Alan Sica
Biographic Data
| ID | 3685290 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alan Sica |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alan |
| FAMILY NAME | Sica |
| SIGNATURE | SICA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0009-0002-9952-2521 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 136 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 252 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 133 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Knowing the Unknowable Paul Piccone
When a Professor Runs a Publishing Company
Forgetting the Founders? The Uses of Classical Theory Today
Routledge International Handbook on Max Weber
The Routledge International Handbook on Max Weber
"This book explores the latest thinking about Max Weber and his continuing influence on theoretical and empirical interests today. Bringing together the work of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines, it illuminates Weber's thought in a number of key areas, including the methodology and philosophy of social science, comparative religion, the rationalization process, political sociology, the sociology of law, and the Protestant ethic and t…
Routledge International Handbook on Max Weber
“What Is a Classic?”
This article interrogates the idea of a classic, locating its significance in sociology in terms of its understanding in far-ranging fields of human inquiry and exploration, particularly philosophy, art, and literature. It explores the question: Why do “classics” remain important whenever social scientists, novices or veterans, reconsider their discipline’s history and likely future? Alan Sica is a Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State Uni…
Unmasking, Unveiling, Demystifying, Stripping Bare
American Sociological Association
This entry discusses the history and current situation of the American Sociological Association, with special reference to its publications, membership composition over time, and its public pronouncements about scholarly and political subjects
Tribute to Max Weber on the Centenary of his Death
Having just had occasion to trot through all twenty volumes of Max Weber Studies, with unbounded thanks to sam whimster and his colleagues for their manifold labors, it becomes obvious that a small international army of bright and energetic scholars continue, even this century after Weber's death, to mull over the significance of Weberianism, to take issue here and there with the Old Man's claims, to stake positions which they know will raise the…
Classical Sociological Theory
From the Bronx to Oxford and Not Quite Back
The Max Weber Dictionary
Book Reviews 301© Max Weber Studies 2018. Richard Swedberg and Ola Agevall, The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts, 2nd edn (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), xviii + 449pp. (pbk). ISBN: 978-0-8047-8342-2. $29.95. As most Weberians will remember, the first edition of Richard Swedberg ’s (and Ola Agevall’s) uniquely valuable Weber dictionary appeared in 2005. Shortly after the first edition appeared, I wrote to Professo…
Sociology as a Female Preserve
The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Humanities and Social Sciences
Max Weber on Rationality and Rationalization
The Unknown Max Weber
Paul Honigsheim is unique. One of the select few who regularly participated in the Weber-Kreis in Heidelberg during the 1910s, Honigsheim's special place within Weber's world adds a degree of credibility to his writings matched by few others. In the late 1940s Honigsheim published four essays from what might be called Weber's "lost decade," the period during which Weber established his reputation in Germany as the most versatile and brilliant of …
Max Weber and the New Century
"The most profound and enduring social theorist of sociology's classical period, Max Weber speaks as cogently to concerns of the new century as he did to those of the past. Over the past seventy years, those special ideas that have become identified as ""Weberian"" have become especially pertinent to those who would analyze today's socioeconomic and cultural life. They offer the possibility of a more acute understanding of our immediate future th…
Max Weber
Max Weber is a magisterial figure in the social sciences. His fundamental contributions to the methodological and conceptual apparatus of sociology remain of continuing relevance to contemporary debates. His astonishing range and quality of work on topics ranging from the comparative sociology of religion to political sociology, and the sociology of law to the sociology of music, have established Weber as a permanent point of reference for modern…
Max Weber
The most profound and enduring social theorist of sociology's classical period, Max Weber speaks as cogently to concerns of the new century as he did to those of the past. In Max Weber and the New Century, Alan Sica demonstrated Weber's preeminent position and lasting vitality within social theory by applying his ideas to a broad range of topics of contemporary concern. Max Weber: A Comprehensive Bibliography is a companion volume that offers som…
Making Money Matter
Debt to Society
The Anthem Companion to Max Weber
