The Dissolution of Society within the 'Social

Bibliographic Data

ID2397569
AuthorsMichel Freitag (0000-0003-2428-0652, UQUAM, CANADA, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume5
Issue2
Pages175-198
Publication date2002-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13684310222225405
OpenAlexW4239107728
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited6

This article provides a general, theoretical reflection on the decline of the normative dimension in postmodern societies. Modern societies were the first to recognize themselves as societies, that is, to reflect explicitly on the normative basis of their constitution. With the decline of modernity, societal integration, which was based in part on the collective solidarity borne of an idea of Justice, has dissolved into merely 'social' forms of integration, legitimized in terms of a claim to operational perfection. At a purely epistemological level, this results in a profound misunderstanding of the subjective and unitary character of society and social action. The article ends in a plea for the recovery of a reflection on values, understood not just as a change in values, but as a change in the relation to values, necessary to confront the irreducible plurality of the world

Civil society · Constitution · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Late modernity · Modernity · Normative · Plea · Political science · Politics · Postmodernism · Social change · Social science · Sociology · Solidarity · Unitary state · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism

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