Uncertainty replaces the conviction that rationality may be founded, ultimately. Comments on and exemplified by Zygmunt Bauman's "Intimations of postmodernity" (1992), the Quality-of-life discussion (Nussbaum & Senn (eds.) 1993) and "reflexive modernization" (Ulrich Beck, 1994). Uncertainty as a principle leads to the "imperative of responsibility" (Hans Jonas, 1984).

As we can see, the side effects caused by the continuous development of science and economy have gradually brought human society into a risk society. While currently, the power of globalization is unceasingly forming a world risk society. German renowned philosopher and sociologist Ulrich Beck has opened a unique and novel researching angle to review science difficulty and abuse of modern world risk society, and has made comprehensive and profound analysis. World risk society has three main characters: First, the (...) emergence of the world risk society is linked to the two fundamental changes still influencing our lives, which is the so-called “end of nature” and “end of tradition”. Second, in world risk society, mankind lose their dependence on “expert system”. The religion is replaced by the concept uncertainty and uncontrollable. In addition, there are other series of problems and abuses between world risk society and traditional society. The prime mover of social changes in world risk society exists in the side effects instead of the instrumental ration in traditional times, etc. The problem in world risk society’s science ethics are as follows: First, expansion of ration. It is mankind’s extreme confidence in ration that causing unlimited development of technology and exploitation of resources. Thus almost everywhere in nature becomes man‐made nature. Second, rupture of knowledge. From “knowledge is virtue and virtue isknowledge” (Socrates) to “knowledge is power” (Bacon), now “knowledge is money” (Bacon). Third, displacement of science value. In traditional society, science research is scientists’ personal interests. Now science research turns its target to meeting social needs, and scientists gain more profits from the technologicalproducts directly. Beck has raised the theory of risk society, and attempted to use “reflexive modernity” as the strategic plan to respond the global consequence of modern science crisis, and expressed revelatory viewpoint on diagnosis of the essential of “reflexive modernity”. Similarly, Lash emphasizes risk culture toremind human to pay attention to the ecological threat and risk. In addition, Bauman and Habermas also have some statements, etc. So my conclusion is, we should consider the autonomy of science development and its inherent relationship with economic interests. In addition, what we concern is the science dual identity of both defendant and expert. Also, the public’s understanding of the uncertainty provides a space for democratization. (shrink)

This book argues that David Foster Wallace failed to provide a response to the existential predicament of our time. Wallace wanted to confront despair through art, but he remained trapped, and his entrapment originates in the ‘existentialist contradiction’: the impossibility of affirming the meaningfulness of life and an ethics of compassion while believing in free will. To substantiate this thesis, the analysis reads Wallace in conversation with the existentialist philosophers and writers who influenced him: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, (...) Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It compares his non-fiction with the sociologies of Christopher Lasch, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, and Anthony Giddens. And it finds inspiration in Giacomo Leopardi, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Emanuele Severino to conclude that the philosophy which pervades Wallace’s works entails despair and represents the essence of our civilization’s interpretation of the world. (shrink)

This article explores ethical theories as variations on two biblical stories of the origins of morality: morality as the necessity to make choices and assume responsibility and morality as conformity to a rule set by a supreme power. It looks at Knud Løgstrup's and Emanuel Levinas's theories as the most prominent examples of the first approach — and thus best fit to grasp the realities of moral life under contemporary conditions of existential uncertainty and the only ones which perceive in (...) the plurality of choices the natural home of the moral self, rather than a threat to morality. The meaning of Løgstrup's `unspoken demand' and Levinas's `unconditional responsibility'; responsibility to the weaker versus obligations to the stronger; moral choice as the aspect of human condition versus justice as the outcome of social action are also explored. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 21st century the conditio humana cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally. This constitutes a revolution in the social sciences. The `sociological imagination' (C. Wright Mills) so far has basically been a nation state imagination. The main problem is how to redefine the sociological frame of reference in the horizon of a cosmopolitan imagination. For the purpose of empirical research I distinguish between three concepts: interconnectedness (David Held et al.), liquid modernity (Zygmunt (...) Bauman) and cosmopolitization from within. The latter is a kind of class analysis after class analysis, which takes on board globalization internalized. For the purposes of social analysis, therefore, it is necessary to distinguish systematically between the national manifestation on the one hand and cosmopolitan reality of `global flows', currents of information, symbols, money, risks, people, social inequalities, on the other. This internal involuntary and often unseen cosmopolitanization from below of the national sphere of experience is occurring, however, with the power of economic globalization. So what does inner `cosmopolitanization' mean? The key concepts and questions of a way of life, such as nourishment, production, identity, fear, memory, pleasure, fate, power and politics, can no longer be located and understood nationally, but only globally whether in the shape of globally shared collective futures, capital flows, impending ecological or economic catastrophes, global foodstuff chains, transnational power games, or the `Esperanto' of pop music. In this article I look at transformation in the understanding of space-time, of identity, of the production paradigms, as well as at the resulting consequences for key sociological concepts like class and power and, within this frame, point to certain dilemmas of cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This e-special issue of Theory, Culture & Society showcases work published in the journal by and about the late German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944–2015). Beck became known as a pioneering and inventive thinker, continuously engaged in a quest to capture the essence of the modern age, whilst simultaneously wrestling with the upcoming horizons of the future. During his career, he was responsible for developing some of the defining sociological concepts of the late 20th and early 21st century, including risk, (...) reflexive modernization, individualization and cosmopolitanism. He published many articles in Theory, Culture & Society, inspiring acolytes to mobilize his ideas and provoking critics to dispute them. Complementing articles written by Beck, this collection also includes critical commentaries, applications of his work, a selection of interviews and several reflective pieces which consider his legacy. The key aspiration of this special issue is to encourage contemplation on both the richness and the range of Ulrich Beck’s academic contribution. The contents stimulate reflection on the intricacies of Beck’s method of inquiry and flag up ways in which his work can influence the future trajectory of social theory. (shrink)

