Best social & theory Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Like all social theories, internationalism must seek its basis in the economic and technical fields; here are to be found the most profound and the most decisive factors in the development of society.”

Found Social Economic Fields Theory Development Bases Profound Factors Internationalism Social Theory Development Of Society

Author:Christian Lous Lange

“Explicit knowledge, conventionally delivered like pizza (neat boxes with toppings of concepts, theories, best practices and war stories), is consumed by the brain but not metabolized into action. The learning we call intuition, know-how and common sense gets into the blood stream through osmosis. It is shaped by social context.”

Source: The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems

“Evolutionary theory informs our understanding of some frankly inexcusable social behavior and renders it perfectly normal.”

Social Understanding Theory Behavior Normal Perfectly Normal Social Behavior

Author:Richard K. Morgan

“Despite the theories traditionally taught in high-school social studies, the truth is: the more primitive the society, the more leisured its way of life.”

Way School Social Study Taught Theory Truth Is High School Despite Primitive Social Studies

Book:Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State

Source: Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State

“Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every phase of human endeavor.... It is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn.”

World Humans Philosophy Today Individual Social Theory Harmony Dawn Endeavor Anarchy Phases Sovereignty Anarchism Reconstructing Social Harmony

Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

Source: Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

“Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. [...] Worldviews are social constructions, and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully. Fact and theory are intertwined, and all great scientists understand the interaction.”

Facts Found Social Progress Creation Products Theory Evolution Scientist Construction Interaction Worldview Intertwined Great Scientist Social Construction

Book:Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

Source: Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history

“A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.”

“The discourse on the Text should itself be nothing other than text, research, textual activity, since the Text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing.”

Should Writing Language Social Space Practice Subjects Position Judging Masters Theory Activity Safe Research Discourse Analysts

Author:Roland Barthes

“Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually, as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.”

People Thinking May Mean Facts Able Social Theory Evolution Aspect Scientist Philosopher Curious Biology Theory Of Evolution

Author:Jacques Monod

“The first reason for psychology's failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology's failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”

People Should Firsts Has Beens Made Matter Reason Social Support Psychology Theory Personality Evidence Should Have Myth Traits Should Have Been Psychiatrist Clinicians

Author:Naomi Weisstein

“The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.”

Wells Given Social Theory Authority Standards Labor Errors Division Derivatives Division Of Labor Positivism Praxis

Book:Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

Source: Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

“By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals.”

Philosophy Social Goal Theory Logic Legends Concrete Formal Definite Bankruptcy Abstaining

Book:Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

Source: Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

“Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.”

Art Literature Energy Social Technology Creative Talent Example Theory Pure Organization University Planning Unfolding Optimal Art Music Milieu New Talent Social Theory

Author:Eric Hoffer

“The economic and social theories used by those who take part in the social struggle ought to be judged not by their objective value but primarily for their effectiveness in arousing emotions. The scientific refutation of them which can be made is useless, however correct it may be objectively.”

May Made Used Values Social Emotion Struggle Economic Theory Ought Objectives Useless Judged Effectiveness Refutation Social Theory

Book:Manual of political economy

Source: Manual of political economy

“What was needed was a literary theory which, while preserving the formalist bent of New Criticism, its dogged attention to literature as aesthetic object rather than social practice, would make something a good deal more systematic and 'scientific' out of all this. The answer arrived in 1957, in the shape of the Canadian Northrop Fryes mighty 'totalization' of all literary genres, Anatomy of Criticism .”

Literature Social Answers Deals Attention Practice Objects Theory Needed Shapes Criticism Genre Aesthetic Bent Systematic Anatomy Literary Theory Literary Genre

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“Such abstraction which refuses to accept the given universe of facts as the final context of validation, such "transcending" analysis of the facts in the light of their arrested and denied possibilities, pertains to the very structure of social theory.”

Facts Light Universe Given Social Accepting Possibility Theory Structure Finals Refuse Analysis Denied Abstraction Arrested Validation Transcending Social Theory

Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

Source: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, ... underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself.”

Humans Made Life Is Social Effort Theory Ought Judgment Intellectual Human Life Rejection Rejects Logical Worth Living Life Is Worth Living Social Theory

Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

Source: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“It is the shortcomings of game theory (as originally formulated) which force the consideration of the role of ethics, of the dynamics of social structure, and of social structure and of individual psychology in situations of conflict.”

