Thomas Luckmann

Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit

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The Social Construction of Reality

Publikacijoje apžvelgiama žinojimo sociologijos disciplinos raida, pateikiamos svarbiausios jos nagrinėjamos sąvokos ir tyrimo tikslai. Teigiama, kad tikrovė yra socialiskai konstruojama ir kad žinojimo sociologija turi analizuoti sio konstravimo procesus. Ji turi aiskinti ne tik empirine žinojimo įvairove visuomenėse, bet taip pat ir procesus, dėl kurių bet kuris žinojimas tampa socialiskai pripažinta tikrove. K. Marxo tezė, kad žmogaus sąmone apsprendžia jo socialinė būtis, tapo bazine žinojimo sociologijos teze. Terminą „žinojimo sociologija“įvedė M. Scheleris. Jis teigė, kad visuomenė lemia idėjų būtį, bet ne jų prigimtį ir pabrėžė individualaus žmogiskojo žinojimo aprioriskumą, kuris prasmės sistemą įgyja visuomenėje. K. Mannheimas teigė, kad visuomenė sąlygoja ne tik žmogiskosios idealizacijos formą, bet ir turinį. Jam svarbiausias buvo ideologijos reiskinys. Skyrė partikuliarinės, totalinės ir bendrosios ideologijos sąvokas. R. Mertonas siekė sujungti žinojimo sociologijos ir struktūrinės funkcinės teorijos pozicijas. Autoriai isplecia sios sociolgijos tyrimo objektą teigdami, kad ji turi tirti ne tik idėjų istoriją, bet viską, kas visuomenėje laikoma žinojimu.

La construcción social de la realidad

Obra ressenyada: Peter L. BERGER; Thomas LUCKMANN, La construccion social de la realidad. Buenos Aires, Amorrortu, 1968.

On the Boundaries of the Social World

It may seem less than reasonable to reexamine an issue on which there is widespread agreement. What is more evident than the boundary that separates the social from the non-social? Common sense permits no doubt that social reality is composed of human affairs. This certitude of common sense informs our ordinary actions as well as our most elevated sentiments. Nor is the exclusively human nature of social reality seriously questioned in the main traditions of Western philosophy. The coincidence of the social order with the pattern of relations between human beings is taken for granted. One can hardly blame the social scientist for failing to investigate the origin and the significance of this division of reality with as much detached interest as he would devote to the study of more obviously “culture-bound” assumptions of common sense.

The Changing face of religion

Introduction - James A Beckford and Thomas Luckmann Globalization, Politics and Religion - Roland Robertson Diffused Religion and New Values in Italy - Roberto Cipriani From Parish to Transcendent Humanism in France - Yves Lambert Religion in New Zealand - Michael Hill and Wiebe Zwaga Change and Comparison Afro-Brazilian Cults and Religious Change in Brazil - Maria Isaura and Pereira de Queiroz The Emergence of Islamic Political Ideologies - Said Arjomand Islam as a New Religious Movement in Malaysia - Daniel Regan The Sacred in African New Religions - Bennetta Jules-Rosette The Changing Face of Khasi Religion - Soumen Sen

Transformations of Religion and Morality in Modern Europe

Based on the assumption that religion is not a passing phase in the evolution of mankind but a universal aspect of the conditio humana, the anthropological and phenomenological features of religion and morality are outlined here. Then, three different social forms of religion and morality are delineated: archaic societies, early high culture, functionally differentiated societies. It is argued that the privatized form of religion constitutes a fourth social form existing in Europe. It is characterized by functional specialization and the modern variety of pluralism. Whereas the privatized form of religion is characterized by the absence of a generally obligatory model, the situation in Europe is characterized by the superimposition and co-existence of the various forms with tendencies towards fundamentalism and wholeness.

Moral Communication in Modern Societies

The title for this lecture should read both more modestly and more accurately Observations on Some Forms of Moral Communication in a Modern Society. I hope that I shall be pardoned for having avoided such an awkward title but I feel obliged to alert the hearer, or the reader, to the fact that the actual title promises more than I can deliver. One of the obvious ways for a social scientist to talk about morals in any society is to talk about the ways the members ofthat society moralize; it is only a slight exaggeration to say that in modern society the only way to talk about morals is to talk about moral communication. I shall try to explain why this is so, and if I succeed, much of the task I set myself for this lecture will be accomplished. The other part will consist of the description of some key features of modern morality.2 Although I shall not attempt a definition of the terms, it may not be entirely unnecessary if I indicate what I mean when I talk of morality and morals and what I understand by communication and moral communication. First, I view morality as a reasonably coherent set of notions of what is right and what is wrong, notions of the good life that guide human action beyond the immediate gratification of desires and the momentary demands of a situ? ation. Such notions, as all notions, are of course held by individuals, but they do not originate with the individual. They are intersubjectively constructed in communicative interaction, and they are selected, maintained and trans? mitted in complex social processes. Over the generations they come to form distinct historical traditions in which a particular view of the good life is articulated. This means that some conceptions of what is right and what is wrong are canonized and others censored. Thus a certain coherence between the notions is achieved. Once the path to reach that ideal is marked, the foun? dations for the moral order of a society are laid. Following that path is de? fined as lifes ideal, and the ideal serves as a norm in the organization of collective life. When serious deviations from the norm are systematically pun? ished, the societys moral order is fully established. Second, when I speak of communication, I do not ?as some would ?refer to intraorganismic, intercellular processes. Nor do I have in mind inner speech. *

The Religious Situation in Europe: the Background to Contemporary Conversions

The author presents a general background to the discussion of conversion to Islam in Europe by restating an outline of what is known about the social form of religion in contemporary Europe. This concept (social form of religion) identifies the most important social and cultural determinants of the institutional and/or non-institutional location of religion in the major historical types of the social organization of human life. The prevailing social form of religion in contemporary Europe is marked by privatization, marginalization of the traditional Christian form of religion, and structural cementing of increased options for individual bricolage. The main courses leading to the prevalence of this social form of religion are structural differentiation and a modern form of pluralism: the main consequences with respect to conversion are a changed frame both of subjective and social plausibility for the change from one optional way of life to another.

On the Rationality of Institutions in Modern Life

Ever since that time we have witnessed disturbances and we cannot but look forward with dread to even greater ones that we shall have to suffer for these and other reasons. An outbreak of violence is to be expected between our Empire and Hungary […] From Poland come news of lamentable discord between three brothers, the territorial princes. We hear of continuous battle among powerful lords in Lorraine. In our own country [ i.e. , Bavaria] the confusion of minds has become so abominable that robbery and arson throw everything into disorder not only on the ordinary days of the year but even on days of fasting and penitence, in utter disregard of divine and human law. So heavily are we burdened by the memory of past, the onslaught of present and the fear of future vicissitudes that we are fain to yield to the sentence of death which is our lot from the beginning and to tire of life.

On the Intersubjective Constitution of Morals

In the first paragraph of the first chapter of his first book Alfred Schutz asked: Hat es die Sozialwissenschaft mit dem Sein des Menschen an sich oder nur mit seinen gesellschaftlichen Verhaltensweisen zu tun? Ist das gesellschaftliche Ganze dem Sein des Einzelnen vorgegeben ... oder ist umgekehrt das, was wir das gesellschaftliche Ganze nennen ... eine Synthesis von Funktionen der einzelnen menschlichen Individuen, deren Sein allein Realitat zukommt? Ist es das gesellschaftliche Sein des Menschen, das sein Bewustsein oder umgekehrt sein Bewustsein, das sein gesellschaftliches Sein bestimmt?1