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NOTES

LINKS

Readings in Social Philosophy and Studies

The Histories, Herodotus (Penguin Classics, 1954 and later) An early classic appreciation of the customs of non-hellenic social groups.
 
On Man in the Universe, Aristotle, Black Inc, Roslyn, NY 1943. Book I, “The origin of human associations”, pgs 247-270

The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo, Signet Classic, NY 1961, pgs 101-110.
Travelogue and merchant’s guidebook as early forms of social knowledge.

Cortes, The Life of the Conqueror by his Secretary, Francisco Lopez deGómera, U of Cal Press, Berkeley, 1966. pgs 25-35.
Father deGomera provides contemporary description of the society of natives of Cozumel at first European contact 1519 AD. World view of Spanish conquistadors and missionaries illumined.

The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (pgs 49-68, Book 1, Penguin Classics, 1968).
Early enlightenment description of the nature of society and sovereign. Society is individuals freely contracting. “Man was born free, and is everywhere in chains.” Rousseau wonders why.

Society in America, Harriet Martineau.
Woman from Great Britain visited America and wrote  book of manners and morals of the social experiment that early U.S. was seen to be. Broached many of the questions that continue to exercise the interests of many in modern social studies.

Race, Language and Culture, Franz Boas, Macmillan, NY 1966. Founder of American anthropological tradition. The great sense of loss as the societies, culture, belief and lifeways of the native Americans were disappearing, and the impetus to record before complete extinction.

American Indian Languages, Franz Boas and J. W. Powell, University of Nebraska Press, 1966

Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Bronislaw Malinowski, E. P. Dutton, NY 1922. Classic study attempting to demonstrate the functional inter-relationship of all social activities and beliefs.

Tristes Tropiques, Claude Levi-Strauss, translated by Russell, Athenaeum, NY 1970. The ethnology  which forms the basis of the influential structural approach to social and cultural understanding.

Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead, American Museum of Natural History Press, NY 1928

Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict, Houghton Mifflin, 1934. A seminal study in the relationships of culture and personality formation and type.

Origins, Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, E. P. Dutton, NYC 1977
A popular account of the findings in East Africa of the oldest hominids

Lucy, The Beginnings of Humankind, Donald Johanson,  Warner Books, NY 1981.
An account of the discovery, description and naming of Australopithecus Afarensis, as well as the politics and professional competition of paleoanthropologists.

Archeology, The Evolution of Ancient Societies, Thomas Patterson, Prentiss Hall, 1981. Clear account of the significance of archeology for the understanding of time before history (literacy and record-keeping)

Man Discovers His Past, A Survey of Archeological Findings, Glyn Daniel, Crowell Co, NY 1968

The Seneca Nation of Indians, Anthony F. C. Wallace . Seminal study of leading anthropologist working within scientific discourse.

On Social Evolution,Herbert Spencer, U of Chicago, 1972.
Sociology beginning to emerge as a distinct field of inquiry. Early articulation of the effect of ‘social allegiances’ in production of social philosophies and science. Spencer sees society as an organism evolving over time with functionally interrelated elements. Influence of Darwin in study of society.

The Origin of Culture, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, Harper Torchbooks, NY, 1958. Classic definition of human culture. Early thought on social evolution, and also symbolic interaction.

From Max Weber, Essays in Sociology, ed Gerth and Mills, Oxford Univ., London, 1946. “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism” pgs 302-322
 
The City, Max Weber, Macmillan Free Press, NY 1958, pgs 65-89

The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Frederick Engels, International Pub, NY, 1972. Eleanor Leacock’s Introduction, pgs 29-43 (see her explanation of change of relationship between the genders in thee changes from Hunter/Gather, to Agricultural, and Civilization societies. Engels chapter two presents a history of the development of society based on changing ways of making a living.

“Class and the Production of Ideas”, Karl Marx, (ex Charon, pgs 133-135). early articulation about the coherence and integration of ideas/beliefs and lifeways, cultures, modes of production.

“The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”, Karl Marx, ex Symbolic Anthropology, ed. Dolgin et al, Columbia Univ Press, NY, 1977. What is the difference between motherhood and day care; between caring and servicing. Exposition on the pattern in which capitalist society transforms and obscures relationship between exchange and use values.

The Division of Labor in Society, Emile Durkheim, Macmillan, NY, 1933. Mechanical/organic solidarity. Analysis of social relations, modification because of specialization in work tasks, and resultant increasing complexity of society. The Social Fact.

Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz, Basic Books, NY,1973 pgs  33-54. The Concept of cultures vs uniform human nature - humanity is no longer conceivable without human society, i.e. the Enlightenment notion of a human individual as a being with an essential nature, distinct and pre-social is no longer a dominant idea among social philosophers - we are but nodes in a social matrix constantly recreating itself: he social contracting of free individuals(a la Rousseau) is a conceit. Great writer, challenging thoughts.

Gender, Ivan Illich, Heyday Books, Berkeley, 1982. Discussion of asymmetric complementarity between genders. History of destruction of gender under regime of scarcity of post-industrial society.

Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge, ed. Michaela diLeonardo, Univ of Cal Press, Berkeley, 1991. pgs 175 -203, Between Speech and Silence, Susan Gal. Bringing social knowledge of women up from silence.

Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault, Vintage, NY, 1979. Also see The History of Madness, The Order of Things, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 by the same author. Dense analysis of the intricate social history of power.

Stigma, Erving Goffman, Prentiss-Hall, NJ  1963. Analysis of ‘spoiled’ social identities.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life , Erving Goffman, Doubleday, NY  1959

Language, Thought and Reality, Benjamin Lee Whorf, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1956. Social theorist examining some of the philosophical considerations of Wittgenstein but  in the context of Hopi society.

The Construction of Social Reality, John R. Searle, Free Press, NYC 1995. Accessible philosophical inquiry ruminating about the kinds of facts that are possible without human knowledge (sunlight, sounds of trees falling in the woods), and those that require human social convention to bring the fact into being (a five dollar bill, a pair of wool socks)