a statement depends on the general rules that characterise the discursive formation to which it belongs.
A discursive formation continually generates new statements, and some of these usher in changes in the discursive formation that may or may not be adopted.
Therefore, to describe a discursive formation, Foucault also focuses on expelled and forgotten discourses that never happen to change the discursive formation.
Their difference to the dominant discourse also describe it.
In this way one can describe specific systems that determine which types of statements emerge.

In his Foucault (1986), Deleuze describes The Archaeology of Knowledge as "the most decisive step yet taken in the theory-practice of multiplicities."

"The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory" by Jurgen Habermas,1968

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Jürgen Habermas considers his major contribution to be the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject.

UNIVERSAL PRAGMATICS :
This social theory advances the goals of human emancipation, while maintaining an inclusive universalist moral framework.
This framework rests on the argument called universal pragmatics - that all speech acts have an inherent telos (the Greek word for "end") — the goal of mutual understanding, and that human beings possess the communicative competence to bring about such understanding.
Habermas built the framework out of the speech-act philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and John Searle, the sociological theory of the interactional constitution of mind and self of George Herbert Mead, the theories of moral development of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and the discourse ethics of his Heidelberg colleague Karl-Otto Apel.

Habermas works resonate within the traditions of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason, in part through discourse ethics.

While Habermas has stated that the Enlightenment is an "unfinished project," he argues it should be corrected and complemented, not discarded. In this he distances himself from the Frankfurt School, criticizing it, as well as much of postmodernist thought, for excessive pessimism, misdirected radicalism and exaggerations.

Within sociology,
Habermas's major contribution was the development of a comprehensive theory of societal evolution and modernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on the one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other.
This includes a critique from a communicative standpoint of the differentiation-based theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann, a student of Talcott Parsons.

His defence of modernity and civil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis of late capitalism.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION :
Habermas perceives the rationalization, humanization, and democratization of society in terms of the institutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in the communicative competence that is unique to the human species.

Habermas contends that communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld.
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RECONSTRUTIVE SCIENCE :

Habermas introduces the concept of “reconstructive science” with a double purpose:
to place the “general theory of society” between philosophy and social science and
re-establish the rift between the “great theorization” and the “empirical research”. The model of “rational reconstructions” represents the main thread of the surveys about the “structures” of the world of life (“culture”, “society” and “personality”) and their respective “functions” (cultural reproductions, social integrations and socialization). For this purpose, the dialectics between “symbolic representation” of “the structures subordinated to all worlds of life” (“internal relationships”) and the “material reproduction” of the social systems in their complex (“external relationships” between social systems and environment) has to be considered. This model finds an application, above all, in the “theory of the social evolution”, starting from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for a phylogeny of the socio-cultural life forms (the “hominization”) until an analysis of the development of “social formations”, which Habermas subdivides into primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations. This paper is an attempt, primarily, to formalize the model of “reconstruction of the logic of development” of “social formations” summed up by Habermas through the differentiation between vital world and social systems (and, within them, through the “rationalization of the world of life” and the “growth in complexity of the social systems”). Secondly, it tries to offer some methodological clarifications about the “explanation of the dynamics” of “historical processes” and, in particular, about the “theoretical meaning” of the evolutional theory’s propositions. Even if the German sociologist considers that the “ex-post rational reconstructions” and “the models system/environment” cannot have a complete “historiographical application”, these certainly act as a general premise in the argumentative structure of the “historical explanation”.

Abstract of Luca Corchia, Explicative models of complexity.
The reconstructions of social evolution for Jürgen Habermas,
in S. Balbi - G. Scepi - G. Russolillo - A. Stawinoga (eds.),
Book of Short Abstracts,
7th International Conference on Social Science Methodology - RC33 - Logic and Methodology in Sociology, Napoli, Italia, 9.2008, Jovene Editore, 2008.
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The interpretive scheme set forth by Marx for the Phenomenology of Mind contains the program for an instrumentalist translation of Hegel’s philosophy of absolute reflection:

The greatness of Hegel’s phenomenology and its end result-the dialectic of negativity as motive and productive principle-is thus ... that Hegel grasps the self-generation of man as a process, objectification as de-objectification, as alienation and the overcoming of this alienation; in other words, that he grasps the essence of labour and comprehends objective man, who is true man because of his reality, as the result of his own labour. [Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy in General]
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The idea of self-constitution of the species through labour is to serve as the guide to appropriating the Phenomenology while demythologising it.

