Background
Turner, Stephen Park was born on March 1, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Lawrence Lynn and Natalie (Stephens) Turner.
('... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read wi...)
'... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDVWMA2/?tag=2022091-20
(First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of...)
First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of sociological explanation. The tactics of interpretive sociology have often remained obscure because of confusion over the nature of the evidence for interpretation and the nature of decisions among alternative interpretations. In providing an account of the problem of interpretive sociological claims, the author argues that there is rationality to interpretation. He also presents a fresh view of the relationship between qualitative and statistical claims and shows their complementary character. Dr. Turner's lucid and comprehensive analysis breaks new ground in its fundamental re-examination of the conceptual basis for "explaining" social behaviour. By its call for more rigourous conceptual sophistication in attempted explanations of social behaviour, this book will stimulate controversy and lively discussion among sociologists.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521297737/?tag=2022091-20
(Aims to relate the categories of Weber's social thinking ...)
Aims to relate the categories of Weber's social thinking to the intellectual context of legal thinking and theory in which he was educated, and to show how knowledge of these relations illuminates our understanding of Weber's own intentions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EQC4UEK/?tag=2022091-20
(Stephen Turner has explored the ongms of social science i...)
Stephen Turner has explored the ongms of social science in this pioneering study of two nineteenth century themes: the search for laws of human social behavior, and the accumulation and analysis of the facts of such behavior through statistical inquiry. The disputes were vigorously argued; they were over questions of method, criteria of explanation, interpretations of probability, understandings of causation as such and of historical causation in particular, and time and again over the ways of using a natural science model. From his careful elucidation of John Stuart Mill's proposals for the methodology of the social sciences on to his original analysis of the methodological claims and practices of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, Turner has beautifully traced the conflict between statistical sociology and a science offactual description on the one side, and causal laws and a science of nomological explanation on the other. We see the works of Comte and Quetelet, the critical observations of Herschel, Buckle, Venn and Whewell, and the tough scepticism of Pearson, all of these as essential to the works of the classical founders of sociology. With Durkheim's essay on Suicide and Weber's monograph on The Protestant Ethic, Turner provides both philosophical analysis to demonstrate the continuing puzzles over cause and probability and also a perceptive and wry account of just how the puzzles of our late twentieth century are of a piece with theirs. The terms are still familiar: reasons vs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9027720673/?tag=2022091-20
('This is a very fine text, a powerful piece of work that ...)
'This is a very fine text, a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. The analysis is truly panoramic. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with and/or draws upon the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers, including Tocqueville, Weber, Schumpeter, Polyani, Habermas, Foucault, Schmitt and Beck' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth What are the political implications of 'expert' knowledge and especially scientific knowledge for liberal democracy? If knowledge is not evenly distributed upon what basis can the philosophy of equal rights be sustained? This important book points to the crisis in knowledge in liberal democracies. This crisis, simply put, is that most citizens cannot understand, much less judge, the claims scientists make. One response is the appointment of public commissions to provide conclusions for policy-makers to act upon. There are also 'commissions from below', such as grass roots associations that quiz the limits of expert knowledge and power and make rival knowledge claims. Do these commissions represent a new stage in the development of liberal democracy? Or is it merely a pragmatic device of no political consequence. The central argument of the book is that in a 'knowledge society' in which specialized knowledge is increasingly important to politics, more has to be delegated because democratic discussion can't handle it. This limitation in the scope of liberal democracy threatens its fundamental character. The book will be required reading in the fields of social theory, political theory and science studies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761954694/?tag=2022091-20
(This book is the first account of the way in which Weber ...)
This book is the first account of the way in which Weber appropriated and modified sources in the legal tradition, in which he was trained, to construct his sociology. It leads directly to a new understanding of Weber's intent and his relations to the tradition of social and political theory. the book takes the reader into the heart of Weber's conceptualizations of action and social science, without ever giving the impression that these are rarefied and marginal issues. This is an important book for understanding the significance of one of the key sociologist's of the twentieth century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415114527/?tag=2022091-20
(First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of...)
First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of sociological explanation.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FGVR1SM/?tag=2022091-20
( The concept of "practices"—whether of representation, o...)
The concept of "practices"—whether of representation, of political or scientific traditions, or of organizational culture—is central to social theory. In this book, Stephen Turner presents the first analysis and critique of the idea of practice as it has developed in the various theoretical traditions of the social sciences and the humanities. Understood broadly as a tacit understanding "shared" by a group, the concept of a practice has a fatal difficulty, Turner argues: there is no plausible mechanism by which a "practice" is transmitted or reproduced. The historical uses of the concept, from Durkheim to Kripke's version of Wittgenstein, provide examples of the contortions that thinkers have been forced into by this problem, and show the ultimate implausibility of the idea. Turner's conclusion sketches a picture of what happens when we do without the notion of a shared practice, and how this bears on social theory and philosophy. It explains why social theory cannot get beyond the stage of constructing fuzzy analogies, and why the standard constructions of the contemporary philosophical problem of relativism depend upon this defective notion. This first book-length critique of practice theory is sure to stir discussion and controversy in a wide range of fields, from philosophy and science studies to sociology, anthropology, literary studies, and political and legal theory.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226817385/?tag=2022091-20
(Tracing the history of American sociology since the Civil...)
Tracing the history of American sociology since the Civil War, the authors of this important volume explain the field's diversity, its lack of unifying paradigms, its broad, eclectic research agenda and its general weakness as an institutional force in either academia or the policy arena. They highlight the equivocal and often contradictory missions that sociologists prescribe for themselves and the variable nature of human, financial and intellectual resources available to the profession.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803938381/?tag=2022091-20
educator philosopher sociologist
Turner, Stephen Park was born on March 1, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Lawrence Lynn and Natalie (Stephens) Turner.
Bachelor of Arts Missouri, Columbia, 1971. Master of Arts in Sociology, University Missouri, Columbia, 1971. Master of Arts in Philosophy, University Missouri, Columbia, 1972.
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, University Missouri, Columbia, 1975.
Assistant professor University South Florida, 1975—1980, associate professor, 1980—1984, professor, department sociology, 1984—1987, graduate research professor, department of sociology, 1987—1989. Visiting professor Boston University, 1987. Graduate research professor department philosophy University South Florida, Tampa, Florida, since 1989.
Director Center Social and Political Thought, since 1994. Simon honorary professor University Manchester, 1996—1997. Visiting professor Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, 1982, University Notre Dame, 1985.
(Tracing the history of American sociology since the Civil...)
(Stephen Turner has explored the ongms of social science i...)
(Aims to relate the categories of Weber's social thinking ...)
(This book is the first account of the way in which Weber ...)
( The concept of "practices"—whether of representation, o...)
('This is a very fine text, a powerful piece of work that ...)
(First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of...)
(First published in 1980, this book examines the nature of...)
('... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read wi...)
Member American Philosophical Association, American Sociological Association, Southern Sociological Society, Society for Social Studies Science, Prairie.
Married Kimberly Anne Wills, April 21, 1990. Children: Evan Wills, Douglas Carrera.