is a study of the ideas and career of the German sociologist and founder of classical social theory. Including contributions by accomplished Weber scholars, this companion provides the latest scholarly interpretations of the sociologist’s vast body of socioeconomic and political writings which continue to inspire new scholarship and debate on global politics, comparative religion, social class relationships, social science methods and law and soc…
Journal Magic
Anthem Companion to Max Weber
Belief and Behavior
In this study the impact of changes in religiosity on marital quality and vice versa is examined. Using longitudinal data from a national sample of married persons, we assess the extent to which changes in religious involvement influence marital quality and the extent to which changes in marital quality affect religiosity. Because most prior studies of this topic have been cross-sectional, our work fills a major research gap. We address two quest…
Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order
Despite immediate appearances, this book is not primarily a hermeneutical exercise in which the superiority of one interpretation of canonical texts is championed against others. Its origin lies elsewhere, near the overlap of history, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and social theory of the usual kind. Weber, Pareto, Freud, W. I. Thomas, Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, and many others of similar stature long ago wondered and wrote much about the interpla…
Making History
American Sociological Association
This entry discusses the history and current situation of the American Sociological Association, with special reference to its publications, membership composition over time, and its public pronouncements about scholarly and political subjects
A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Vol. 1
Max Weber's Methodologies
List of Abbreviations. Introduction. 1. THE CONTEXTS. German Historicism and the Controversy over Method. The Post--Enlightenment Anguish of Polytheism. Neo--Kantianism and Nominalism. 2. THE SHAPING OF WEBER'S CONCEPTUAL TOOLS. Distinguishing the Natural from the Social Sciences. Enter Values and the Problem of Selection and Value Intrusion. Rickert: Theoretical and Practical Value--Relation. Weber: Scientific Value--Relativism. The Limits of So…
G.H. Mead
Hans Joas, G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of his Thought. Translated from the German by Meyer Raymond. (Cambridge, England: Polity Press/Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985). 226 pp., $27.50, cloth
Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences
Volume One: Foundations and Early Exemplars The Politics - Aristotle Histories - Polybius The Rise of the Roman Empire The Muqaddimah - Ibn Khaldun Method for the Easy Comprehension of History - Jean Bodin Comparative Political Analysis in Montesquieu and Tocqueville - Melvin Richter The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte - Auguste Comte System of Logic - John Stuart Mill On the Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions - Edward B…
What is Social Theory? The Philosophical Debates
List of Contributors. 1. Philosophya s Tutelage of Social Theory: A Parody of Profundity? Alan Sica (Pennsylvania State University). 2. Mapping Postmodern Theory: Robert J. Antonio (University of Kansas). 3. A Thesaurus of Experience: Maurice Natanson, Phenomenology and Social Theory: Mary F. Rogers (University of West Florida). 4. A Social Epistemology of the Structure--Agency Craze: From Content to Context: Steve Fuller (University of Durham). …
Sociology as a Female Preserve
If and When Sociology Becomes a Female Preserve
The Bauman Reader
Preface. 1. Introduction: Peter Beilharz: Reading Zygmunt Bauman. 2. The Telos Interview. 3. Socialism. 3.1 The Historical Location of Socalism. 3.2 Modern Times, Modern Marxism. 3.3 Communism: A Postmortem. 4. Class and Power. 4.1 Class: Before and After. 4.2 Gamekeepers Turned Gardeners. 4.3 The Rise of the Interpreter. 5. Hermeneutics and Critical Theory. 5.1 The Challenge of Hermeneutics. 5.2 Critical Theory. 5.3 Modernity. 6. Sociology and t…
Social theory’s “constituency
The Hermeneutic Imagination
In his previous book, Contemporary Hermeneutics, Josef Bleicher offered an introduction to the subject, locating it mainly within the philosophy of social science, and looking at the profound impact it is having on a wide range of intellectual pursuits. This book follows on from this and expounds the author's view that the development of the hermeneutic imagination is an indispensable condition for reflexive sociological work and emancipatory soc…
Sociology at the University of Kansas, 1889-1983
Sociology at the University of Kansas began in 1889, making it one of the oldest departments in the country. This paper sketches its first 94 years, with special attention given to courses offered, faculty development, and the expansion of its graduate program. Suggestions for further research are made regarding sociology not only at this university, but others as well
The Power of Talk The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2
Reflexive Modernization
A sociology archive and the discipline’s future
Lebenschancen
Debt to Society
