• 45 Posts
  • 433 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 10th, 2023

help-circle



  • How about starting with a guide, and make notes on primary sources for later?

    Anything you get here will be someone’s take on the path for sociology. Just like the author of a sociology review guide/book.

    Otherwise, sociology concepts tend to be non trivial to navigate, because beginners miss the historical context in which concepts are proposed. And where primary sources are coming from.

    This take “primary sources only” hamper your potential understanding, in my opinion. Building this knowledge individually feels pointless, idealistic, even. Because it lacks dialogue with other people that are living and applying those concepts, and risks giving you just a perspective based only on your own limited experience, instead of an actual grasp on the gradient of sociological ideas. Which is apparently what you are looking for.











  • My read is that:

    • dialectical relates to the tension between opposites. Pick “anything”, there’s something else in conflict with it, causing it to be, or not to be. This contrasts with a frictionless immutable analysis, where there’s no interaction between the “anything” you’re analysing and it’s surrounding context.

    • historical means that this analysis is applied to historical aspects of society.

    • materialism means that any support on the analysis must be originate in material reality, with as much context as possible. In contrast with idealism, which is kind of moral judgement on what things look like, or should be.

    Am I too far off?