What do we mean by the word “social?” In The Centrality of Sociality, scholars respond to themes of The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Social Sciences and Humanities in dialogue with Michael E. Brown.
The Centrality of Sociality provides analyses of important distinctions between individual and society, agency-dependent and agency-independent objectivity, subject and object, theory and theorizing, and action and “course of activity.” Apart from its theoretical interest, the book raises questions about the compelling idea that “the individual is the ultimate referent of moral discourse,” formulating the question “what is human about human affairs” in such a way that the difficulties involved in defining the word individual appear to place in jeopardy the idea of the individual. The chapters analyze themes such as the conceptualization of the social vis-a-vis the individual, theories of action, and notions of subject-object relations.
A thought-provoking collection of research, this edited volume is key reading for scholars and researchers in sociology.
Jeffrey A. Halley is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA. Past President of RC Sociology of the Arts, ISA, Chair-Elect of the ASA History of Sociology and Social Thought Section, he was a Fulbright Fellow, and guest Professor at the Universities of Ljubljana, Metz, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
Harry F. Dahms is Professor of Sociology, co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice, and co-chair of the Committee of Social Theory at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, director of the International Social Theory Consortium, and editor of Current Perspectives in Social Theory.