U ovom se radu, krećući od sociološke teorije Zygmunta Baumana, raspravljaju s jedne strane izazovi života u lakoj moderni, a s druge strane izazovi znanstvenog promišljanja različitih aspekata lake moderne. U tu se svrhu Baumanove knjige i članci uspoređuju s djelima drugih velikih imena suvremene sociologije poput Jeana Baudrillarda, Anthonyja Giddensa i Ulricha Becka. Ukrštavanje njihovih teza i ocjena o učincima globalizacije na pojedinačne živote te o novim identitetnim politikama navodi na zaključak da je Baumanov doprinos osebujan i iskoristiv za (...) reviziju okoštalih socioloških pogleda na društvo i uloge sociologije u njegovu analiziranju. Opreke proizvodnja/potrošnja, zajednica/individua i sigurnost/ sloboda kod Baumana se provlače kroz ideju protočnosti, mobilnosti i pokretljivosti društva lake moderne, što sociologiji otežava mogućnost odgovaranja na konkretna pitanja te pred nju stavlja nove i sve kompleksnije dijagnostičke zadatke. Dok individualizirano društvo od svojih pripadnika iziskuje biografske odgovore na sistemske kontradikcije, isto to društvo od sociologa iziskuje potragu za odgovorom na nedefinirano pitanje.Starting from the sociological theory of Zygmunt Bauman, this paper discusses, on the one hand, the challenges of life in the so called light modernity and, on the other, the scientific reflection of various aspects of the light modernity. In this context Bauman’s theses on the effects of globalization on individual lives and the new identity politics are compared with the theses offered by sociological classics like Jean Baudrillard, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. This confrontation spawns the conclusion that Bauman’s original ideas substantially contribute to the revision of rigid sociological perspectives on society as well as the role of sociology in its analysis. Bauman questions the oppositions between production and consumption, individual and community as well as security and freedom through the idea of liquidity and mobility of society in the light modernity, which makes it difficult to sociology to respond to concrete questions and confronts it with the more complex diagnostic tasks. While individualized society requires from its members to offer biographic answers to systemic contradictions, it requires from the sociologist to search for the answer to an undefined question. (shrink)

Uncertainty, insecurity and vulnerability have become commonplace in contemporary societies. This article aims an interdisciplinary reflection on the social and political construction of fear in liquid modernity. Zygmunt Bauman, Leonidas Donskis, Martha Nussbaum, Hannah Arendt, Ulrich Beck, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Bernard Henri-Levy and Umberto Eco are some of the authors that we will put into dialogue to better understand the multiple narratives of fear in an era deeply marked by destruction social certainties, the worsening of social inequalities, (...) the logic of predatory capitalism, the resurgence of nationalisms of exclusion, as well as ethnic-cultural particularisms, which move from xenophobic and racist discourses and, finally, new risks, such as ecological degradation and the pandemic COVID19, which currently plagues contemporary societies and domesticates social behaviors. (shrink)

City-dwellers who are threatened by the risk of natural or social disasters are in search of safer houses. Each attempt to satisfy their need for safety, however, turns into another version of the security problem; so much so that, escaping from risk itself turns into different risks. The film 10 to 11 focuses on the socio-spatial conflict between a stranger and his neighbours who are anxious about a possible earthquake risk in Istanbul. Mithat, the protagonist of the film, is a (...) stranger not only to place but essentially to time. He lives within time and understands place as an essential means loaded by temporal experiences and memories. This paper deals with the multiple dichotomies between time and memory, between risk and fear, between aesthetics and security, and between attachment and profit in the context of urban transformation. The stranger, who is analysed for the first time as a temporal being in this paper, is discussed using Zygmunt Bauman’s concepts of uncertainty and liquid modernity, Richard Sennett’s capitalism, Ulrich Beck’s risk society, Frank Furedi’s culture of fear, Stephen Bertman’s hurried culture, Elias Canetti’s death, Giorgio Agamben’s forgotten and gone, Svetlana Boym’s nostalgia, and Halbwachs, Assmann, Connerton, and Arendt’s memory, as well as around the temporal spaces of museums, bibliopoles, antique shops, and cemeteries. (shrink)