The assumptions of the identity kept Hegel from reaping the real harvest of Kant, and they dissolve on this materialist basis.
Ironically, however, the very viewpoint from which Marx correctly criticises Hegel keeps him from adequately comprehending his own studies.

By turning the construction of the manifestation of consciousness into an encoded representation of the self-production of the species, Marx discloses the mechanism of progress in the experience of reflection, a mechanism that was concealed in Hegel’s philosophy.

It is the development of the forces of production that provides the impetus to abolishing and surpassing a form of life that has been rigidified in positivity and become an abstraction. But at the same time, Marx deludes himself about the nature of reflection when he reduces it to labour. identifies “transformative abolition (Aufheben), as objective movement which reabsorbs externalisation,” with the appropriation of essential powers that have been externalised in working on material.
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The natural sciences have developed an enormous activity and appropriated an ever growing body of material. Philosophy has remained just as foreign to them as they remained foreign to philosophy. Their momentary union [criticising Schelling and Hegel] was only a fantastic illusion ... In a much more practical fashion, natural science has intervened in human life and transformed it by means of industry ... Industry is the real historical relation of nature, and thus of natural science, to man. [Marx, Private Property & Communism,]
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Marx has only one concern,to demonstrate through precise scientific investigation the necessity of definite orders of social relations and to register as irreproachably as possible the facts that serve him as points of departure and confirmation . . . Marx considers the movement of society as a process of natural history, governed by laws that are not only independent of the will, consciousness, and intention of men but instead, and conversely, determine their will, consciousness, and intentions.
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The development of fixed capital indicates the extent to which general social knowledge has become an immediate force of production, and therefore [!] the conditions of the social life process itself have come under the control of the general intellect. [Grundrisse p594]
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The mystery of the commodity form, therefore, is simply that it takes the social characteristics of men’s own labour and reflects them back to men as the objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the social natural properties of these things. It thus also reflects the social relation of the producers to the totality of labour as a social relation of objects, one that exists independently of the producers. Through this quid pro quo the products of labour become commodities and natural supernatural or social things. Thus the light impression something makes on’ the optic nerve does not appear as a subjective stimulus of the optic nerve itself but as the objective form of a thing outside the eye. But in vision light really is projected from one thing, the external object, onto another thing, the eye. It is a physical relation between physical things. On the contrary, the commodity form, and the value relation of the products of labour in which it is expressed, have absolutely nothing to do with their physical nature and the concrete relations arising from it. Here it is only the specific social relation of men themselves that assumes for them the phantasmagoric form of a relation of things. Hence in order to find an analogy we must take flight to the obscure region of the religious world. Here the products of the human mind appear endowed with their own life, as independent forms that enter into relations with one another and with men. In the commodity world, the same holds for the products of the human hand. This I call the fetishism that clings to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and which therefore is inseparable from commodity production. [Marx, Capital]
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Ibn Khaldun : His Life and Works,1967

IBN KHALDUN - His Life and Work
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Ibn Khaldun is the most important figure in the field of History and Sociology in Muslim History. He is one of those shining stars that contributed so richly to the understanding of Civilization. In order for one to understand and appreciate his work, one must understand his life. He lived a life in search of stability and influence. He came from a family of scholars and politicians and he intended to live up to both expectations. He would succeed in the field of Scholarship much more so than in any other field.
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Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun (full name, Arabic: أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي ‎, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami, (May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH) was a North African polymath — an astronomer, economist, historian, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, hafiz, jurist, lawyer, mathematician, military strategist, nutritionist, philosopher, social scientist and statesman—born in North Africa in present-day Tunisia. He was of Arab or Berber descent.

He is considered a forerunner of several social scientific disciplines:
demography,
cultural history,
historiography,
the philosophy of history,
and sociology.

He is also considered one of the forerunners of modern economics,
although according to recent academic findings,
the Indian scholar-philosopher Chanakya predates Ibn Khaldun by a millennium in laying down the theories of economics.

Ibn Khaldun is considered by many to be the father of a number of these disciplines, and of social sciences in general,or anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded in the West.

