19. Э. Гидденс: современный тип социологического теоретизирования.

Известный британский философ и социолог Энтони Гидденс (р. 1938) рассматривает проблему взаимосвязи общества и личности в эпоху «высокого модерна» через призму следствий глобализационных процессов. Особенность его подхода состоит в ее интерпретации с точки зрения институциональных изменений, происходящих под воздействием глобализации.

The nature of sociology

До 1976 года критиковал все и вся.

Before 1976, most of Giddens' writings offered critical commentary on a wide range of writers, schools and traditions. Giddens took a stance against the then-dominant structural functionalism (represented by Talcott Parsons, exponent of Max Weber), as well as criticizing evolutionism and historical materialism. In Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), he examined the work of Weber, Durkheim and Marx, arguing that despite their different approaches each was concerned with the link between capitalism and social life. Giddens emphasised the social constructs of power, modernity and institutions, defining sociology as:

"the study of social institutions brought into being by the industrial transformation of the past two or three centuries."

In New Rules of Sociological Method (1976) (the title of which alludes to Durkheim's Rules of the Sociological Method of 1895), Giddens attempted to explain 'how sociology should be done' and addressed a long-standing divide between those theorists who prioritise 'macro level' studies of social life - looking at the 'big picture' of society - and those who emphasise the 'micro level' - what everyday life means to individuals. In New Rules... he noted that the functionalist approach, invented by Durkheim, treated society as a reality unto itself, not reducible to individuals. He rejected Durkheim's sociological positivism paradigm, which attempted to predict how societies operate, ignoring the meanings as understood by individuals.^[6] Giddens noted:

"Society only has form, and that form only has effects on people, insofar as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do".^[7]

Противопоставлял понимающую социологию Вебера парадигмам Дюргейма и структурному функционализму. Но в своем анализе отошел от обоих подходов, рассматривал общество и не как коллективную реальность, но и не замыкался на анализе действий индивидов.

Rather he uses the logic of hermeneutic tradition (from interpretative sociology) to argue for the importance of agency in sociological theory, claiming that human social actors are always to some degree knowledgeable about what they are doing. Social order is therefore a result of some pre-planned social actions, not automatic evolutionary response. Sociologists, unlike natural scientists, have to interpret a social world which is already interpreted by the actors that inhabit it. According to Giddens there is a "Duality of structure" by which social practice, which is the principal unit of investigation, has both a structural and an agency-component. The structural environment constrains individual behaviour, but also makes it possible. He also noted the existence of a specific form of a social cycle: once sociological concepts are formed, they filter back into everyday world and change the way people think. Because social actors are reflexive and monitor the ongoing flow of activities and structural conditions, they adapt their actions to their evolving understandings. As a result, social scientific knowledge of society will actually change human activities. Giddens calls this two-tiered, interpretive and dialectical relationship between social scientific knowledge and human practices the "double hermeneutic".

Giddens also stressed the importance of power, which is means to ends, and hence is directly involved in the actions of every person. Power, the transformative capacity of people to change the social and material world, is closely shaped by knowledge and space-time.^[8]

In New Rules... Giddens specifically wrote^[9] that:

• Объекты социологии не заданы заранее, они динамически самоконструируются

• Создание и поддержание общества обусловлено осознанными (?) действиями (skilled performance) его членов.

• Сфера человеческих действий ограничена. Индивиды создают общество, но в заданных текущим обществом условиях.

• Structures must be conceptualized not only as constraints upon human agency, but also as enablers.

• The sociological observer cannot make social life available as 'phenomenon' for observation independently of drawing upon his knowledge of it as a resource whereby he constitutes it as a 'topic for investigation'.

• Погружение в форму жизни необходимо и значить что наблюдатель способен составить аткую характеристику.

• Первичные задачи социологии: (1) Интерпретация различных форм жизни на метаязыке социальной науки; (2) Изучение возникновения и поддержания общества как завершенный итог человеческой деятельности.