The theoretical work on individualization undertaken by Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens has possessed an enduring influence within sociology. The New Individualism is a recent formulation of this older body of work. In this review essay I critically assess the book from the perspective of the recent work of Margaret Archer. I argue that while much of it is plagued by methodological and empirical inadequacies there are questioned posed by it, as well as by the individualization (...) literature more widely, which are worthy of recovery. I suggest that critical realism in general, as well as Archer’s work in particular, are uniquely placed to perform this act of recovery. (shrink)

This essay argues that Wallace’s non-fiction presents a sociology that constitutes the foundation of Wallace’s literary project. By tracing the influences of Wallace’s sociology and by contrasting Wallace’s non-fictional works with those of Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Christopher Lasch, this essay provides a necessary contribution to an adequate critique of the foundation of Wallace’s literary ethics. Finally, the analysis proposes that an existentialist contradiction pervades Wallace’s work. This contradiction revolves around the problem of free will, (...) and it characterizes a particularly strong wave of contemporary western ethics. (shrink)

This topical new book by Zygmunt Bauman explores the notion of identity in the modern world. As we grapple with the insecurity and uncertainty of liquid modernity, Bauman argues that our socio-political, cultural, professional, religious and sexual identities are undergoing a process of continual transformation. Identities the world over have become more precarious than ever: we live in an era of constant change and disposability - whether it's last season's outfit, or car, or even partner - and our identities (...) as a result have become transient and deeply elusive. In a world of rapid global change where national borders are increasingly eroded, our identities are in a state of continuous flux. Identity - a notion that by its very nature is elusive and ambivalent - has become a key concept for understanding the changing nature of social life and personal experience in our contemporary, liquid modern age. In this brief book, Zygmunt Bauman explains compellingly why this is so. (shrink)

What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities (...) in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted. (shrink)

In an age where issues like climate change and the unintended consequences of technological innovation are high on the ethical and political agenda, questions about the nature and extent of our responsibilities to future generations have never been more important, yet simultaneously so difficult to answer. This book takes a unique approach to the problem by drawing on diverse traditions of thinking about care (including developmental psychology, phenomenology and feminist ethics) to explore the nature and meaning of our relationship with (...) the future. Demonstrating that many influential perspectives on intergenerational ethics, including positions advanced by John Rawls, Brian Barry, and Ulrich Beck are undermined by problems relating to uncertainty, it shows that an approach based on care ethics can confront the uncertain future successfully and give a viable account of the nature and scope of future-oriented responsibilities. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the deliberations on the vision of communist society as the phase of modernity. Author argues that the modern communism was nothing more than dusted offset of ideas inapplicable to the current circumstances. But there is something more important than disparagement of communism in itself. In critical analysis of modernity as some kind of „response to inefficiency of ancien régime” the author presents evidence to social reforms bounded up with the appearance of capitalism. Modernity in Bauman’s (...) paper is presented as an inevitable confrontation between Marxist prophesy about revolution of the proletariat and socio-political aspects of capitalist order which undermined theoretical principles of socialism and its strategy. Despite the critical commentaries on the communist regime, author ponders on the substantial promise of communism in itself, which realized its potential in the past and in the globalized world is one of the most significant aspects to discussion and the crux of the contemporary reflection.Key words COMUNISM. (shrink)

Globalization cuts both ways. Not only does it valorize the local in a cultural sense, it constructs the local as the tribal. Processes of geopolitical fragmentation give those in power even more room to manoeuvre. Glocalization involves the reallocation of poverty and stigma from above without even the residual responsibility of noblesse oblige. Geographical and social mobility are dichotomized; populations are refigured as tourists and vagabonds. Globalization thus reinforces already existing patterns of domination, while globalization indicates trends to dispersal and (...) conflict on neo-traditional grounds. The privileged walk, or fly away; the others take revenge upon each other. (shrink)

We are living in an open sea, caught up in a continuous wave, with no fixed point and no instrument to measure distance and the direction of travel. Nothing appears to be in its place any more, and a great deal appears to have no place at all. The principles that have given substance to the democratic ethos, the system of rules that has guided the relationships of authority and the ways in which they are legitimized, the shared values and (...) their hierarchy, our behaviour and our life styles, must be radically revised because they no longer seem suited to our experience and understanding of a world in flux, a world that has become both increasingly interconnected and prone to severe and persistent crises. We are living in the interregnum between what is no longer and what is not yet. None of the political movements that helped undermine the old world are ready to inherit it, and there is no new ideology, no consistent vision, promising to give shape to new institutions for the new world. It is like the Babylon referred to by Borges, the country of randomness and uncertainty in which ‘no decision is final; all branch into others’. Out of the world that had promised us modernity, what Jean Paul Sartre had summarized with sublime formula ‘le choix que je suis’ (‘the choice that I am’), we inhabit that flattened, mobile and dematerialized space, where as never before the principle of the heterogenesis of purposes is sovereign. This is Babel. (shrink)