He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in the West), the first volume of his book on universal history, Kitab al-Ibar.
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THE MAGNUM OPUS "AL-MUQADDIMAH" :

He would his write his Introduction to his book of universal history in a span of five months.
This impressive document is a gist of his wisdom and hard earned experience.
He would use his political and first had knowledge of the people of Maghrib to formulate many of his ideas.
This document would summarize Ibn Khaldun’s ideas about every field of knowledge during his day.
He would discuss a variety of topics.
He would discuss History and Historiography. He would rebuke some of the historical claims with a calculated logic.
He would discuss the current sciences of his days.
He would talk about astronomy, astrology, and numerology.
He would discuss Chemistry, alchemy and Magic in a scientific way.
He would freely offer his opinions and document well the "facts" of the other point of view. His discussion of Tribal societies and social forces would be the most interesting part of his thesis.
He would illuminate the world with deep insight into the workings and makings of kingdoms and civilizations.
His thesis that the conquered race will always emulate the conqueror in every way.
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His theory about Asbyiah (group feeling) and the role that it plays in Bedouin societies is insightful.
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His theories of the science of Umran (sociology) are all pearls of wisdom.
His Introduction is his greatest legacy that he left for all of humanity and the generations to come.

Sociology and Philosophy in the Work of Pierre Bourdieu, 1965-75

The paper first offers a brief account of the competition between the Durkheimian sociological tradition and German philosophy in the period in which Bourdieu was a student at the École Normale Supérieure. It indicates the intellectual influences of the early years that Bourdieu subsequently acknowledged and then examines his use of the work of Weber in his first book, Sociologie de l’Algérie (1958). The paper then focuses on the development of Bourdieu’s thought from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, a period in which he strategically presented himself as an anti-humanist sociologist whilst also articulating a view of science that was in tune with phenomenological and ontological philosophy. Bourdieu’s ‘Sociology and Philosophy in France since 1945’ (1967a) receives particular attention since his analysis of sociology and philosophy in France in the post-war period was a key element in his own position-taking in respect of the two disciplines. The paper then examines Bourdieu’s critiques of Weber at this time and suggests that his dissatisfaction with Weber’s epistemology logically became a dissastisfaction with the claims of sociological explanation as such. There followed an attempt to reconcile a commitment to social science with an allegiance to elements of phenomenological thought. The outcome was a willingness on Bourdieu’s part to see reflexivity as a means to problematiz- ing sociological explanation more than as a means to refining it or making it more sophisticated. The consequence was that commitments to phenomenological ontology and social science co-existed in this period. The balance was to change again subsequently in Bourdieu’s thought, and his responsivenesss to changing conditions exemplifies how we should ourselves rethink the relations between possible future social theories and the classical theories of Western sociology.




At the center of Bourdieu's sociological work is a logic of practice that emphasizes the importance of the body and practices within the social world. Against the intellectualist tradition, Bourdieu stressed that mechanisms of social domination and reproduction were primarily focused on bodily know-how and competent practices in the social world. Bourdieu fiercely opposed Rational Choice Theory as grounded in a misunderstanding of how social agents operate. Social agents do not, according to Bourdieu, continuously calculate according to explicit rational and economic criteria. Rather, social agents operate according to an implicit practical logic—a practical sense—and bodily dispositions. Social agents act according to their "feel for the game" (the "feel" being, roughly, habitus, and the "game" being the field).
Bourdieu’s anthropological work was dominated by an analysis of the mechanisms of reproduction of social hierarchies. In opposition to Marxist analyses, Bourdieu criticized the primacy given to the economic factors, and stressed that the capacity of social actors to actively impose and engage their cultural productions and symbolic systems plays an essential role in the reproduction of social structures of domination. What Bourdieu called symbolic violence is the self-interested capacity to ensure that the arbitrariness of the social order is either ignored, or posited as natural, thereby justifying the legitimacy of existing social structures. This concept plays an essential part in his sociological analysis.
For Bourdieu, the modern social world is divided into what he calls fields. For him, the differentiation of social activities led to the constitution of various, relatively autonomous, social spaces in which competition centers around particular species of capital. These fields are treated on a hierarchical basis wherein the dynamics of fields arises out of the struggle of social actors trying to occupy the dominant positions within the field. Although Bourdieu embraces prime elements of conflict theory like Marx, he diverges from analyses that situate social struggle only within the fundamental economic antagonisms between social classes. The conflicts which take place in each social field have specific characteristics arising from those fields and that involve many social relationships which are not economic.[28]
Pierre Bourdieu developed a theory of the action, around the concept of habitus, which exerted a considerable influence in the social sciences. This theory seeks to show that social agents develop strategies which are adapted to the needs of the social worlds that they inhabit. These strategies are unconscious and act on the level of a bodily logic.

The Collapse of the Family Unit as the Building Block of Society

More than ever before people live alone -

a remarkable one in four is a single-person household,

compared with one in ten in 1970.

Divorce facilited many of the changes in family life.

During the 1970s,there was increasing acceptance of divorce and

of NON-TRADITIONAL families.

The Collapse of the Family Unit as the Building Block of Society