Involvement And Detachment - Hardcover

Norbert Elias

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631126821 ISBN 13: 9780631126829

Publisher: Basil Blackwell, 1987

Synopsis

This essay has, since it was first published in 1956, been regarded as a classic statement on sociological method. Here it is combined with two other of the author's essays. His study represents a departure from traditional sociological and philosophical theories of knowledge. It explores how people orient themselves in their world, by means of ideals, fantasy beliefs, wishful thinking, fact-related knowledge or feeling impulses, such as hope and fear. The author argues that the structure of knowledge in any particular field and the social level of danger or fear in that field or in society at large are interdependent. If one of them changes in a particular direction, the other, sooner or later, is likely to change in a corresponding direction. The concepts "involvement" and "detachment" are indicators of these directions. In highly developed societies knowledge is split. It has reached a relatively high level of detachment in the field of non-human nature while knowledge of human societies and of human beings generally represents a high level of involvement. The human picture with which the author works is no longer the derivative of an isolated individual. Hence a host of traditional concepts connected with this idea such as transcendentalism and positivism lose their function and meaning. Like magic-mythical concepts of nature, ideological concepts of society become recognizable as forms of knowledge which are more involved than detached. The empirical evidence shows a long-term process of change from dominant involvement to dominant detachment in people's knowledge and experience of non-human nature which is not matched by a corresponding directional change in the standard knowledge of human societies and their individual members.

About this title

Review

"Elias's thesis concerning the varying degrees of involvement and detachment in the arts and sciences constitutes his most systematic and comprehensive contribution to the sociology of knowledge." "In many ways the notes by the editors which preface these volumes can ... be read as biographical illustrations of Elias's own ongoing intellectual meditations on the tensions between involvement and detachment, and with his continuing personal and professional confrontation with the problem of time." "well worth the dedicated study and patient reflection [it] demand[s] of readers." Canadian Journal of Sociology 33 (1) 3008 "The enterprise of publishing the collected works of Norbert Elias under the editorship of Richard Kilminster and Stephen Mennell by University College Dublin Press is an extremely important contribution to the contemporary intellectual and academic scene. Norbert Elias was one of the most original minds in the human and social sciences in the 20th century - his work covers not only a very broad range of sociological topics starting with his classical The Civilising Process and later The Court Society, but also many topics ranging from sociology of knowledge to sociology of sport and analysis of historical processes; the broad philosophical problems, such as the idea of the place of the progress of symbolic dimensions in social life. This is really a monumental enterprise, very worthwhile and very constructive, presenting a great challenge to the contemporary intellectual and academic scene - and UCD Press should be congratulated in undertaking this enterprise." S. N. Eisenstadt Jerusalem, 24 July 2008 "Too easily the editors and readers of Books Ireland take it as given that Irish publishers' books are mostly about Ireland or by Irish writers. We wish it were not so because we think our publishers are of world class, and a shining exception and exemplar is this series of eighteen volumes of the life's work in English - some of his work was written in German - of Elias (1897-1990) whose major theme was the theory of civilising processes - Norbert is very interesting on the subject as well as on the dynamics of sports, social (and especially male) bonding, violence and football hooliganism. These books are in the very best tradition of design, with acid-free paper, sewn bindings, cloth boards, coloured endpapers, spine labels and acetate jackets." Books Ireland Nov 08

About the Author

NORBERT ELIAS (1897-1990) was one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century. He studied with Alfred Weber in Heidelberg and served as Karl Mannheim's assistant in Frankfurt. On Hitler's coming to power, he went into exile, first in France and then in Britain. His magnum opus The Civilising Process received little attention when it was published in Switzerland in 1939 and only after Elias's formal retirement in 1962 were most of his other books and essays published. International intellectual celebrity came to him right at the end of his long life. STEPHEN QUILLEY is Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy at Keele University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basil Blackwell
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631126821
• ISBN 13: 9780631126829
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 185
• Editor: Michael Schröter