Contemporary understanding of human subjectivity has come a long way since the Cartesian 'thinking thing' or Freud's view of the self struggling with its unconscious. We no longer think of ourselves as stable and indivisible units or combinations thereof - instead, we see the self as constantly reinvented and reorganised in interaction with others and with its social and cultural environments. But the world in which we live today is one of uncertainty where nothing can be taken for granted. Coping (...) with change is a challenge but it also presents new opportunities. Uncertainty can be both liberating and oppressive. How does an individual understand her or his position in the world? Are we as human beings determined by our genetic heritage, social circumstances and cultural preferences, or are we free in our choices? How does selfhood emerge? Does it follow the same pattern of development in all people, all cultures, all ages? Or is it a socio-cultural construction that cannot be understood outside its historical context? Are the patterns of selfhood fundamentally changing in the present world? Does new technology allow us more autonomy or does it tempt us to give up the freedoms we have? (shrink)

This introduction reflects on the themes of viscosity, death and the Other in three essays, written by John Milbank, Julia Hell, and Martin Jay, which provide a response — respectively — to three of Professor Zygmunt Bauman’s key works: Legislators and Interpreters, Modernity and the Holocaust, and Liquid Modernity.

As in Clausewitz's time, wars are the continuation of politics by other means - though in the globalizing world they acquire a new character of either `globalizing' or `globalization-induced' wars. The first are aimed at the abolition of state sovereignty or neutralizing its resistance potential, and shun territorial conquest and administrative responsibilities; the second are aimed at the establishment of viable local totalities in the void left by the collapse of past structures, and strive to reassert the lost meaning of (...) space. The shift in aims changes the character of both categories of wars. (shrink)

The gig economy has become a hot topic. The term itself derives from the world of entertainment, particularly live music, where performers striving for recognition hope to get a few ‘gigs’ – i.e. short-term and sporadic opportunities for paid employment, with the understanding that such engagements are limited and without any future obligation on either party – employer or employee. This seemingly gives both parties significant autonomy, albeit not in equal measure. Indeed, the terms ‘employer’ and ‘employee’, with respective connotations (...) of extended and enduring responsibility, and mutual (if unequal) obligation, are hotly disputed. Are they self-employed contractors or employees of the company? In what follows, I show how key aspects of Zygmunt Bauman’s work prepare us for an understanding and appreciation of the gig economy, and other more extensive ramifications; particularly those exemplified in the success of the Open Source model, and its potential – or not – to provide the basis for new institutional forms appropriate and acceptable for our current context. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman has used his `outsider' position to explore the defining boundaries of our world and help shape a discourse which allows communication across these boundaries. In this spirit he has investigated: sociology and culture; capitalism, socialism and class; and modernity and postmodernity. Bauman has argued for an emancipatory sociology which takes full account of what ought and ought not to be, what human beings hope for and fear, and the need to give people intellectual tools to make use (...) of their freedom. Applying the strategy of the `hermeneutic circle', he has examined capitalist and socialist regimes from a range of vantage points. He has also identified the challenges we all now face as inhabitants of the half-ruined structures created by modernity's failed ambitions. Bauman has confronted these challenges in the last decade by focusing on the evils of modern bureaucracy as epitomized by the Holocaust, the inescapability of each individual's responsibility for his or her own moral choices, and the potential for an open and self-critical dialogue between sociologists and their fellow citizens. (shrink)