Games Individual Force Social Situation Roles Psychology Theory Conflict Ethics Structure Consideration Shortcomings Dynamics Social Structure

Book:Fights, Games, and Debates

Source: Fights, Games, and Debates

“The history of science should not be an instrument to defend any kind of social or philosophic theory; it should be used only for its own purpose, to illustrate impartially the working of reason against unreason, the gradual unfolding of truth, in all its forms, whether pleasant or unpleasant, useful of useless, welcome or unwelcome.”

Should Kind Reason Form Used Purpose Social Theory Instruments Welcome Useless Pleasant Unfolding Philosophic History Of Science Unwelcome

Book:Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

Source: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

“To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.”

Social Theory Circumstances Claims Doctrine Ideology Derivatives

Book:In Defence of Politics

Source: In Defence of Politics

“Whatever their limitations, Freud and Marx developed complex and subtle theories of human nature grounded in their observation of individual and social behavior. The crackpot rationalism of free-market economics merely relies on an abstract model of how people "must" behave.”

“And the venality of those Judaized is incapable of explaining anti-Semitism as a social phenomenon, we will call it the anti-Semitic theory.”

Social Theory Phenomenon Incapable Explaining Anti Semitism Anti Semitic

Author:A. C. Cuza

“We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government.”

“With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice.”

Source: A Martin Luther King Treasury

“Evolution throws a wonderful light on all the struggles, eccentricities, tortuous developments of the human conscience in the past. It is the only theory of morals that does. And evolution throws just as much light on the ethical and social struggle today; and it is the only theory that does. What a strange age ours is from the religious point of view! What a hopeless age from the philosopher's point of view! Yet it is a very good age, the best that ever was. No evolutionist is a pessimist.”

“Change the instruments and you will change the entire social theory that goes with them”

Social Theory Instruments Social Theory

Author:Bruno Latour

“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

Source: Aspects of I.B. Singer

“Stock prices are likely to be among the prices that are relatively vulnerable to purely social movements because there is no accepted theory by which to understand the worth of stocks....investors have no model or at best a very incomplete model of behavior of prices, dividend, or earnings, of speculative assets.”

Social Movement Theory Behavior Models Investing Accepted Vulnerable Assets Investors Earning Incomplete Dividends Social Movements Stock Price

Author:Robert J. Shiller

“Someone once defined a social problem as a situation in which the real world differs from the theories of intellectuals. To the intelligentsia, it follows, as the night follows the day, that it is the real world that is wrong and which needs to change.”

World Needs Real Problem Night Social Situation Theory Defined Real World Need A Change Social Problems

Book:Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

Source: Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

“Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings.”

“Finding Mecca in America weaves social theory and concrete ethnography into a significant contribution on Muslims in the United States, illuminating broader questions about the integration of minority and immigrant groups along the way. This is an important work and a joy to read.”

“For Marx, 'pure' economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible.”

Social Impossible Economic Theory Pure Structure Social Structure Economic Theory

Author:Ernest Mandel

“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx's concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud's.”

Men Two Moving Social Process Theory Conflict Concepts Historical Bounds Critical Liberation Reaching Phases Comprehensive Inner Conflict Uncovering Critical Theory

Book:The art of being

Source: The art of being

“The logic of all this seems to be that it is all right for young people in a democracy to learn about any civilization or social theory that is not dangerous, but that they should remain entirely ignorant of any civilization or social theory that might be dangerous on the ground that what you don't know can't hurt you ... a complete denial of the democratic principle that the general diffusion of knowledge and learning through the community is essential to the preservation of free government.”

Source: Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life

“A … difference between most system-building in the social sciences and systems of thought and classification of the natural sciences is to be seen in their evolution. In the natural sciences both theories and descriptive systems grow by adaptation to the increasing knowledge and experience of the scientists. In the social sciences, systems often issue fully formed from the mind of one man. Then they may be much discussed if they attract attention, but progressive adaptive modification as a result of the concerted efforts of great numbers of men is rare.”

“The state has been living on a revenue which was being produced in the private sphere for private purposes and had to be deflected from these purposes by political force. The theory that construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.”

Mind Has Beens States Political Purpose Force Social Theory Habit Prove Taxes Doctors Clubs Dues Spheres Revenue Living On Analogies Social Science Habits Of Mind

Author:Joseph A. Schumpeter

“In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.”

“Widely dispersed knowledge concerning the important role of basic cooperative processes among living beings may lead to the acceptance of cooperation as a guiding principle both in social theory and as a basis for human behavior. Such a development when it occurs will alter the course of human history.”

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Social Quotes