Why "Unobservables" Cannot Save General Theory
Journal Article Why "Unobservables" Cannot Save General Theory: A Reply to Mahoney Get access Alan Sica Alan Sica Pennsylvania State University Direct correspondence to Alan Sica, Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald, University Park, PA 16802-6207. E-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 83, Issue 2, December 2004, Pages 491–501, https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.200…
Social Construction as Fantasy
Ever since Berger and Luckmann published their treatment of the sociology of knowledge in 1966, older versions of the subfield have languished, been forgotten, or misrepresented, as if The Social Construction of Reality ( SCR) eliminated the need to study its predecessors in Wissenssoziologie. By considering Berger's subsequent statements about the book, along with remarks recently made by Luckmann, and then returning to the text itself, this art…
Does PoMo Matter
The social world as a countinghouse
Lewis Coser and 20th-Century American Sociology
Truth and Method
Hans-Georg Gadamer, . Truth and Method. Trans. Garrett Barden, and John Cumming. New York: Seabury, 1975. 551 pages. $22.50
The Deadly Simple Mechanics of Society
Science Class and Society
Göran Therborn. Science Class and Society: On the Formation of Sociology and Historical Materialism. London: New Left Books, 1976. Distributed in the U.S. by Shocken Books. 461 pages. $18.95
Dependency in the World EconomyUnequal Development
Lebenschancen
Man in Marxist Theory and the Psychology of Personality.Lucien Seve , John McGreal
The Tragedy of Enlightenment
Preface List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Horkheimer's critical theory 3. The critique of ideology 4. The dialectic of enlightenment 5. Technological rationality 6. Language and politics 7. Critique of critical theory 8. Conclusion Notes Index
Galileo and the Art of Reasoning
Maurice A. Finocchiaro. Galileo and the Art of Reasoning: Rhetorical Foundations of Logic and Scientific Method. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, No. 61. Boston: Reidel, 1980. xx plus 478 pages. Cloth: $42; Paper: $21
The Systems Approach and Its Enemies. C. West Churchman
Contemporary Hermeneutics
Dialectic of Defeat
Russell Jacoby. Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. x plus 202 pages. Cloth: $19.95
On the Autonomy of the Democratic State. Eric A. Nordlinger
A Critique of Sociological Reasoning
Parsons, Jr. Theoretical Logic in Sociology. Vol. 1
A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Vol. 1
Sociology at the University of Kansas, 1889-1983
Sociology at the University of Kansas began in 1889, making it one of the oldest departments in the country. This paper sketches its first 94 years, with special attention given to courses offered, faculty development, and the expansion of its graduate program. Suggestions for further research are made regarding sociology not only at this university, but others as well
The Unknown Max Weber
This research note shows that some important interpreters of Weber's work to American sociologists have made highly selective use of his writings. The case of Parsons is briefly treated. Then detailed examination is made of what Weber wrote during his professional lifetime, how much of it has been collected into the standard works, and how much of that has been translated. It is thereby suggested that the American view of Weber is based on fragme…
Sociogenesis Versus Psychogenesis
One wonders, as Elias must, what form sociology and its theories would have taken, in Europe and the U.S., had his precocious masterpiece, Ueber den Prozess der Zivilisation, not been lost in the bustle of WWII, but had come into English in 1939 along with the original. A lot of nonsense and wasted effort, particularly that engendered by The Structure of Social Action (1937) and The Social System (1951), might have been mitigated, or at least ref…
Habermas
The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jrgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current though…
Italian Marxism
Labor in the World Social Structure (Explorations in the World-Economy, Vol. 2)
The Crisis of Austrian Socialism
Anson Rabinbach, The Crisis of Austrian Socialism: From Red Vienna to Civil War, 1927-1934. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. 296 pp., $22.00 cloth
What Is Rational, What Is Not
The Hermeneutic Imagination
In his previous book, Contemporary Hermeneutics, Josef Bleicher offered an introduction to the subject, locating it mainly within the philosophy of social science, and looking at the profound impact it is having on a wide range of intellectual pursuits. This book follows on from this and expounds the author's view that the development of the hermeneutic imagination is an indispensable condition for reflexive sociological work and emancipatory soc…
Interpretation in the Human Sciences
Sociology (98 works) · Philosophy (62 works) · Epistemology (48 works) · Political science (48 works) · Social science (40 works) · Philosophy (38 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (33 works) · Law (29 works) · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory (27 works) · History (22 works)