Contrary to its heaping disasters, various actors and interpreters viewed the 20th century as the century of progress. This was as true of certain Marxists, or communists, as it was of Americanists such as Parsons. The temptation was to view the century, even in progress, as result, to view change as the precondition rather than as the process. Capitalism and modernity live on, rather, in the permanent revolution of liquid modernity. Capitalist, or at least liberal-democratic, and socialist utopias nevertheless behaved (...) as though perpetual peace was possible, if not impending. Uncertainty and contingency reigned in everyday life, if not in intellectual or progressive culture. Only now does the serpent again have its tail in its mouth. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt's Political Theology, recycled into The Concept of the Political, was meant to be to political theory what the Book of Job has been to Judaism, and through Judaism to Christianity. It was intended/designed/ hoped to answer one of the most notoriously haunting of the born-in-Jerusalem questions: a sort of question with which the most famous of the born-in-Jerusalem ideas, the idea of the one and only God, omnipresent and omnipotent creator, judge and saviour of the whole Earth and (...) the whole humanity, could not but be pregnant. The question, however, had to be born once the Hebrew Prophet Jesus declared the omnipotent God to be in addition the God of Love, and when his disciple, St Paul, brought the good tidings to Athens — a place where questions, once asked, were expected to be answered, and answered in tune with the rules of logic. Taking absolute power, the God of monotheistic religion took absolute responsibility for the blessings and blows of fate. The Book of Job recasts the frightening randomness of Nature as the frightening arbitrariness of its ruler: God speaks and gives commands. But just like numb Nature, he is not bound by what humans think or do. He can make exceptions. Indeed, the rule of norm is by definition irreconcilable with a true sovereignty — with the absolute power to decide. To be absolute, power must include the right to neglect/suspend/ abolish the norm. Schmitt's idea of sovereignty would engrave the preformed vision of divine order onto the ground of legislative order. Power to exempt founds simultaneously God's absolute power and the human's continuing, incurable fear born of insecurity. This is exactly what happens, according to Schmitt, in case of the human sovereign no longer handcuffed by norms. Thanks to that power of exemption, humans are, as they were in the pre-Law times, vulnerable and uncertain. (shrink)

The dominance of the modern concept of risk and calculability is challenged by and has to be distinguished from “manufactured uncertainties.” Typically today, conflict and controversy flare up around this particular type of new manufactured risk. Neither natural disasters – threats – coming from the outside and thus attributable to God or nature have this effect any longer. Nor do the specific calculable uncertainties – “risks” – which are determinable with actuarial precision interms of a probability calculus backed up by (...) insurance and monetary compensation fall in this category. At the centre of attention today, by contrast, are “manufactured uncertainties.” They are distinguished by the fact that they are dependent on human decisions, created by society itself, immanent to society and thus non-externalizable, collectively imposed and thus individually unavoidable. (shrink)

Sociology, like poetry, explores/discovers/creates hidden or heretofore non-existing human potentialities; both rebel against closing, identifying the-already-achieved reality with the limit of that potential. Sociology is destined to sustain the autonomy of, simultaneously, human society and human individuals, and autonomy means the awareness of the human origins of social reality and of the possibility of making it different from what it is. In the age of rapid and radical individualization, the task of sociology is to service self-interpretation with the view of (...) widening the sphere of human autonomy through disclosure of multiple social connection which contribute to its present form and future changes. (shrink)

Over the past decade, Zygmunt Bauman has published a series of books that sketch out a postmodern turn in society, theory, culture, ethics and politics. Changes in contemporary society and culture, Bauman argues, require new modes of thought, morality and politics to appropriately respond to the new social conditions. This requires a reconfiguration of critical social theory and new tasks for a postmodern sociology. Bauman thus poses fundamental challenges to contemporary social theory and provides an original and provocative post-modern (...) version of the sociological imagination, developing sketches of the fundamental social and cultural changes of our time, and the ways that theory and politics must be changed to creatively map and democratically respond to these questions. Bauman's critical reflections on modern theory and society, and his postmodern turn, require serious critical responses to his challenges to conventional wisdom and practice. In my study, I sketch out what I consider to be important in Bauman's recent work, what I see as problematical, and how Bauman's project — that is also my own — might be advanced. While my focus might appear to be predominantly critical, I attempt to generate a constructive dialogue with his thought that will advance our mutual interests and perhaps help illuminate some interesting contemporary topics and debates. (shrink)

In September 2010, two Polish scholars, Slawomir Czapnik and Tomasz Krawczyk, conducted an interview with Zygmunt Bauman while being hosted at his home in Leeds. The conversation in Polish was recorded, but the recording files were – it seemed irrevocably – accidentally deleted. It was not until 2023 that Slawomir Czapnik found the audio files and decided to publish the conversation, having translated it into English. It provides a better understanding of the views of arguably one of the most (...) eminent – albeit hugely controversial – contemporary sociologists in the world, who died in 2017. On the one hand, the conversation is a document of its time, of the turn of the first and second decades of the 21st century and of the international realities of the so-called ‘war on terror’, but on the other hand it raises questions that are still relevant today about the legitimacy of political power in the modern world. It shows the shift from a concern with ‘security’ (the domain of social security, characteristic of the welfare state and solid modernity) to ‘safety’ (the domain of personal security, characteristic of the neoliberal, liquid phase of modernity). Bauman's reflections are extremely valuable today, because now – after the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the rise of tensions in the Middle East and the rise of the populist right in the world – there are the issues of international problems, the weakening of the nation-state and inability to solve global issues (including such basic ones as security) locally. The response of an increasingly vulnerable state is to intensify surveillance, a mechanism for population control. Bauman also draws attention to the extremely momentous issue of the just society and the fight against injustice. For Bauman, the sociological imagination must delve into how power works and what are its consequences for freedom and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman is arguably the most well-known theorist in postmodern ethics. He argues that to develop and enforce universal ethical laws or codes leads to an abdication of individual moral responsibility. Actors rely on external rules and a rational consideration of costs and benefits rather than on moral impulse. In order to recognize and act upon moral impulse, the moral agent must both recognize and understand the Other. We operationalize these ideas, applying them to the development of advanced information (...) technology (AIT) in organizations. We propose that a stakeholder theory of enabling can be used to formulate processes that will give form and voice to the Other by providing mechanisms for face-to-face interactions and dialogue. Applying the principles of affirmative postmodern ethics through an enabling stakeholder oriented system development process explicitly allows for the examination of moral concerns which might otherwise be overlooked, ignored, or silenced. (shrink)

