779529
9780226475561
The essays turn about a single theme, the loss of the capacity to deal constructively with ambiguity in the modern era. Levine offers a head-on critique of the modern compulsion to flee ambiguity. He centers his analysis on the question of what responses social scientists should adopt in the face of the inexorably ambiguous character of all natural languages. In the course of his argument, Levine presents a fresh reading of works by the classic figures of modern European and American social theoryDurkheim, Freud, Simmel and Weber, and Park, Parsons, and Merton.Donald N. Levine is the author of 'The Flight from Ambiguity: Essays in Social and Cultural Theory', published 1988 under ISBN 9780226475561 and ISBN 0226475565.
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