Orienting to Chance: Probabilism and the Future of Social Theory

Explores the implications of chance and uncertainty in social theory and offers a new interpretation of the sociological canon. &nbsp; Since the founding of the discipline, sociologists have endeavored to understand the structures of groups, organizations, and societies, and how these entities condition our behavior. While some of the foundational theorists saw these processes as largely deterministic, sociological theory has increasingly insisted on the importance of culture in shaping our position in and responses to social groups. In Orienting to Chance, sociologists Michael Strand and Omar Lizardo aim to show that the social order bears an unmistakable link to chance and urge us to think about how it conditions our actions. Strand and Lizardo provide a sweeping overview of a new social theory framework that they call probabilism. Using examples of probabilism in sociology, particularly in the work of Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Pierre Bourdieu, they describe probabilism's place in multiple fields of science. As the authors argue, their effort at redefinition and recovery helps position sociology as a field of the future, while also keeping it grounded in core issues of action, structure, culture, inequality, and inequity. By sharing these groundbreaking insights and revealing wider theoretical claims about mortality, fate, and technology in the contemporary era, Strand and Lizardo demonstrate how probabilism is an essential intervention for understanding the inevitable role of uncertainty in social life. &nbsp;

Politics & Social Sciences

Lizardo, Omar

Strand, Michael

Sociology

University of Chicago Press

Social Sciences

Measuring Culture

Wherry, Frederick F.

Tavory, Iddo

Lena, Jennifer C.

McDonnell, Terence E.

Mohr, John W.

Bail, Christopher A.

Frye, Margaret

Mische, Ann

Anthropology

Columbia University Press

Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects of measurement--people, objects, and relationships--and then discusses how to pivot effectively between subjects and methods. Measuring Culture takes the reader on a tour of the state of the art in measuring meaning, from discussions of neuroscience to computational social science. It provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.

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Books by Lizardo, Omar