This essay is a gift for Zygmunt Bauman on his 80th birthday. Its purpose is to celebrate his achievement by scanning it, in three sections. First, I indicate something of my own encounter with Bauman, my road to Leeds. Second, I seek, once again, to characterize his project and its key themes. Third, I indicate some of the features of what I take to be his legacy. Bauman’s sociology appeals because it combines East European Critical Theory with (if you (...) like) a postmodern, or contemporary sociology of everyday life. His work mediates the themes of classical and modern sociology with present-day life and its uncertainties. Bauman’s is a critique of modernity as excess, but it always retains the sense that we could, after all, do other. (shrink)

El presente trabajo quiere analizar la encíclica Caritas in veritate desde la idea de globalización como clave hermenéutica de todo el documento. Nos parece que este noción -comprendida en sus múltiples dimensiones sociales, éticas, políticas, culturales y espirituales- puede contribuir no sólo a una comprensión más profunda de este texto, sino que también puede ayudar a desentrañar muchas de las críticas que ha recibido esta carta, su excesiva extensión y complejidad temática, así como su silencio sobre el capitalismo y el (...) liberalismo. En una segunda etapa, pretendemos comparar la propuesta de esta encíclica social con el proyecto político de las pequeñas comunidades de Alasdair MacIntyre. La intención es mostrar que lejos de una oposición entre ambas posturas -como de alguna forma lo señaló Jeffrey Nicholas- ellas pueden comprenderse como posturas complementarias, en la medida que realicemos una nueva significación del concepto mismo de globalización, entendida ahora como un proceso dialéctico típicamente postmoderno, siguiendo para ello los análisis de autores como Roland Robertson, Zygmunt Bauman o Ulrich Beck. In this paper we seek to analyze the eneyelieal Caritas in veritate based on the idea of globalization as a hermeneutical key to the whole document. We think that this notion -understood in its multiple social, ethical, political, cultural and spiritual dimensions- can contribute not only to a deeper understanding of this text, but also help unravel many of the criticisms directed against the letter, its excessive length and thematic complexity, as well as its silence regarding capitalism and liberalism. In a second stage, we set out to compare the proposal of this social enyelieal with Alasdair Maclntyre’s political project of local communities. Our purpose lies in demonstrating that far from an opposition between the two positions -as Jeffrey Nicholas has in a way pointed out- that they can be understood as complementary, to the extent that we make a new meaning of the very concept of globalization, now understood as a typically postmodern dialectical process based on to the analyses of authors such as Roland Robertson, Zygmunt Bauman or Ulrich Beck. (shrink)

The interview discusses the interdependence of the scientist's biography and the field, the relationship between sociology and the Holocaust, and the question of aesthetics and style in writing on sociological topics.

"This book offers a multidisciplinary environmental approach to ethics in response to the contemporary challenge of climate change caused by globalized economics and consumption. This book synthesises the incredible complexity of the problem and the necessity of action in response, highlighting the unambiguous problem facing humanity in the 21st century, but arguing that it is essential to develop an ethics housed in ambiguity in response. Environmental Ethics and Uncertainty is divided into theoretical and applied chapters, with the theoretical sections engaging (...) in dialogue with theorists and scholars from a variety of disciplines, while the applied chapters offer insight from 20th century activists who demonstrate and/or illuminate the theory, including Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson and Frank Lloyd Wright. This book is written for scholars and students in the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies and the environmental humanities, and will appeal to courses in religion, philosophy, ethics, politics and social theory"--. (shrink)

