Description
Randall Collins traces the movement of philosophical thought in ancient Greece, China, Japan, India, the medieval Islamic and Jewish world, medieval Christendom, and modern Europe. What emerges from this history is a social theory of intellectual change, one that avoids both the reduction of ideas to the influences of society at large and the purely contingent local construction of meanings. Instead, Collins focuses on the social locations where sophisticated ideas are formed: the patterns of intellectual networks and their inner divisions and conflicts.
About the Author
Randall Collins is Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania.
Reviews
No sociologist who is seriously concerned with understanding intellectual life can afford to ignore it... Randall Collins has rendered a service to sociology second to none. * Canadian Journal of Sociology *
The one work that all sociologists of ideas, novices and veterans alike, hereafter must read... It is beyond question Randall Collins' masterpiece. * European Journal of Sociology *
[A] rich, systematic and empirically grounded account of intellectual change in three civilizations. The Sociology of Philosophies is an ambitious, comprehensive, and brilliant account of the rationalization process of three world philosophies: Western, Indian, and Asian. In Collins' analysis, this developmental process is shown to be generated via social and conceptual networks... The book expounds upon an immense range of intellectual history, and certainly makes inspiring and interesting reading. And, despite the heavy subject and incredible scope, Collins' writing style resembles an oral lecture more than an abstruse disquisition. * European Sociological Review *
This astonishing book testifies to decades of research through the greater part of philosophy-East and West... It reaches out to the ordinary reader, who could acquire a rich education in the humanities just by following it through. * Library Journal *
What an impressive book Randall Collins has written...so broadly learned, so ambitious in its analysis, and readable to boot!
The Sociology of Philosophies is a truly astonishing work of scholarship based on a vast global erudition...it offers rich, highly illuminating and provocative insights on a vast array of topics.
Awards
Nominated for Robert K. Merton Book Award 2001 and Robert K. Merton Book Award 2002.
Book Information
ISBN 9780674001879
Author Randall Collins
Format Paperback
Page Count 1120
Imprint The Belknap Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 1406g
About the Author
Randall Collins is Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania.
Reviews
No sociologist who is seriously concerned with understanding intellectual life can afford to ignore it... Randall Collins has rendered a service to sociology second to none. * Canadian Journal of Sociology *
The one work that all sociologists of ideas, novices and veterans alike, hereafter must read... It is beyond question Randall Collins' masterpiece. * European Journal of Sociology *
[A] rich, systematic and empirically grounded account of intellectual change in three civilizations. The Sociology of Philosophies is an ambitious, comprehensive, and brilliant account of the rationalization process of three world philosophies: Western, Indian, and Asian. In Collins' analysis, this developmental process is shown to be generated via social and conceptual networks... The book expounds upon an immense range of intellectual history, and certainly makes inspiring and interesting reading. And, despite the heavy subject and incredible scope, Collins' writing style resembles an oral lecture more than an abstruse disquisition. * European Sociological Review *
This astonishing book testifies to decades of research through the greater part of philosophy-East and West... It reaches out to the ordinary reader, who could acquire a rich education in the humanities just by following it through. * Library Journal *
What an impressive book Randall Collins has written...so broadly learned, so ambitious in its analysis, and readable to boot!
The Sociology of Philosophies is a truly astonishing work of scholarship based on a vast global erudition...it offers rich, highly illuminating and provocative insights on a vast array of topics.
Awards
Nominated for Robert K. Merton Book Award 2001 and Robert K. Merton Book Award 2002.
Book Information
ISBN 9780674001879
Author Randall Collins
Format Paperback
Page Count 1120
Imprint The Belknap Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 1406g
