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Details
Title
How institutions think / Mary Douglas.
Edition
First edition
ISBN
0815623690 (alkaline paper)
9780815623694 (alkaline paper)
0815602065 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
9780815602064 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
0710211848
9780710211842
0710211783
9780710211781
9780815623694 (alkaline paper)
0815602065 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
9780815602064 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
0710211848
9780710211842
0710211783
9780710211781
Published
New York : Syracuse University Press, ©1986.
Language
English
Description
xi, 146 pages ; 23 cm
Call Number
GN479 .D68 1986
Alternate Call Number
71.39
CC 7700
MS 5650
QP 343
CC 7700
MS 5650
QP 343
Dewey Decimal Classification
306
Summary
"First published in 1986 Mary Douglas' theory of institutions uses the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim and Ludwig Fleck to determine not only how institutions think, but also the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions. Different kinds of institutions allow individuals to think different kinds of thoughts and to respond to different emotions. It is just as difficult to explain how individuals come to share the categories of their thought as to explain how they ever manage to sink their private interests for a common good.
"Douglas forewarns us that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have purposes, nor do they build themselves. As we construct our institutions, we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to prove their legitimacy by sheer numbers. She admonishes us not to take comfort in the thought that primitives may think through institutions, but moderns decide on important issues individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions, and these decisions always involve ethical principles."--Publisher description.
"Douglas forewarns us that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have purposes, nor do they build themselves. As we construct our institutions, we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to prove their legitimacy by sheer numbers. She admonishes us not to take comfort in the thought that primitives may think through institutions, but moderns decide on important issues individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions, and these decisions always involve ethical principles."--Publisher description.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-139) and index.
Series
Frank W. Abrams lectures.
Available in Other Form
How institutions think.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Institutions cannot have minds of their own
Smallness of scale discounted
How latent groups survive
Institutions are founded on analogy
Institutions confer identity
Institutions remember and forget
A case of institutional forgetting
Institutions do the classifying
Institutions make life and death decisions.
Institutions cannot have minds of their own
Smallness of scale discounted
How latent groups survive
Institutions are founded on analogy
Institutions confer identity
Institutions remember and forget
A case of institutional forgetting
Institutions do the classifying
Institutions make life and death decisions.