Restless Ideas is a lively new textbook of contemporary social theory that speaks directly to the anxious age in which we live today. In addition to providing a highly readable guided tour of major social theories from the mid-20th to the early 21st century, this book is full of dynamic examples that show how these theories may be used to deepen our understanding of current events and of our own life experiences. The emergence of demagogic political leaders like Donald Trump (...) in the USA, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey; the rise of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and political populism; the digital echo-chamber of social media; and the underlying causes of Brexit are only some of the many current social issues that can be framed through contemporary social theories. Similarly, the politics of sexual, racial and ethnic minorities can be analyzed through the prism of theoretical perspectives such as queer theory, standpoint and intersectional theory, postcolonial theory and critical race theory, while the ongoing struggles for gender equality and gender justice can usefully be examined through the generational perspectives of feminist theories. This book sets the stage with a critical discussion of the loaded history of the social theory canon and makes the argument that there has never been a better time than the present to broaden our understanding of our shared global heritage of social theory, to include some of the formerly excluded classics of past social thinkers, and to open the doors to current social thinkers theorizing from the margins. The book traces the modern roots of contemporary social theory back to the works of the early structural functionalists, systems theorists, conflict theorists, symbolic interactionists, ethnomethodologists and sociobiologists, building on and at times inverting the canon with the critical advancements to social theory. Later chapters focus on the current influence of structuration theory, third wave critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism, critical race theory, postcolonialism, liquid and late modernity theories, and globalization theories. These perspectives include the works of contemporary social theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Juliet Mitchell, Dorothy Smith, Judith Butler, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Manuel Castells and Ulrich Beck. The underlying premise - and the promise - of this book is that social theory has the power to provide us with the skills for more informed observation, analysis, and empathic understanding of social behavior and social interaction. In a word: the value of social theory may be seen in how it can enhance social literacy - by deepening our understanding of the world around us, and by empowering us to become practical theorists in our own lives. (shrink)

The purpose of the article, based on a documentary analysis, is to review the dynamics of the relationships form the perspective of liquid love and find out how to take advantage of the crisis, difficulties, and problems to overcome the logic of liquid love through the category of viable utopia. The dynamics of love within relationships have been the research object of several fields. Thus, the contributions of the French philosopher and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman when he refers to the (...) liquid modern world, which is but only one feature of social reality, cannot go unnoticed or set aside due to the social consequences of accepting that relationships are subject to instability, uncertainty, and erosion of commitment. Liquid love is one of the elements that shape the throwaway culture. Just like Pope Francis warned in his encyclical Laudato si’ about the relation between unwanted items and unwanted people, which are both discarded as waste; the same might be also the case with relationships: In many situations there is no intention of long-term relationships due to the fear of failing. Today, virtual, disposable relations that satisfy the overwhelming reality of loneliness are more attractive. The viable utopia of love is possible when we acknowledge that in the crisis and problems there is opportunity to grow thanks to the love in couple. (shrink)

This paper calls attention to some basic problems and inner contradictions in the German sociologist Ulrich Beck’s theory of the ‘(world) risk society’ or reflexive (second) modernity. A main thread in the critique is that of addressing the theoretical ambiguities that seem to characterize Beck’s at the same time ‘social constructivist’ and ‘realist’ notion of risk – ambiguities that seem to be repeated on the one hand in Beck’s view on the relation between knowledge and unawareness in reflexive modernity (...) and on the other hand in his view on the role of the mass media in the ‘(world) risk society’. Moreover, Beck’s notions of second modernity, reflexivity, rationality and critique are critically examined. With the alternative positions discussed in the paper – represented by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Niklas Luhmann and Mitchell Dean – some indications are given as to how one might fruitfully elaborate on the problem of risk. Thus, rather than a mainly technology-driven new type of social reality, the ‘(world) risk society’ could perhaps better be seen as indicating a changing cultural self-understanding of late modern society, a new ‘semantics of crisis', or the emergence of new forms of governmentality in the contemporary welfare state. In conclusion, some indications are given as to how an analysis of more specific ‘risk logics' or ‘rationalities' could be elaborated on, and a terminology that reflects this more differentiated approach to risk in late modern society is suggested. (shrink)

What is the best way to understand the narratives of self-identity at the beginning of the 21st century? This interdisciplinary collection brings together perspectives from analytical psychology, sociology, psychiatry, psychosocial studies and psychoanalysis to consider questions about individuation and freedom in our disconnected world. The contributors discuss the meaning of, and need for, individuation in individualized and liquid societies. The book begins with a comparison of three approaches: C.G. Jung's individuation, Ulrich Beck's individualization, and Zygmunt Bauman's liquidity. This (...) sets the tone for further consideration of topics including guilt, social media, global nomads, and surveillance. Theoretical reflections are enhanced by clinical material, and the book emphasises the connections between sociology and psychoanalysis, offering significant insights into the importance of psychosocial approaches. This timely work will be of great interest to academics and scholars of psychosocial studies, Jungian studies, sociology and politics. (shrink)

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people, represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology. There is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed. The article deals with this issue by analysing Robert Dahl's `minipopulus' and Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz's `extended peer communities' arguments. They are subsequently inserted into the sociological debate which is, at present, (...) considerably influenced by the reflexive modernization framework. As a result, Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories appear as one of four ideal-typical approaches to the social construction of the issues that can be outlined, according to the priority assigned to knowledge versus power and nature versus society. The idea of an `extended peer review' of problems and solutions is remarkably close to the deliberative democracy concept. However, the high level of uncertainty characterizing major environmental and technological questions suggests that a `strong' version of deliberative democracy, such as the Discourse Ethics proposed by Habermas, is untenable in its search for a universal, rational consensus on the normative grounds of action. Thus it is necessary to develop a `weak' interpretation of the extended peer review, exploring the possibility of fair and stable agreements on bounded, practical solutions to bounded, practical problems. (shrink)

It is this question which occupied Hannah Arendt throughout most of her life, and which will form the crux of this article. I wish to explore whether critical thought holds the potential to rescue us from the crisis of the ‘moral point of no return’, by allowing us to recognise it. Arendt, and later Zygmunt Bauman, call for critical thinking as a way out of evil. Critical thought being something that they conflate with morality. They both attempt to demonstrate (...) the decline of morality and its separation from legality/rationality under modernity. Bauman needs these assumptions to show how cold rationality eclipses morality and his subsequent appeal to persistent, but not socially grounded individual morality as remedy. For Arendt, the perceived lack of thought by the ‘perpetrators’ lays the foundation of her call to critical thinking as remedy; but similarly heralds a process of pure ethics. This article argues that although they both argue for more morality, morality cannot in fact disappear. (shrink)

Main task of the paper is to recall sociologist and philosopher – Zygmunt Bauman’s observations and concepts on the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties that appear in the modern world. Main focus was directed to Europe as Bauman was particularly concerned about its future and its role in the global society. The paper is illustrated using current examples from political, social, and economic life to confirm and/or negate Bauman’s concepts. We ask: are fears stable or changeable? Are they stronger or (...) weaker? Are they constant, coming to an end, or are they replaced by new ones? Additionally, we confront Bauman’s concepts with the ideas of other sociologists who applied the interpretative perspective. We define fear following Bauman’s various proposals, and we distinguish many kinds of fears, giving examples from Western societies and socio-economic realities during the time of globalization. We refer to a few relevant sociological concepts to understand Bauman’s view better, e.g. the strategy of detour or the term of generalized other. In conclusions, we state that most fears remain the same (especially ontological ones). However, in the 21st century, we can observe the emergence of new ones (also artificial ones). (shrink)

Derek Parfit argues in Reasons and Persons that acting according to your present desires is more rational, or at least as rational, as acting in your long-term self-interest. To do this, he puts forward a case supporting a 'critical present-aim theory' of rationality opposed to the self-interest theory, and then argues against a number of possible replies. This article is a response to these arguments, concluding that Parfit's favouring of the present-aim theory is unfounded, and that self-interest is the better (...) theory of rationality. (shrink)

In the Fall 1988 issue of Informal Logic, John McMurtry suggests that the current mass communication system "obstructs and deforms our thinking and our reasoning by a general system of deception" (p. 133). This essay suggests that McMurtry's view of the mass media is inaccurate. The mass media needs to make choices about what material it includes; McMurtry's description of the media could be explained by a rational theory of media agenda setting. Finally. it is argued that critical thinkers need (...) to go beyond the mass media to make decisions; the mass media should not be expected to provide all arguments and viewpoints. (shrink)

Looking for ‘the future of Christian ethics’ we have to be aware of different paradigms of theological ethics and its different implications for a theologically reflected notion of future. With regard to the Reformation heritage there can be identified a Protestant paradigm of a Christian moral subject, liberated for a universal rational responsibility related to the future of the human condition on the one hand, and—according to a Lutheran grammar—an ethics of Christian practices within a worshipping community, grounded in God’s (...) ongoing creational work. The future of Christian ethics, then, consists of the continuity of this Christian witness as it is rooted in God’s promises and faithfulness. (shrink)

In his new book "The Importance of Being Rational", Errol Lord aims to give a real definition of the property of rationality in terms of normative reasons. If he can do so, his work is an important step towards a defense of ‘reasons fundamentalism’ – the thesis that all complex normative properties can be analyzed in terms of normative reasons. I focus on his analysis of epistemic rationality, which says that your doxastic attitudes are rational just in case they are (...) correct responses to the objective normative reasons you possess. For some fact to be an objective normative reason to do something that you possess, you have to be in a position to know this fact and be able to competently use it as a reason to do that thing. Lord’s view is thus a knowledge-first view about possessing normative reasons. Throughout the book, Lord conceptualizes belief in the traditional tripartite way – if you take any attitude at all towards a proposition, then you either believe it, or disbelieve it, or you suspend judgment about it. Lord doesn’t discuss cases in which we’re uncertain. Yet, those cases are ubiquitous. I explore how his view can be extended to them. I first discuss whether his strategy for vindicating coherence requirements in terms of normative reasons can be applied to credences. I then ask how Lord can conceive of the doxastic attitudes that encode uncertainty . (shrink)